If you thumb through the Encyclopedia of Expected Things, there under Arsenal, you would find an entry “On December 15th 2019, Arsenal were expected to lose to Manchester City. The nature of the defeat will be soulless and dry, like eating at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant or watching the final season of Game of Thrones.” This article sits next to the article in which Arsenal are also expected to appoint Mikel Arteta 18 months after not appointing him in the first place.
You must understand that I’m neither angry nor negative about anything that has happened this week in Arsenal land. Slightly bemused, perhaps, but not even in the slightest angry or negative. There’s nothing to be negative about. Wait, I take that back, there are things to be negative about I’m just not going to explore them. Instead, sticking with the theme for the end of this year I’m just going to point out some positives.
Saka played well. Before the game I was being “counterintuitive Tim” and suggested that Arsenal should stick with Saka as left back. Counterintuitive Tim is often confused with “Tim the Dumbass” because they are nearly the same person. But as was pointed out to me on Twitter, Kolasinac is the better of the two choices because he’s not an inexperienced player in an unfamiliar role. But then Rodri injured Kolasinac, who hadn’t had the best game, and Freddie was forced to sub on Saka. Saka did ok, I mean, they didn’t score when he was on the pitch!
Another big positive was when Freddie introduced Smith-Rowe. He and Martinelli started hunting in packs trying to win the ball back off the City players. That was fun to watch.
Would I like to see the youngsters given a chance? Sure would. I feel like unless the club can either find a way to conjure up the money to buy a world class CB, world class MFer, and find replacements for the ageing Auba, Ozil, and Lacazette, then I think we need to give lots of playing time to the youngsters.
Which we are already doing. Willock and Saka have been given a lot of minutes this season split between the Europa League and the Premier League. Martinelli is such a bright young star, and I love his work rate and effort. And Smith-Rowe is, for me, the one player I think could take over for Ozil. Bellerin, Holding, and Pepe are all only 24 years old. Guendouzi is 20, Torreira is 23, Maitland-Niles is 22, Nelson is 20, Tierney is 22, Martinelli is just 18! There’s a lot of good, young, talent on this team. They are just crying out for a young, energetic, coach to come along and get them to play good football.
Speaking of which, apparently, Arsenal are hiring Arteta. One of my pledges is not to talk about other supporters so I’m not going to say anything about how so many people are already jumping the gun and complaining about Arteta. Did I just mention it? No. I mentioned not mentioning it. Huge moral difference. I AM STILL POSITIVE.
I know all the arguments against Arteta and I get it. However, as a counter point.. uhh.. well we don’t know what he’s going to bring to Arsenal. Maybe one thing he will bring is the Man City “foul-em-to-stop-counters” philosophy? Did you know that City committed 24 fouls against Arsenal yesterday? Yep. I don’t know how they get away with it. I don’t know how they also have a different guy commit the fouls, how do they know how to rotate the fouler? Like how do they get him into the position to commit the foul? It’s got to be its own special skill and they must work on this on the training ground. It seems almost ridiculous to say it, but they must practice fouling.
And hey, if it stops Arsenal being overrun in midfield and picked apart on transitions, I will be all for it. Guendouzi should have fouled the crap out of de Bruyne multiple times yesterday. I don’t know if I’ve set myself up as some kind of moralizer on football (I probably have) but in yesterday’s match I found myself wishing that we would just boot them off the pitch. I know, that’s ugly, and I wouldn’t want to see anyone get hurt, but man just one really juicy tackle. Let Rodri know that he’s not allowed to break ankles. You know what I mean?
On a more serious note, there is a way that Pep sets the team up which allows for their players to close down, pressure, and if needed to foul. If Arteta brings that to this team he could possibly mitigate some of the problems that Arsenal have in midfield – specifically that all of our midfielders are not very athletic. Arteta is such an unknown quantity that I am just going to approach this like a man jumping into the void – screaming WHEEEEEE all the way.
Anyway, we lost to Man City, which was expected, and we look like we are hiring Mikel Arteta. I am going to give Arteta every benefit of every doubt for at least 6 or 7.. hours.
Just kidding! He’s got my support until I decide to go negative again, in January.
JUST KIDDING! February.
I think I’ll be good with ‘most any choice we make, including Arteta. But understand this… if he hits the ground running and effects clear, measurable and visible transformation quickly; brilliant appointment. If he does not, has a duff season and a half and is understood to be a long term investment; brilliant appointment too.
In other words, folks don’t get to lobby for Arteta AND call for his head this time next year if we are still not playing well or getting good results. Gooners will have to be patient. If he kills it soon and quickly, that’d be wonderful. But you’ll have to be patient, Arsenal tribe. And I fear that you/we are not.
Repeat what I said when Emery was sacked. He was a sound and logical appointment at the time, and fact that he turned out to be bad fit for the club does not change that. I see already some of arsenal twitter is saying that this is the way that we should have gone 18 months ago. No. We made a rational pick. And we have to understand (and this crucial), the board isnt going to appoint ANYONE to oversee a long term, loss-leading project. They want results. fast.
But I like Arteta. I liked him as a cerebral player, for us and I liked him as an exemplary skipper of Arsenal. Arsene said that he was the one player unafraid to tell him like it is. He looks like Brylcreem Boy, but he’s no soft touch. He hada tooth knocked out on the field of play for us. He seems like a strong character, and that trait will be needed.
“In other words, folks don’t get to lobby for Arteta AND call for his head this time next year”
Folks get to do whatever they want. People can be positive now and negative in a year, it’s called changing your mind. When I’m presented with new information, I change my mind. The silly thing would be to doggedly stick by a manager who is a bad choice or past his prime. For example, Unai Emery, Arsene Wenger, etc. Those are the very reason we are in this mess.
Emery was not a sound logical choice at the time. He was a manager on his way down. He had been a huge failure in the League at virtually every club he ever coached and is not liked by any fan base he has ever coached for. Please stop pretending Emery was a good coach. The board saw dollar signs when he promised to improve Xhaka, Kolasinac, Ozil, and Mustafi but he failed at literally every objective he set for this club and made the team worse every month he was in charge.
Fair point about having the right to change your mind about Arteta.
About the game (and trying not be comment hog early on)…
KDB said something in his post-game interview that was so utterly clarifying to me, that it was like a religious experience. He said that they noticed in video analysis that our 4 forwards don’t help out the midfield and defence (by compressing space), and it is “really hard on the six other guys” to cope with attacks. He singled out Martinelli as the exception to that. I mean, wow.
We’ve debated a lot here about a lot about the midfield shielding the back 4, but in KDB’s and Pep’s (and hopefully Arteta’s philosophy), the whole team shields the back 4. KDB’s framing was a front 4 and back 6, all working together defensively without the ball. Fernandinho breezed past Pepe without a challenge. Willock let a Brighton player to that (twice) a few matches ago. And as Doc pointed out, Auba and Ozil didnt do much to stop the second attack either. Some will say “Lacazette” in response, but have you watched his recent games? He doesn’t do as much as he used to either. Freddie pointedly did not sub him on.
The result was far from unexpected, to be honest. After their recent results, they were going to absolutely kill their next opponent, which was us. That said, there’s a lot we should have done better. Chambers intercepts an interceptable pass, or tackles Jesus (always weird to type that), and he does not whip in that delicious cross. Yes, GJ’s movement was exceptional, and KDB’s finish was outstanding (most players would have put that in Row M), but still. Chambers on both goals was woeful defending the cross.
Mesut was poor yesterday and I’m puzzled about why he was unhappy at being subbed. I said at halftime that he (or Pepe) should have been yanked at the break. Him, Auba and Pepe were all poor when they needed to be good. The only guys who came out of that game with any credit were Martinelli, Torreira and Saka. It was an education for the young Brazilian, but fortunately, he looks to be made of tough stuff. Is Saka really 18? Wonderful prospect. Slows the game down in his head, which is something that is hard to teach.
i’ve talked about how there seems no direction for the strikers as far as defending goes. i’ve continually talked about how liverpool’s strikers are very involved in the defending for liverpool. what i’ve learned as a coach is that they need defensive duties to develop the situation, not necessarily to win the ball. as long as the strikers do what they’re supposed to do defensively, it’s typically enough to help out the folks behind.
ironically, i thought it was just david luiz but all of the arsenal defenders drop off. the rule is that if there’s no pressure on the ball, you have to drop off; he had no choice. it’s because there’s no strategy on how to defend.
When the pass was played for Jesus to run onto, I thought that it was close enough to Chambers to try for an interception. But perhaps in a split second, he lacked confidence in his speed, and did not want to get roasted by an attacker turning him and having a free run on goal. Even then, he needed to be stronger defensively in showing him the corner, and blocking the cross with purpose, not sticking a weak left leg out. And you know what? He did the same thing again in trying to stop the cross. It’s not fair I know, but a single game can sometimes turn me off a player. I think that yesterday’s game showed me that Chambers does not have what it takes at CB. I actually thought that he had a good run at RB before Hector came back, so Im not writing him off.
(Where was Maitland Niles, btw, on that City counter?)
Goal 2 was really bad. Standing between crosser and scorer were Chambers, Sokratis (not up with play or further back man-marking the central runner) and Kolasinac. What we’ve seen this season is that our CBs ball-watch a lot, and are suckers for blind-side, off the shoulder runs (see Vardy, J). But before you get into a ball-watching situation, you HAVE to stop the cross.
(Where was Maitland-Niles on that City counter?)
Just watched the 2nd goal again. AMN was one of two players (along with Chambers, weakly challenging KDB for the ball). He still managed to square it across the box. So, my bad… the pass took out the ENTIRE Arsenal back 4.
As KDB was advancing, Sokratis, to his credit, pointed Kolasinac to Sterling joining the attack on our left. But Kola still lost him. The ball moved from our box, to Foden, to Rodri, to KDB, to goalscorer Sterling. Four unchallenged passes before the assist (Torreira missed his challenge on KDB), back to front. Brighton did the same. We have not adjusted.
You’re way too hard on Chambers. I don’t think he was at fault for any of the goals. The first if you see the camera angle from behind the net, that pass was not interceptible and even if he did intercept it, what next? So Chambers elected to let the pass run and then try and corral Gabriel. Rather, you can see Martinelli stops following DeBruyne – had he stayed with him there’s no way DeBruyne hits that first time.
The second, Guendouzi – who was absolute crap – gets done by a simple pass out from Rodri. Kolasinac SEES Sterling wide open and not only that, Sokratis had just pointed Sterling out to Kolasinac, but does he take three steps in that direction to cover him? No.
And the third is my buddy Guendouzi does his best impression of a training dummy and lets DeBruyne slide past him. Guendouzi absolutely needed to slide in and block that shot. If he were playing for Simeone no doubt he would have been labelled a traitor in the dressing room. The shot DeBruyne rang off the post minutes later came because Guendouzi just lazily stuck a leg out that Foden laughingly just dribbled around.
Our problems are in DM. I know everyone thinks Torreira did a decent job, but really, he’s only half of a double pivot and he’s and undersized/underpaced half. Xhaka stinks, Guendouzi stinks. I don’t want Luis on the field anymore, so suggestions of him playing DM won’t play with me. I’d take a shot at AMN bringing some athleticism, size and speed to the middle, but it’s been pointed out to me that his passing is sub-par.
A powerful, positional savvy, beast a la Ndidi is where we need to find someone. I think one of those would make the CB’s look way better. Chambers and Holding are fine in my eyes. Add in Saliba, see what Mavraponos can do, but go get a 6’2″, athletic powerful midfielder with an appetite for destruction.
Luiz played DM for Chelsea 5 years ago, he’s a disaster there. He can’t pass and his touch is exposed.
AMN does not bring size to anything except a kiddies party.
Chambers? Well, we disagree. If a CB lacks athleticism, he’s got to make up for it in game reading. See Per Mertesacker. Chambers, who by now is an experienced player, does neither, and isn’t good enough to trouble the England selectors. Arsenal FC need better at the heart of its D. He does bring more defensive resilience at RB than Bellerin, or AMN, though, so is a useful squad option.
For the goals, it’s not just his marshalling, but his shot blocking. Defenders for relegation threatened clubs are better blockers of shots and crosses. Ive said fora long time that we truly suck at that. Chambers got done in identical fashion on goals 1 and 2
i agree with most of what you said bar the david luiz part. i don’t agree with tim that he can’t pass. he’s renown for being a very skillful player, albeit sometimes too skillful for a central defender. he’s at least as good a passer as gilberto was. likewise, he’s an experienced campaigner and the bottom line is he’s a better cdm option than anyone else in the arsenal team. i know the talk was of maitland-niles being a cdm but if he struggles at right back, there’s no way he’s smart enough to be a cdm…and his touch is unquestionably bad.
One positive about hiring Arteta is that he won’t bring a coaching team with him (and sack the ones we have) and may hopefully add one or two young Wenger influenced ex gunners like Lehmann & Pires.
I thought Saka had a pretty good game at left back. He doesn’t know how to defend, but then neither does Kolasinac. The difference is, he might learn.
Nice to see Mesut showing a bit of aggression. It’s just a shame he was walking off the pitch at the time. Does kicking your gloves about appear anywhere in the OPTA stats? Just wondered. Or pissing off our Chinese sector of the market, for that matter. Smith-Rowe looked an improvement when he came on, if nothing else that he “ran around a bit” and seemed to have a forward gear. How refreshing. In terms of wages, we could have 10 Smith-Rowes for one Mesut Ozil, of course. I wonder if Emile’s got any brothers and sisters.
What we’re talking about with Arsenal is a complete rebuild. No point in bringing in a marquee manager looking for trophies, even assuming they wanted to take the job on. Some ambitious bloke who is looking at the long haul. Arteta might be the man, or someone like him.
Agree on Mesut’s performance, but he is absolutely right about China’s oppressions of its Muslims. Yes, do piss them off. As Arsenal and the NBA will find out, appeasing autocrats never work out that well.
I quite agree Claude. A fair point.
All I would say is that Mesut, in almost the same breath, cozies up to Recep Erdogan. He’s a bit selective about which regime to condemn!
Football is a moral minefield. As individuals, players will often highlight how human they are by being contradictory and as – or more, or less – hypocritical than the rest of us (let he who casts the first stone, etc etc….) However, for Arsenal to then throw Özil under the bus just goes to illustrate how Arsenal are now a corporation and not a club. That’s not to say that under the old-school English management it was purer-than-pure, because that would be an incredibly naïve thing to think. However, never was the club’s transformation into a corporation highlighted more clearly than in their response to Özil’s comments. Just goes to show that with corporate money comes the corporate ability to purchase buses under which to throw people under when ‘necessary’.
Football for arts sake. Arsene Wenger
Money for f***s sake. The Arsenal Board
Of course, Arsenal players go out onto the pitch with “Visit Rwanda” on their sleeves. What’s their position on human rights abuse? A lot of double standards all round.
This is the appointment that I wished we made when Wenger left. Now he has even more experience from the greatest manager in the game. Its an exciting choice. It either works out or fails. Am all in. But am sure he will advocate for possession based attacking football.
The bit that’s really annoying, is the fact that the likes of Martinelli, Saka and Smith-Rowe are teenagers! Time and time again they look the best players on the park. If they can put in a decent shift, then how come seasoned internationals can’t? At most clubs it’s the other way round. The old pros guide the kids through the process.
Is it me or does Sokratis remind anyone of Fred Flintstone? I know he plays a bit like him, obviously.
So when David Luis goes for the ball, what call does he give?
Wilma!!
arteta is an unknown quantity, indeed. is he the way forward? i don’t know. if he becomes arsenal manager, i certainly hope so. what’s clear is that arsenal need to do something. arsenal are too big a club to be waddling along in mediocrity, not having a manager. besides, arsenal have some very important players who are up for new contracts that haven’t signed yet…and are unlikely to sign if they don’t even know who the manager is going to be. likewise, arsenal need to do some transfer business in january…it might help if there was a manager in place.
as for the game on yesterday, arsenal were expected to lose and it’s an absolute disgrace that no one gives a club as great as arsenal a chance to win any game. they should be favored against any team in the world at the emirates. one thing that continues to stand out for me is the lack of a cdm. you can’t play young guys there and arsenal played a 23-year old and a 20-year old in a fake double-pivot. meanwhile, there was a healthy david luiz on the bench, smh. how many times did kevin debruyne get the ball and turn behind the arsenal midfield? those kids are trying their best but they’re not experienced enough. in fact, i would argue that the biggest problem man city have this season is they’ve lost their cdm from the past two years. rodri is talented and likely to be a great player but he’s lacks the experience of a fernandinho, who led city to 100 and 98 point seasons consecutively.
second, and i know this will cause debate and i’m not saying this because of the result. aubameyang proved he is not a center forward. his movements are striker movements, not center forward movements. he’s only dangerous for the ball in behind but how many times do you see him showing for a ball to feet? have you seen him post up a central defender? what center forward takes a position on the far side of the pitch for throw-ins? in order to penetrate, he should post up and show for the ball. auba didn’t make a single near-post run. do you realize that arsenal only had one shot all game? did you see aubameyang trouble their defenders at all? we’re talking about the weakness of this current manchester city side. i’m not at all saying that auba should be dropped but he should be deployed as a striker, not a center forward. a positive is that arsenal have lacazette fit. hopefully, they’ll put him in the game as a center forward. he’ll cause trouble for any back line.
This is a MASSIVE, HUGE gamble. No management experience; being parachuted into a clusterf**k; a myriad of overlord managers (how much power will he have?); a p**s-poor recruitment record in recent years; players who need showing the door but who there is no market for. Oh and an unforgiving fanbase. It’s such a big ask but I guess if it doesn’t work he can always say it wasn’t salvageable.
We’re 100% banking that he’s sprinkled in Pep’s magic dust and has all of the personal qualities to cut it at the very top. It’s a far bigger gamble than Emery’s appointment was eighteen months ago. If it happens I wish him well but he’s gonna have to get results this season to demonstrate he can close the gap.
My thoughts too, Matt.
My only concern with a re-vamped Project Youth is, unlike slow old pros, they aren’t experienced enough to roll with (or avoid entirely) the heavy tackles. How many of our bright young things from the first time around wound up with their limbs (and careers) in a broken heap on a farmyard pitch in Stoke? It’s a long, twenty-team season to get through with plenty of ploughmen in the way. As much as I love watching them, and wish the league was full of nothing but, we’re just not going to get through a whole year unscathed with it.
And speaking of which, Arsenal is certainly no stranger to the tough-defending, get-stuck-in sort of player ourselves. Viera? Keown? Adams? All great examples of how to put the fear of G-d in the opposition. That being said, if we ever did go the full-Stoke, I think that would break me. I couldn’t watch that. Not from us. A soupçon of the nitty gritty, sure, just to balance the side, but not the Full Stoke.
Chambers didn’t have the greatest match, but he’s been the most consistent of our defenders lately. I think he’d do OK in the middle with a faster counterpart(i.e a Koscielny to his Mertesacker). But I continue to think his better long-term position is CDM. And I also think we should have tried Luiz there yesterday. I like Torriera, but I’m starting to think he’s not going to cut it in the PL. Same with Pepe…hopefully with those two it’s just a matter of getting better and more consistent coaching.
On the youngsters, I am optimistic about the future. But…by the beginning of January, we really could be bouncing around the relegation zone…do we really want to put that kind of pressure on the kids?
If I look at City – is Chambers WORSE than Otamendi? No f’ing way. Is he WORSE than Lovren? No way.
Chambers and Holding are two perfectly functional CB’s. Their age profiles are perfect. The fact that they are both English and should be able to accurately communicate with each other in real time on the field is huge for me and what a good pairing needs to be able to do.
Our problems are in midfield. We don’t have a Gundogan/Rodri, a committee like Liverpool, an Ndidi, a Kante/Jorginho – we don’t even have an Eric Dier/Harry Winks duo.
agreed, jack. holding was recruited because of his chemistry with chambers as a center back pairing when england won the u20 world cup a few years ago.
likewise, agree with the majority of arsenal’s defensive problems stemming from the lack of direction in concert with the midfielders and strikers ahead of them.
Arsene famously said that he doesn’t look at passports. I agree with him.
Yes, Chambers is worse than Otamendi. If any of Pep’s defenders played like Calum did yesterday, his playing time would dwindle to nothingness. Even with a defender shortage.
I like Holding, but he was run ragged in one of Emery’s last games in charge, and hasn’t been seen since. Could be rustiness.
BTW, Fernandinho, playing OOP, was several levels above any of our CBs yesterday. He wasn’t worked too hard, mind. But he did what he did very well.
Arsene maybe didn’t care about the passports, but if I remember reading, he insisted that all coaching be done in English and that his players have a command of English as a common language.
I think we need to have the discussion about whether or not these players are actually able to talk to each other. Our foreign players of the past spoke excellent English – Vieira, Bergkamp, Henry, Pires, Freddie, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Fabregas, Rosicky, Arteta, even Santi came knowing very little but by the end was conversational… I could go on and on. Now, we have guys in the squad who very very clearly are uncomfortable with English – how are they communicating? How are they talking through issues? How is, for example, a senior Greek CB mentoring a young Uruguyan DM on where he needs help? How is an Ivorian winger talking to an English RB on the field?
I’m not even close to being a WASP, so I’m all for multi-cultural/ethnic teams. But I get a sense that these players are unable to talk to each other.
Well, most every member of our defensive unit speaks excellent English, though I can’t vouch for Kola (or, outside of D, Torreira). It might surprise you to hear Sokratis speak. Luis. Mavro. More comprehensible than some of the English lads, in fact. In any case, isn’t Calum Chambers fairly conversant in English? 😉 But this is the first time I’ve seen it suggested that communication might be a problem. Even the famously not too book bright Alexis Sanchez played sweet symphonies with Ozil.
Some of Arsene’s squads had more of a mix. Far more.
This is not really the case, I remember an interview with Lehman (just googled out one link below) where he was mentioning that during Wenger’s time there has been language-specific groups in training.
http://dailycannon.com/2018/01/german-group-long-day-jens-lehmann-daily-routine/
I’m really excited about this. Glad the club is being decisive. It feels like the right appointment. I was all in on him 18 months ago and I haven’t change my mind.
Chambers was a RB in Southampton academy. and didn’t play CB. We bought him 5 years ago and he has played for 3 different managers since he has been in the senior squad and none of those 3 felt he should be a regular first team player at CB. I suspect Freddie has used him as CB for a couple games because all of his other option has have been terrible. Most telling is last season chambers went to Fulham to supposedly gain experience playing CB but he was not used in that position even though Fulham was arguably one of the worst defensive teams to play in the PL in this decade. None of the teams chambers has played for have had top class CB options playing in front of him blocking his chance to regular minutes. 1 manager might be wrong about a player but it’s not likely that 3 in a row have been wrong. I don’t think we have any evidence to suggest that chambers has a bright future as a CB on a PL team.
I found the game disappointing and annoying.
Disappointing because we were chasing the game from the start and annoying as, although our attack endeavoured to take the game to Man$ity, time and again, with religious regularity, the attacks were brought to an end by deliberate and cynical fouling, some of which was positively dangerous.
I was watching the figures throughout and saw that at one time towards the end of the 1st half the fouls were 10 to 1 and then 12 to 2.
It was reminiscent of the 50th game, when Riley allowed the Manure players to assault ours with gay abandon, and little or no sanction.
Here was the same.
You can be rest assured that had any of our players indulged in the same they would have been booked and then sent off in no time.
A decent ref would have put a stop to it, firstly by booking the first few dangerous tackles and then, if that did not stop it, take their captain aside and warn him that he was going to start sending players off if they did not stop.
I think Ozil was pulled because of his reaction to missing a pass. One could see how frustrated he was at what was happening and how he was being prevented, illegally, from playing. An artist like him needs the ball and he was not getting it.
I was hoping for Arteta 18 months ago and could see from the start that Emery was the wrong man. I am not shy to say that I was saying that from the start.
I commented a few weeks ago that the more I think about it, the more sense Arteta makes. While not known to be disciplinarian, he comes across as someone who doesn’t like anything a hair out of place.
It’s a win- win situation for him. Expectations are so low that even a slight improvement will be seen as successful. If things don’t improve, we can always blame Xhaka and Ozil.
No one reasonable is actually expecting anything from this team for the rest of the season . He just needs to make them look like they are playing football and not a bunch of guys running with the bulls and trying to get out of the way.
If he doesn’t work out, surely that will be the last we see of Sanllehi? That’s another win.
Being honest this performance was the worst even Emery didn’t fail this way. What’s even worse is that City have never been known for defensive prowess therefore how is Arteta going to rectify this. The fans demand a dramatic turnaround but the coaching options are underwhelming. Expect more of the same if Arteta takes over. Hate wasting my words but this board won’t cut it
The other thing the arsenal board and the fans are so quick to write off the season maybe that’s the difference between us and Real Madrid. That’s why they win the champions league in their worst years because they never give up on winning a trophy when there is a possibility to do so
I’m all in on Arteta.
Let’s face it, this is as close as Arsenal can ever come to hiring Pep, so let’s see what Arteta has picked up from the genius himself.
City committing 24 fouls against this Arsenal side is an equivalent of an able body person picking on a handicapped.
I know Guardiola is ruthless but that’s just wrong.
I suspect Chambers has a future as a combo CB/RB combo squad player somewhere. However based on what has happened so far in his career, I think its a real stretch to suggest he has the ability to be a first choice CB on a PL team whose long term goal is to compete with the team at the top of the table.
I agree.
I am not convinced for Arteta, and the main reason for that is what most people consider to be his main plus: that he is “the little Pep”, “Pep’s shadow”. I don’t like it. I don’t want some Lidl-version of Pep, I want a manager that can be better than Pep, that can look at him at the pitch with no sentiments and can BEAT him.
I have a lot of questions for his motivation and ability.
I don’t believe that he is a “true gooner”, he is much more MCFC man now, and I don’t want somebody preaching their “values” in Arsenal.
Lastly, I believe that if he really had so much management potential and desire to lead a team, he should have taken a position already. He even doesn’t need to prove himself with a Championship club first, with all that hype he could have taken over a PL club if he wanted. Whatever the reason is why he prefers to “learn” under Pep’s cosy wing, it doesn’t give me any confidence that Arteta would (want to) be up for the demanding head coach job.
Of course, I would be glad if proven wrong. But in my eyes he would start from a negative position.
Christmas is coming. Arsenal provided the turkey, city provided the stuffing
lol!
it’s one thing being a captain or assistant coach. it’s a much bigger deal being the main man. this is a tough decision for both the club and arteta. he is still soooo young and, as manager, he will see things that he never imagined. he as smart to take his time sitting on the city bench and watching how guardiola manages players and situations.
it’s also a huge credit to mikey that both pep and poch began recruiting him as soon as he announced his retirement from playing. they both had huge respect for his intelligence. i’ve never seen a player dominate a game without even having much of the ball as effectively as mikey did. likewise, i recall santi giving an interview where he expressed admiration of mikey’s ability to command such respect from the players. he was, clearly, a great player and leader as captain. here’s hoping he can have the same success as a manager.
In my opinion.
What’s needed from Arteta first– is restore the club’s health. Take the hatchet from Sanllehi’s hand. Stanch the cultural bleeding. Put the club on a path to recovery.
I have belief in Mikel Arteta’s capacity.
Would much rather he had been on board at the beginning. Arteta following AW may have been the one aspect that might have kept Raul Sanllehi from thinking he could remake the club in his vision. Once Wenger resigned, Gazidis gave in to Sanllehi’s insistence on ‘anyone-but-Arteta’.
Raul realized that Mikel would, by dint of his club DNA, start with more power, more insight– than he thought a Head Coach ought have. All in order to consolidate his personal power as DoF.
I chafe now at any insistence that Unai Emery was a safe or conservative choice. He’s brought the club nearly to its’ knees. Maintaining this idea that Emery was anything but Raul’s method of putting the organization his complete grasp? Well. If you’re not fooling me…
Mikel Arteta. Is perhaps the last opportunity to retain any semblance of what Arsenal FC had been known for since before the turn of this century. Class. Respectability. Fair play. Otherwise AFC will drift without an aim, into the mid-table void. Or worse.
Whatever you may have thought of Arsene Wenger at the end– or even for a few years before? He built and maintained Arsenal’s identity through it all. For the sake of change– it was nearly lost. This is a chance– to reclaim the best of it.
Stated above: “Would much rather he (Arteta) had been on board at the beginning.”
But now? As Raul can’t afford the club to fail? With his job on-the-line too? Arteta will have much more say over the direction of the team’s make-up.
Mikel Arteta will have Raul Sanllehi by the short hairs.
Which pleases me greatly.
jw1