Mikel Arteta: Taking The Mik

But we didn't. We finished 5th after Wenger with Emery. Wenger finished 6th. We are now finishing after Emery.

 

We finished 6th in Wenger’s last season.

 

...lets give him some time.

With Emery (last season) we were winning, but playing quite poorly.

Now with Arteta we are playing quite well (all things considered), but not winning.

It's better for the future that we are doing it the second way for now, have to start winning soon obviously!

Long term, this will benefit us.

 

I have confidence in somebody who came through Barca, Wenger and Pep.

This is not his team. If he took over City he would be winning more. If he took over Norwich he would be losing more. His hands are pretty much tied at the moment and unfortunately the new attacking signings (Pep / Ceballos) are not firing and neither is last years POTY (Laca).

I just hope that his cheapy January acquisitions are a sign that they are holding onto cash for the summer and not that he is going to be hamstrung in the Arsène bargain basement.

 

Get ESR back or play Ceballos for a change and see if we can create more chances, because we're truly terrible in that department right now.

 

Under Wenger creating chances was like turning a tap for water ffs. Even in his worst season ever we were scoring 3/4/5’s at the Emirates.

I’m sure Arteta will sort it out once he can adjust the squad to what he wants.

 

Big fear for Arteta is that all our rivals seem to be ready to splash massively into the transfer window this summer.

We might not even make EL, wonder what Arteta will get to spend. I guess 50-70M, and then sales.

 

You know what I mean. Once the lingering influence of Wenger is gone we’ll be 6-8 like now. Finished 5th last year but that was a lot to do with Wenger players like Ramsey driving the team.

Finished 6th with Wenger but that was freak season in 25 ffs.

 

That's actually a concern since we started to fall down the pecking order more and more over the last 3 seasons and obviously money has become a bit tighter.
To make it worse, we need some serious reinforcements in the middle of the park that aren't going to come in cheap.

 

Exactly this for me. For the first 3/4 of last season Emerys results were pretty decent but there was no sign of an identity or style of play. With Mikel we aren't picking up the results but you can see glimpses of what he wants to do.

Personally for the time being results come a distant second as long as it's clear to see we are working towards a 'vision'. It felt like Emery could have been here 50 years and still not known what system and how he wanted to play!

 

I’m the opposite, think we need results and get back into top 4 quickly.

Our financial model means our spending power decreases every year we miss CL football. It’s not like the NBA where you can tank and get rewarded with a high draft pick.

The worse you do in the PL the harder it gets year on year. The squad is filled with holes and ageing players who we need to replace with limited funds.

CL football is massive for us, it’ll be four seasons without it if we don’t get in this year, with Sp**s and others moving ahead of us irs looking troubling. It’s not fair but Arteta needs to find a way to win quickly.

 

Arteta started half way through a season, way behind the top 6, never mind the top 4 and there is a minimum of 4 better squads than ours this season...it's just where we are now, have to keep going until we get better, however long that takes.

I agree we need Champions League too, but you can only use to cards your dealt, there is a reason we have missed the Champions League the last few years and it's we just aren't good enough anymore...this is where we are with our ****ty, ****ty owner, at least Mikel is looking like a good long term manager.

He could still qualify for it tbf, through the league or Europa.

 

I saw somewhere that said he'd have a 60M budget but I'm not sure what their source was.

 

Don’t agree that there are four better squads than ours, at the end of last year we were pretty much level pegging with Chelsea and Sp**s. Really we should’ve strolled into the CL places this year.

Since then they’ve both regressed in terms of squad quality as have Utd. Leicester have done well but in terms of both depth and starting XI they shouldn’t really be better than us.

The fact we‘re tied for wins with a team in the bottom three in February is beyond pathetic.

Lot of blame lies with the board and Emery but at the end of the day, Arteta was given a job to presumably get us back to the top table so by seasons end there needs to be some sort of upswing in results for me.

 

I agree we have to give him time to check what's working and what needs changing but how much time to see that Laca & Özil need benching? I would say we need to see changes next game vs Newcastle. I would like to see a front 3 of Martinelli Auba Pepe, and Ceballos or even Willock in place of Özil.

 

Arteta was thrown into this during the busiest time of the year with no time to work with the team, no preseason, and with a team that was a complete mess, yet you all expect him to turn the team around in a month. You're all pathetic. No wonder the mood in this forum so negative - you guys have unrealistic expectations.

 

People gonna blame Arteta for us not getting in top4 this season. Jesus!

 

This is a valid point tbf...Arteta has been atm, disappointingly stubborn with the 4-2-3-1 formation, thought he would go more 4-3-3...still time for him to fix it though...

Lucas
Willock-Xhaka
Pepe-Auba-Gabby
​

...would like to see this against Newcastle...maybe Ceballos for Xhaka, but with Dani not being here next year I don't blame Mikel for not playing him, as the rest of this year is about preparing for next year really.

 

I'd be happy with that, I really like Willock and I get your point about Ceballos not being here next season. Having Torreira behind would also help the defence. The reason I feel we should stick with that front 3 is because they all have pace and have the potential to be a very dynamic attack with them all scoring.