The rewritting history thread, or how Mikel/Arsenal turned it around. Or didn't. What even IS real?

[db10_therza]

As a sidenote I don't see too many similarities between us and City

I did say “bit” - inverted fullbacks and that. But yeah you’re right, even city don’t play like city

 

[Red London]

You can go through my posts, but I claim to have done it. You as a mod can also likely see if I have deleted evidence, which I don't do.

Yeah tbf you stayed strong.

I had a wobble for a few weeks around the time Makingtrax showed that screenshot. That summer transfer window really concerned me but I was proved to be wrong about people like Ramsdale, and TBF to Arteta he brought Saliba back into the fold a year later.

 

[jones]

This is the thing though you are pointing out the weaknesses or mistakes he made, but not looking at the other side of the coin. This was my main point at the time.

Unlike Emery's last few months here, Arteta didn't lose the dressing room at any point. The players were buying into him even despite all of the shortcomings and for me that was enough to give him time. We had seen United constantly change managers every 18 months and constantly buy them new players and try to rebuild the side and we saw how much it held them back. If you keep chopping and changing without direction its going to cause so much damage to the club from top to bottom.

For me this was always a culture thing. I was always told it doesn't exist on here by certain posters like I was speaking some sort of blasphemy. But this is what ended up being the factor in why we are where we are right now. The club had been doing things the same way for 20+ years and after such a long time, there needs to be some sort of change which is an investment of time. Its like we had lost our drive and hunger as a club, lets be honest here.

Difficult decisions had to be made, things that people didnt like to see (like binning Özil, Auba etc) when we weren't even playing well.

The difference IMO were people were looking too much into the now rather than the potential long term gain. You can't change a club's mentality and approach over night and without problems.

We're agreeing regarding the facts just not the weight we're attributing to them. You're raising United, their chopping up of the squad and how much damage it caused to their club when we've finished (again ignoring the first half season) 8th and 5th like those aren't catastrophic results for Arsenal.

 

[SA Gunner]

He’s Pep/elite levels for you. For me I’m not quite there yet. Too many factors I have listed numerous times for me to say that.

Plus it’s always skewed in his favour anyways, Arsenal win the league he will get all the credit.

If Arsenal don’t, well, people were already angling to get at Edu, gave up on the title when Jesus got injured etc. I don’t buy into him to that extent.

He's certainly performing at those levels right now yes. Of course he wont be classed in that bracket until he consistently delivers these types of performances for at least another season. Yes he wont be put there, even if we pass 100 points this season.

Im not so sure he gets the credit as easily. Its certainly easier for him now because he is showing what people behind the scenes gambled on. But dont be surprised if we see #ArtetaOUT trending if we dont win the league this season.

I mean... it was just a few months ago, last season, where many of us wanted to see Arteta qualify for the Champions League first, before getting the contract extension.

 

[Red London]

When my own big wobble came I am sure I was influenced by the sheer amount of hate against him on A-M. And declaring as Arteta out gave positive response from the forum. I think this is just human nature and psychology. It is well known that groups over time tend to take ever more radical positions as the group dynamics favour same speak and being more radical int he groups direction gives one status in that group. Here on A-M it was being Arteta Out.

I see what you mean by this. It gets draining going into drawn out debates with multiple people at one time backing everything the others say like some sort of cult.

 

[Camron]

Nah bro I don't, I just saw a mention of the "rotten" squad like we were a relegation outfit. I actually don't give Arteta stick for siding with Leno over Martinez, I rated the latter higher but at the time there was no knowing what trajectory both would be on.

There were certain players like Özil where it's beyond any doubt they had to be released for their bad influence, Mustafi because he was **** beyond saving etc. I think overall it's a massively overblown factor however, and far from a situation where the firesale that ensued was the only way to make it work.

Again Xhaka is the best example for this , you said he has great mentality which is fair to say now but at one point he gave the Emirates the finger, threw the captain's armband and his team mates under the bus, twerked for Mourinho etc. Arteta ignored all of it and stuck by him and we're reaping the rewards now.

On the other hand a 20 year old Guendouzi is being portrayed as some evil mastermind poisoning everything he touches, Auba was crippling the entire club for coming in late etc. Arteta did his picking and choosing, in few instances it worked in several it didn't. I don't see why it's impossible to rate him and acknowledge that he made these mistakes.

I actually don't think we see things that different here.

Guendouzi and Mikel clashed and it was definitely a problem with Guendouzi (young) attitude clashing with Mikel's new standards. Think Guendouzi might have behaved differently if Mikel wasn't a novice manager. We don't know the full details, but Mikel stated from the start: (I know people hate it) "non-negotiables".

Whatever happened crossed a line that was drawn. How minor it may have been. It was all about settting the standards. If you concede there as a manager, you risk losing the authority in the dressing room. It's just the way things work. If you see people slipping up and getting away with it, what stops you (especially being young and influential) from behaving the same. It creates double standards.

I rate Guendouzi (actually backed his talent when AM was piling on the kid) and I think we lost out on a great potential (at least financially) but it was necessary as things were beyond repair. I am convinced that a guy like Pep (so many examples) or even Klopp would have demanded and acted the same. I don't count that as a mistake, rather as cost of progress. We talk a lot about revisionism here, but most people who claim that were piling on a guy like Guendouzi and are now blaming Mikel for losing him.

Xhaka showed great mentality by staying after the experience he has had. I think I even wrote that I backed him during the armband scenes. I felt it was unfair of the fans to clap and cheer when he came off and I understood his reaction. I might have even mentioned that I wasn't sure if Vieira would have reacted in a different way.

If we talk about mistakes Mikel has made for me:

1. Saliba initial handling (during covid/losing his mother). Poorly handled by Mikel/the club. This could have been a big problem and we are still not sure how things will pan out. His loan at Marseille worked out really well and I think that move was more planned/positive/mutual than most people give it credit for.

2. Making Auba captain. Just wasn't captain material. We all wanted the contract so I'm not gonna complain about that. We needed him to stay.

3. Persisting with Willian, think that definitely was a combo of keeping faith and not losing face.

I'm on the fence regarding Pepe. I backed him as well, however you could see his impact on the game was inconsistent. Don't think he was disruptive in any sense, but Mikel didn't really seem to rate him.


Also people talk about Ten Hag, but are quick to forget that he fought the same battle with Ronaldo at United and won. His leadership is no longer questioned. People referred to Mikel's Auba/Özil handling and it definitely supported his decison.

 

[SA Gunner]

You can go through my posts, but I claim to have done it. You as a mod can also likely see if I have deleted evidence, which I don't do.

Yes you have been resolute, and backed Arteta for a long long time.

Im sure you waivered here and there though, because times got tough. So Ill get back to you on that one

 

[CaseUteinberger]

This is the thing though you are pointing out the weaknesses or mistakes he made, but not looking at the other side of the coin. This was my main point at the time.

Unlike Emery's last few months here, Arteta didn't lose the dressing room at any point. The players were buying into him even despite all of the shortcomings and for me that was enough to give him time. We had seen United constantly change managers every 18 months and constantly buy them new players and try to rebuild the side and we saw how much it held them back. If you keep chopping and changing without direction its going to cause so much damage to the club from top to bottom.

For me this was always a culture thing. I was always told it doesn't exist on here by certain posters like I was speaking some sort of blasphemy. But this is what ended up being the factor in why we are where we are right now. The club had been doing things the same way for 20+ years and after such a long time, there needs to be some sort of change which is an investment of time. Its like we had lost our drive and hunger as a club, lets be honest here.

Difficult decisions had to be made, things that people didnt like to see (like binning Özil, Auba etc) when we weren't even playing well.

The difference IMO were people were looking too much into the now rather than the potential long term gain. You can't change a club's mentality and approach over night and without problems.

Good post! Sport on about culture of the club needing a reset. Under Wenger it had become negative and stale. I think Wenger was just stuck in his was and couldn't or did want to address the issues. Emery didn't have the support or acknowledgement to do it. Arteta came in and in my view has done an absolute amazing job. Just take the way the Emirates is rocking. Yes, some of it is better results, but much is also embracing the younger fans instead of just serving over priced beer and food for middle aged blokes.

PS. @Makingtrax - This is not to **** on Wenger's legacy. He did great overall. Greatest coach this club has ever had!

 

[Riou]

I don't think there was anything wrong with losing a bit of faith in Arteta (a rookie, in his first job) when things were looking bad in 2021 and wanting a more experienced head in charge to try and fix things.

We have been through a lot as a club since we lost the league to Leicester in 2016 to just before this season, if you didn't get a little overly emotional I'm that time then I have no idea how...some of the stuff that happend to us in that time period was absolutely awful

It's been a slow build from 2020 to now and you could see little improvements each full season Mikel was here, but there was also a lot of mistakes made especially early on...that I don't think wanting Arteta sacked at one point v thinking he's doing a great job now, should be something that gets laughed at.

Main thing is we are kicking ass these days!

 

[Red London]

We're agreeing regarding the facts just not the weight we're attributing to them. You're raising United, their chopping up of the squad and how much damage it caused to their club when we've finished (again ignoring the first half season) 8th and 5th like those aren't catastrophic results for Arsenal.

Well a big factor is the time frame- looking at the long term. I was willing to ride out 2 years of 8th and 5th for the potential upside and gain that could come out of it.

The reason for this is, what's to say a new manager comes in but finishes in those places again (or worse) but loses the dressing room anyway? You're back to square one, and at risk of being in a very negative downards spiral as a club. It could have become very messy and we could have had our own version of what happened to United but probably even more damaging just because we aren't their size.

Arteta had good intentions for where he wanted the club to be at, and the standards he wanted to measure the players. So when you pair that with the fact he haden't lost the players (even despite his high standards of them) - it was a very favourable calculated risk to give him time.

 

[boonthegoon]

Being arteta out was completely fair especially if you are just results or nothing guy. But things like calling him dark Aura and hunting anyone whoever wanted to support him was too much and people here are suddenly acting like saints and never did anything like that. Nobody wanted to even know why anyone wanted to support him and instead just got ridiculed. That's the actual rewritten history here.

 

[jones]

Whatever happened crossed a line that was drawn. How minor it may have been. It was all about settting the standards. If you concede there as a manager, you risk losing the authority in the dressing room. It's just the way things work. If you see people slipping up and getting away with it, what stops you (especially being young and influential) from behaving the same. It creates double standards.

Agree with the overall gist of the post but this I don't buy. There's no need for a line to be drawn if you back your authority as a manager. Obviously there's stuff you don't accept and the players are supposed to have the utmost respect but saying you'd lose your authority over a kid like Guendouzi would only be the case if he literally spat in your face which even his biggest haters don't think he's done.

Tuchel who's well known as an authoritarian in Germany said his handling of Auba's tardiness was telling him the meeting would be at 10.45 when it was going to be at 11. Wenger who handled some of the biggest players ever simply reintegrated Vieira when he gave an interview basically calling Wenger a broke b i t c h, we literally won the league undefeated afterwards.

What stops a young impressionable kid from acting out is first and foremost natural charisma which Arteta doesn't even lack from the sounds of it. Something minor should never lead to a reaction like that imo.

 

[Red London]

Nobody, but nobody knew that the turn around would be so rapid or that some of our acquisitions would turn out to be so good. That post of yours perfectly highlights that.

You guys continually patting yourselves on the back is just wasted bandwidth.

As I touched on on a later post, I wasn't just blindly backing everything Arteta did. I disagreed with the way he handled Pepe, Saliba (at the time) and some of his other decisions.

I didnt pretend everything he touched turned to gold, thats why I made that post you highlighted for example. I had almost had enough myself at times.

But I bought into his overall vision at this club, what he was trying to change here. I remember years ago I saw him speaking about the culture needing to change here and thought "thank ****, I'm gonna back this guy because he sees the problem". He bought a lot of time with me not because of his individual decisions (where he made mistakes), but because of where he wanted the club to be at eventually.

Whereas posters like yourself couldn't see this, got way too caught up in judging him from a decision by decision basis (at a time where plenty of tough decisions had to be made for us to change) and didnt zoom out to see the bigger picture. Thats my point, and thats what you are moving the goalposts about.

 

[Camron]

Show me the evidence that the young player route was always the plan from the very start, even though we didn't buy our first young players until the start of last season, before you start talking about people making things up though.

Them not signing exclusively young players straight away does not mean it is not the plan does it?

I said signing (low risk) experience was deemed necessary to steady the ship.

His first actual window:

20/21

Gabriel (22) (26m)
Willian (32) (free experienced)
Partey (27) (50m)
Mari (26) (6m)
Cedric (28) free

Gabriel and Partey have been great business and proven to be a solid foundation to build on.

The others were band-aid's where Willian was defo expected to be a hit.

His second window (after 18 months in job - I don't know how long it takes to scout targets, but I'm guessing they've been monitoring the better part of a year - these things take a lot of planning)

21/22

Ramsdale 23 (28m)
White 23 (58m
Ødegaard 22 (35m)
Tomi 22 (18m)
Sambi 21 (16m)
Nuno 21 (8m)

Great business overall, with Sambi and Nuno still in development.

But according to Trax Arsenal board sat Mikel down in summer 21 and said: Mikel these free 30 year olds ain't doing it. Have you thought about spending a couple 100m to buy some inexperienced kids? Here is a list.

 

[jones]

But according to Trax Arsenal board sat Mikel down in summer 21 and said: Mikel these free 30 year olds ain't doing it. Have you thought about spending a couple 100m to buy some inexperienced kids? Here is a list.

Buying young talented players isn't that much of a strategy though is it? Almost everyone is doing it because no one can afford to buy the best players in their prime off the competition.

Not like the kids have all been successes while all of the older guys have been useless. Our by far most important player and signing of the last years is Partey, when Arteta took over Auba was the club's talisman at first. Bit of a non-discussion in either direction imo.

 

[Camron]

Agree with the overall gist of the post but this I don't buy. There's no need for a line to be drawn if you back your authority as a manager. Obviously there's stuff you don't accept and the players are supposed to have the utmost respect but saying you'd lose your authority over a kid like Guendouzi would only be the case if he literally spat in your face which even his biggest haters don't think he's done.

Tuchel who's well known as an authoritarian in Germany said his handling of Auba's tardiness was telling him the meeting would be at 10.45 when it was going to be at 11. Wenger who handled some of the biggest players ever simply reintegrated Vieira when he gave an interview basically calling Wenger a broke b i t c h, we literally won the league undefeated afterwards.

What stops a young impressionable kid from acting out is first and foremost natural charisma which Arteta doesn't even lack from the sounds of it. Something minor should never lead to a reaction like that imo.

It was not losing authority over Guendouzi. It was the rest of the team. If you set standards, and you allow people to break them. You are undermining your authority and that will have a detrimental effect on people watching.

It's possible it might have been handled differently by Mikel or another manager, but as I said, I honestly can't image this scenario unfolding under a well known experienced manager. By the way lool up how Ten Hag handled two players at Ajax Youness and Noa Lang. They undermined his regime once and he did not let that pass. He got a lot of flack for the way he handled that. But he set the standards. Now he is rightly praised.

 

[Trilly]

Spent countless times debating with the likes of you and other Trusted members on topics like Özil, Auba and Arteta which I was correct on all of them about lol.

Well done

 

[Trilly]

“The thread where people pretend they didn’t get Arteta completely wrong”

Well done

 

[Makingtrax]

As I touched on on a later post, I wasn't just blindly backing everything Arteta did. I disagreed with the way he handled Pepe, Saliba (at the time) and some of his other decisions.

I didnt pretend everything he touched turned to gold, thats why I made that post you highlighted for example. I had almost had enough myself at times.

But I bought into his overall vision though at this club, what he was trying to change here. I remember years ago I saw him speaking about the culture needing to change here and thought "thank ****, I'm gonna back this guy because he sees the problem". He bought a lot of time with me not because of his individual decisions (where he made mistakes), but because of where he wanted the club to be at eventually.

Whereas posters like yourself couldn't see this, got way too caught up in judging him from a decision by decision basis (at a time where plenty of tough decisions had to be made for us to change) and didnt zoom out to see the bigger picture. Thats my point, and thats what you are moving the goalposts about.

I'm not moving any goal posts bro, I've left that to you. I'm firmly sticking by my posting philosophy since I first joined this forum, namely, spend is the most important aspect of football, secondly that if you out perform your spend on players then you're doing very well and thirdly you need the fans on side to perform well.

Arsène always out performed his spend on players until the fans ****ed him over. Arteta has had more backing than Arsène, but this season he is actually out performing that spend and that's why he now has my full support.

Those people boasting about knowing this would happen during his mid table years, I've got no time for.

 

[Camron]

Buying young talented players isn't that much of a strategy though is it? Almost everyone is doing it because no one can afford to buy the best players in their prime off the competition.

Not like the kids have all been successes while all of the older guys have been useless. Our by far most important player and signing of the last years is Partey, when Arteta took over Auba was the club's talisman at first. Bit of a non-discussion in either direction imo.

Agree. Never said it was a special thing. Any rebuild focuses on a certain age group to mold something for the future.

I was simply replying to Trax claiming that Mikel did not sign the likes of Mari/Cedric/Willian as cheap experienced stop-gap solutions, but rather as the strategy going forward and only after things turned sour switched to a rebuild with young talent.