Mikel Starteta Wars - Phase V: The Empire's Firing Blanks

[Trilly]

I don’t get how you can doubt him anymore, objectively one of the best managers in the world.

The haters want us to go on that manager merry go round and bring in idiots like Amorim and Maresca. We already have a manager clear of all of them.

He just needs to be saved from himself re: transfers and we’ll be cooking.

Needs to do it quickly though before he and/or the squad get burnt out. We’ve seen it with Klopp and we’re seeing it with Pep.

I can’t explain the cup performances though, you just hope having a better squad will fix it but most of our cup exits have been to sides we should have beat easily.

 

[blrgooner]

Not sure what Timber and Raya have to do with this? Raya was always a top signing, I said from day dot he’d prove to be a massive upgrade. Plus Ramsdales fee from Southampton covers that. Same for Timber, excellent player, we’d be ****ed without him just now with Whites injury.
The problem is Calafiori was signed when we already had MLS, Kiwior, Zinchenko and Tiereny here. Merino was £30m+ on a guy who’s not even a starter when we were already light on attacking options.
Calafiori and Merino sitting on the bench when we could have had £70-80m worth of attacking talent starting for us.

Don`t really get the Merino signing hate BTW. You can question the quality of the signing but the fact that the signing was required was beyond doubt IMO. If we had gone into this season hoping that Partey would be fit for most of the season, it would have just been silly. Almost everyone here agreed on that during the summer. Just because this season turned out the way it did with Partey staying fit, people are now saying we didn`t need to sign Merino.
In attack at least we had 5 options(excluding Sterling) for 3 places going into the season and 4 out of the 5 were players who didn`t get injured much. In the midfield, we had 3 options( including Jorginho) for 2 places in which 2 players were over 30 and one of them was very injury prone.

 

[blrgooner]

Don`t really get the Merino signing hate BTW. You can question the quality of the signing but the fact that the signing was required was beyond doubt IMO. If we had gone into this season hoping that Partey would be fit for most of the season, it would have just been silly. Almost everyone here agreed on that during the summer. Just because this season turned out the way it did with Partey staying fit, people are now saying we didn`t need to sign Merino.
In attack at least we had 5 options(excluding Sterling) for 3 places going into the season and 4 out of the 5 were players who didn`t get injured much. In the midfield, we had 3 options( including Jorginho) for 2 places in which 2 players were over 30 and one of them was very injury prone.

I am not justifying lack of signings up front and going into the season short on attack BTW. Just saying that we needed a midfield signing as well.

 

[Kuroske]

Not sure what Timber and Raya have to do with this? Raya was always a top signing, I said from day dot he’d prove to be a massive upgrade. Plus Ramsdales fee from Southampton covers that. Same for Timber, excellent player, we’d be ****ed without him just now with Whites injury.
The problem is Calafiori was signed when we already had MLS, Kiwior, Zinchenko and Tiereny here. Merino was £30m+ on a guy who’s not even a starter when we were already light on attacking options.
Calafiori and Merino sitting on the bench when we could have had £70-80m worth of attacking talent starting for us.

It is always easy to state that in hindsight. Nobody knew MLS would be that good. Kiwior, zinchenko and tierney are not good enough. Calafiori was the EC standout. Every club was fighting for his signature. And we knew we needed an extra body at midfield. I can understand if you have martinelli, trossard, saka and havertz, you will prioritize another area in the team.

 

[db10_therza]

Calafiori and Merino sitting on the bench when we could have had £70-80m worth of attacking talent starting for us.

Honestly I think it’s a joke that you guys still think it was an either / or between those guys and an attacker even after what went down this January.

It was a silly suggestion then and downright dumb now

 

[gasperini]

Arsenal problem is mikel arteta ego.



His ego doesn't allow him to accept wrong decisions. Sterling and neto wer a bad loan, instead of ending their loans this January and sign players like rashford muani who were available on loans he didn't want because this would mean he made a mistake signing Sterling and neto. It is the same with havertz signing

 

[Dennis_Bergkamp_10]

Arsenal problem is mikel arteta ego.



His ego doesn't allow him to accept wrong decisions. Sterling and neto wer a bad loan, instead of ending their loans this January and sign players like rashford muani who were available on loans he didn't want because this would mean he made a mistake signing Sterling and neto. It is the same with havertz signing

Who the **** cares about Neto, he's a reserve GK. Raya is fine in goal every game. Nobody wanted Rashford, he's as washed as Sterling and maybe on even higher wages.

 

[gasperini]

Who the **** cares about Neto, he's a reserve GK. Raya is fine in goal every game. Nobody wanted Rashford, he's as washed as Sterling and maybe on even higher wages.

Who the **** cares about Neto, he's a reserve GK. Raya is fine in goal every game. Nobody wanted Rashford, he's as washed as Sterling and maybe on even higher wages.

He is occupying loan slots

 

[Dennis_Bergkamp_10]

He is occupying loan slots

We still could've loaned outside of the PL.

Imagine if he'd cancelled Neto's loan. We then would've had to buy a reserve GK or promote a youth player like Setford, Nygaard or Porter who have absolutely no business doing a job if something happened to Raya. Whereas Neto at least has PL experience. Would love to see people's reaction of such a move

 

[Gooner Zig]

Not sure what Timber and Raya have to do with this? Raya was always a top signing, I said from day dot he’d prove to be a massive upgrade. Plus Ramsdales fee from Southampton covers that. Same for Timber, excellent player, we’d be ****ed without him just now with Whites injury.
The problem is Calafiori was signed when we already had MLS, Kiwior, Zinchenko and Tiereny here. Merino was £30m+ on a guy who’s not even a starter when we were already light on attacking options.
Calafiori and Merino sitting on the bench when we could have had £70-80m worth of attacking talent starting for us.

MLS lol

No one thought he was a LB option this summer.

 

[Malky]

MLS lol

No one thought he was a LB option this summer.

Yeah no one, expect probably Arteta and the coaching staff who watch him daily and thought he had the attributes to excel there for us? Hence why he was fast tracked into the first team like Nwaneri instead of loaned out like Saliba was at a young age.

 

[db10_therza]

Yeah no one, expect probably Arteta and the coaching staff who watch him daily and thought he had the attributes to excel there for us? Hence why he was fast tracked into the first team like Nwaneri instead of loaned out like Saliba was at a young age.

He was thought of as a midfield option, he was chucked in at lb because of injuries. It definitely wasn’t part of “the plan”.

 

[Let's play Aubamawang]

Glad that we got the 3 points but I worry the attack will catch up with us.

In fact I’m pretty sure it will. It was only Leicester.

Don't worry, the attack might catch up with us, but Sterling won't. Even with a couple of yards head start.

 

[boonthegoon]

Think this season particularly proves even more why Mikel’s the right man and is going to eventually deliver us trophies.

Yep we are never gonna spend like Chelsea or city. So we need a manager who can work on limited funds (compared to big 6 and 2025 prices - haters don't start with "he spent 700m") like klopp did and extract as much as possible from the players and he seems the perfect choice to do that for now.

 

[Batman]

Arsenal problem is mikel arteta ego.



His ego doesn't allow him to accept wrong decisions. Sterling and neto wer a bad loan, instead of ending their loans this January and sign players like rashford muani who were available on loans he didn't want because this would mean he made a mistake signing Sterling and neto. It is the same with havertz signing

It's been reported that both of those signings were made by Edu and were not what Arteta wanted so where does that leave this silly statement of yours?

 

[HagnSprayGooners]

It's been reported that both of those signings were made by Edu and were not what Arteta wanted so where does that leave this silly statement of yours?

He also clearly doesn't know the rules because we were able to make a foreign loan regardless of Neto and Sterling.

 

[Dennis_Bergkamp_10]

But when Arteta said this people went mad. He's overplaying everyone!

 

[Goonger]

He was thought of as a midfield option, he was chucked in at lb because of injuries. It definitely wasn’t part of “the plan”.

MLS has been playing LB whenever he's been involved with the first team, through friendly games and at pre season, as @MutableEarth will testify as it's slightly irked him never having a try out at centre midfield.

 

[Let's play Aubamawang]

But when Arteta said this people went mad. He's overplaying everyone!

Saka'a injury was blatantly down to never getting any rest despite repeated hamstring strains serving as a warning.

Hopefully Arteta adds some quality depth in the summer so he can actually give players a rest. It only takes 2-3 injuries in attack or defence before we struggle.

 

[Dennis_Bergkamp_10]

Saka'a injury was blatantly down to never getting any rest despite repeated hamstring strains serving as a warning.

Hopefully Arteta adds some quality depth in the summer so he can actually give players a rest. It only takes 2-3 injuries in attack or defence before we struggle.

Oh sure. Salah had a hamstring injury in January '24 where he missed 8 games in total for both Egypt and Liverpool and another muscular injury in March because they brought him back too soon from that hamstring injury. He missed another 4 games.

He returned as a substitute vs. Man City on the 10th of March playing 29 minutes, and after that there were 10 league matches left where he played 717 minutes. Every single game he was played again. He also featured in the FA Cup QF (77 minutes). This year, he's started in 25 games, they've played 25. If you include EFL Cup and C he's played 3.040 minutes so far.

Why does this narrative of overplaying players only count for Arteta?