Arsenal have reportedly agreed terms with Mikel Arteta to become the new head coach of Arsenal. The only sticking point remaining is to negotiate with Man City to get him out of his contract. Man City are reportedly angry about the way that Arsenal have gone about this “transfer” and that has to be one of the funnier things I’ve read on the internet today.
We don’t really know what Mikel Arteta’s coaching philosophy is going to be. There are some quotes doing the rounds this morning from 2014 in which he describes himself wanting his players to give 120% “if not, you don’t play for me.” Hey, if he wants to cut any player who isn’t giving his all to the team and the club, I stand with him.
He also said he wants his football to be expressive and take the initiative.
“Then I want the football to be expressive, entertaining. I cannot have a concept of football where everything is based on the opposition. We have to dictate the game, we have to be the ones taking the initiative, and we have to entertain the people coming to watch us. I’m 100 per cent convinced of those things, and I think I could do it.”
But then the smartest thing he said was this:
“I think you need to adapt. You can have an idea of a system, but you need to be able to transform it depending on the players you have – how much pace you have up front, how technical your team is, what types of risk you can take and whether your players are ready to take those risks.
It’s important to analyse your players because you can’t always play the same way. There have to be different details and changes in how you approach things, and you have to look at how you can hurt whoever you are playing against. Is there something they don’t like to do? If so, we’re going to make them do plenty of it.
Then the most important thing for the manager is that, the Friday before the game, you imagine what’s going to happen on the Saturday. And if what happens on Saturday is not what I had planned, then it’s not been good enough from me.”
How will he adapt to the players that Arsenal have? Mainly slow, weak, players who don’t really want to play defense? We don’t know! What we do know is that this current Arsenal side is a real mess. Too many cooks have ruined to soup.
The situation at Arsenal is reminiscent of when Klopp took over at Liverpool. There were a lot of misfit players who needed to be cleared out, and new players needed to be brought in which fit the style of football that Klopp wanted to play.
When Klopp took over Liverpool in the 2015/16 season they finished 8th, below West Ham. The defense was a disaster, conceding 50 goals that season. And even after Klopp had been there a few months, they still leaked goals, conceding 28 goals from January to May, 1.47 goals conceded per game.
The attack was also ok, but remember that this was the team that had Benteke and Sturridge as the forwards. And it was new guy, Firmino who lead the team in scoring with.. 10 goals.
They also had a goalkeeper who was not great, Mignolet, and a center back pairing that was truly awful: Sakho and Squirtle. Their fullbacks were Nathaniel Clyne and Alberto Moreno. And they had problems in midfield as well, Emre Can, Lucas Leiva, Millner, and others were just not a great fit.
So, they started rebuilding, buying players that fit in with Klopp’s playing style. In came Joel Matip in defense, Wijnaldum in CM, and Sadio Mane up top. Moreno was dropped and Klopp chose to play Millner and Clyne in various fullback configurations.
Liverpool still had problems. There were still a number of players they needed to shave off, he needed new guys in the fullback positions, and let’s be honest here, Coutinho was not a good fit. And yet, they finished 4th that season. They took 4th place away from Arsenal. Goals scored were up to 78 (2.05 per game) and goals conceded were down quite a bit to 42, 1.1 per game. By the way, they just took fourth place from Arsenal by 1 point. If Arsenal could have converted just one loss into a draw, Wenger would probably still be coach. I choose the 3-0 loss to Crystal Palace as the one I would have rather been a draw.
It wasn’t just a matter of plugging in new guys. Klopp has breathed new life into dead weight like Jordan Henderson. Henderson’s not a great midfielder, but Klopp adjusted his tactics and get him to work in a two-man pairing with Wijnaldum. Hard work and good coaching can also pay off.
And after winning 4th place, flush with the promise of Champions League money, Liverpool spent big on attackers. Mo Salah and oddly, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. And now Liverpool are a solid top four team. 84 goals scored, golden boot winner in Salah, and 38 goals conceded. But the best piece of transfer work that they have done as a football club was selling Coutinho for 145m Euros and using that money to buy Virgil van Dijk. Van Dijk signs on January 1 and from January 1 to the end of the season, Liverpool only concede 14 goals in 17 games.
They still only finish 4th that season, but what you see is a clear separation between them in the top four and other clubs below. They only lose 5 games that season.
The next season they would lose just one game, concede just 22 goals, score 89 goals, and if I’m honest it’s unfair that they didn’t win the League that year. Only the doped up Man City, with their tactical fouling masterclass, can stop Liverpool winning the League. But they can’t stop them from winning the Champions League.
It’s not like this was a miracle or anything. They spent £450m on new players since Klopp arrived (that includes Keita, Fabinho, Allison all purchased this year) and yet there was no financial doping. Net spend by Klopp is around £75m – Arsenal in the last two seasons, £175m. No billionaire injected £400m into Liverpool. This is just good planning, good purchasing, some patience, selling players at the top of their value, and a huge pinch of great coaching. And I think there’s a lesson here for Arsenal.
The first step is to hire a coach who has a clear vision of how he wants to play football. Klopp was no dummy. When he left BvB there was a specific way to play against him and his teams: let them have the ball. So, when he came to England he knew that he had to evolve into a team that could do both – his heavy metal pressing when needed and also maintain possession and create spaces against teams that let them have the ball.
He needed players like Salah, Mane, and Firmino to open up teams in tight spaces. He couldn’t just have a countering/pressing side. Not in England. So, he evolved his playing style a little. But it was still a clear way that he wanted to play football.
In order to achieve that, Klopp needed to buy players that better fit his system. That’s the second key. That also required Liverpool to sell on players who weren’t working out. Which they did. They weren’t perfect in terms of buying/selling but they made some key swaps. Benteke for Mane and Coutinho for van Dijk are two massive examples but they also traded Ibe and Allen for Wijnaldum and Sakho largely funded Salah’s purchase. How did they get Crystal Palace to buy Benteke and Sakho?
And once they got into 4th place, solidly settled in 4th place, they straight up spent £150m on new guys. They have recouped about a third of that this season and last in sales but the fact remains that they re-invested their top four, champions league money back into the squad to strengthen it. That’s the third key thing, re-invest, reiterate.
So, the Liverpool miracle isn’t really a miracle. At best you could say that they have had a little luck, but is it lucky when you can consistently sell your overrated players to other clubs for huge sums and then use that money to buy underrated talent that fits your playing style? If it’s lucky, then I guess Wenger was just lucky for most of his coaching career.
Don’t forget too that they made about 150M from making the two CL finals. The investments have paid off, Liverpool I thought recorded a record profit last year.
On Henderson – a lot of credit has to go to the player. He went to Klopp and argued that he should be give a chance to play the right side of a midfield three. Klopp was skeptical, Henderson up until then had been thought of as a poor man’s pivot, but said sure, show me. And Henderson did. That takes mental strength and leadership.
I find Liverpool fans highly obnoxious. But I have a lot of admiration for the club itself because they’ve gotten to where they are without sheiks or Russian oligarchs juicing the roster. We should be so lucky to be run as well. And it’s 99% down to Klopp – the backroom executive staff are largely the same that were there with Rodgers, the guy who bought Balotelli and Benteke.
Sometime (years) ago on 7amkickoff near the end of Arsene’s tenure, the discussion turned several times to faith-based expectations. Arteta’s hire would be faith-based, because there’s nothing in his resume so far to tell us that he would be a successful head coach of a once-great but fallen football club.
That’s not to denigrate the man. That’s just a fact. But the thing is, the people whose judgement matters and who have seen him as a professional close up, seem in no doubt that he his headed for the top. Pep seemingly couldn’t wait to snap him up. And that’s important, because on paper, it looks a risky and faith-based appointment.
Bai Balgoi on the last thread something that is true. If he is that good, why didnt he take on a job like Newcastle, Southampton or Wolves? Or Everton before the last manager? I paraphrase, but I believe that that is the gist of it. The Arsenal appointment has a bit of a “chosen one” vibe to it. But based on what (besides the assessment of the people who matter)?
To repeat… 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. Many of us (including me, notwithstanding) want this. Someone with Arsenal DNA. The next big thing, a future great we hope and expect, to grow with us.
We will see. Speaking only for myself, I will try my best to be patient if he is slow in turning things around.
While it’s obviously true that Arteta has no head coaching / management record for us to assess, I don’t think it’s fair to say that is a wholly-faith based appointment either. He’s been praised for his tactical understanding and meticulous preparation throughout his playing career, and has been schooled under Guardiola in the kind of progressive football that I suspect most of the commenters here would like to see. It’s certainly not the same as Newcastle appointing Alan-barely-literate-Shearer and expecting miracles to occur.
Of course, he might fail to command a dressing room, recommend poor players be signed and generally stink up the joint. I would still argue that Emery represented a *bigger* leap of faith at his appointment, though. His track record was one of league mediocrity allied to a flukeish record in a knockout competition for most of his carreer, coupled with a fairly catastrophic failure at the most financially doped club around as the cherry on top. Looking around the league tables, its remarkable how many poor managers get rehired ad nauseam based on having ‘experience’, despite that experience showing them to be not very good at management.
I’m personally very happy that they’re rolling the dice with Arteta looking for sixes, rather than settling for a known 1-and-3 Emeryalike.
Faith based, but I never said it was “wholly” so.
I wrote this 👇🏽
“But the thing is, the people whose judgement matters and who have seen him as a professional close up, seem in no doubt that he his headed for the top. Pep seemingly couldn’t wait to snap him up. And that’s important, because on paper, it looks a risky and faith-based appointment”.
Nuance, my bro.
My bad. I should read properly in future.
I like the Liverpool story and it is no doubt the model to follow. If you rewind a little further they got very close to winning with Rodgers when Suarez and Sturridge were the season’s top performers.
The challenge with imitating their approach is you need the combination of owners who are ‘in it to win it’ plus a world class manager. They’ve backed Klopp all the way and rightly so as he was a proven winning elite manager.
If we were Liverpool I don’t think we would have been appointing a former player with zero management experience to replace Rodgers. Forgive my cynicism but appointing Arteta feels like a fan appeasement strategy (like buying Pepe, like recruiting Edu, like asking Freddie to care-take). And if when he’s announced Josh et al mention Arsenal values and DNA you know they’re playing us all for fools.
They got everything right, didn’t they, Liverpool?
Sell high, buy smart, hire one of the best, most charismatic coaches in football. Pretty astute management.
Who’ d you say is a Galactico-level player there, besides VVD, the best defender in the sport? Salah? Alisson? They are supremely well coached, with — as you say — a pretty clear philosophy.
Steve McLaren wasn’t the greatest of managers, but this analysis of what the next Arsenal head coach needs to do is so good.
https://twitter.com/AFCPW/status/1206888303884197888
He’s dead on. Start your line-up card with the guys in the roster who work hard defensively and sprint and press; Martinelli, ESR, Torreira (for all his flaws), Saka, Willock, Pepe. Then fill in around. Kola, Xhaka, Laca (who walks around up top a lot), Ozil – have a seat.
I feel like in the instant we lose the ball we start grieving and feeling sorry for ourselves instead of instantaneously switching to high pressure mode. I’m pretty sure some of this mentality has filtered down from Ozil who seems really put out when we lose the ball.
In keeping with the Liverpool praise, Klopp has said that the moment the other team wins the ball there are split seconds that need to be taken advantage of; the opponent has just spent energy winning the ball and he and his teammates haven’t oriented themselves yet… you have to pounce immediately.
I think McLaren is spot on – just get the team to buy into a paradigm shift, a feeling of joy, that “yes, I get to chase the ball now!” mentality flip rather than “oh, we’ve lost it again…” and I think we’ll instantly become better defensively and more courageous offensively.
Well said.
(You and McLaren)
It’s worth remembering it took the owners several iterations before they got it right. There were many bumps in the road but when they faced setbacks they acted quickly to address them such as replacing Rodgers with Klopp. Aside from coaching we desperately need to improve our recruitment. It will be interesting to see if Arteta can positively influence this area.
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 organizations makeup in his complete grasp? Is a cop out. He was exactly the wrong manager for Arsenal– at a most critical moment– for the wrong reasons.
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
*club = team 😏
Before the final paragraph I was going to say “but Klopp isn’t actually the benchmark, Arsene Wenger’s first decade is the benchmark”.
In order to follow that blueprint, Arteta will need total and full support from above. This is where we hold our breath.
it’s unfair to compare what wenger/klopp did at the start of their bpl careers to what arteta has to face. both wenger and klopp are hugely experienced with both already managing before arteta had even begun his professional playing career. likewise, they have experienced relegation. it’s nice to point out the logistical moves that klopp made but there’s a huge element of luck that goes with that. with that, you have to start somewhere.
the biggest thing the club needs is direction…with that, i mean a sound strategy that everyone knows, not trying to out-think every opponent. players should be comfortable with what they’re doing.
second, i’m interested to see what arteta does about arsenal’s cdm situation. xhaka is there and was bought to replace arteta but is nowhere near the tactical level of the spaniard. in fact, xhaka was so bad, wenger preferred to play santi cazorla, a tiny attacking midfielder, at cdm ahead of xhaka. newsflash, xhaka is still pretty bad. can arteta improve xhaka? personally, i think xhaka lacks the humility to improve. david luiz may not be ideal but i believe he’s the best option arsenal currently have. we’ll see what mikey does.
Watching Liverpool field a domestic side with linebacker jersey numbers because they are forced to play in something called a world club cup club of the world club cup against a Mexican club in Qatar.
Whoever comes in, Arteta or the someone else it all has to start with fixing our D.
There was a huge gulf in class on display in the Man City match which would have been less glaring at least on the eye if our defending was not so comical.
Given the right age and stage physical shape I honestly believe that any commentor on here could defend better then these multi million pound players. It’s a joke – comical defending but not funny and not fun. Let’s get that right first.
Appointing Arteta is a good move. An elder statesman like Ancelotti might have been the safe option, but in a season where “safe” probably means something as inane to our imagination as “avoiding relegation,” what’s the point? This season is a write-off. We’re finishing 8th-10th, no matter who’s in charge, even Arteta. The point is that Arteta represents hope and possibility, as well as the Arsenal background (I won’t say DNA!) that will raise the threshold of patience required for a project to take hold. Because we need a project, a sense of moving in a clear direction and style of play that excites the fans, even if results trickle in at the start.
I like the Liverpool comparison, because our current dysfunction is similar to or worse than what Liverpool were experiencing when Klopp took over. The big caveat, of course, is that Klopp was a reasonably established elite coach at the time, but Arteta isn’t bringing nothing to the table. Many others have brought up his mentors along the way, and the way he is regarded at City. Blagoi via Claude raises the fair question about why, if he is so well regarded, did he not receive an offer from a so-called “lower” club. We don’t know that he didn’t receive offers, but regardless, I think the answer is fit in terms of where these clubs are at, and where Arteta’s at. I don’t think Arteta would have been interested in a job like Newcastle, for example, where the mandate is avoiding relegation rather than building a team in the vision of its coach. Similarly, Newcastle can’t afford that kind of idealism.
And Arteta is indeed an idealist, but not a “head in the clouds” sort. He’s extremely serious, doesn’t care about offending sensibilities, and will not be afraid to make some difficult decisions. There will be some bruised egos in the next couple of months. One wonders, again (and again and again) how Ozil will fare in this regime.
Anyway, it’s a good opportunity for Arteta. He must know he gets a (mostly) free hit the rest of this finished season, and he has the affection of the fanbase before even taking a seat on the touchline. It’s a brave move for the club, but I’m ready for brave after 18 months of mush. And I’m aware of the thin line separating bravery from stupidity…
Good, fair post.
Ozil is not going to fare well, Im afraid. The vindictive, all-or-nothing, lights out, total-exile-until-it-becomes-personally0inconvenient treatment meted out by Emery is unlikely, but if Arteta imposes anything resembling a City philosophy, some guys (Ozil, Xhaka) are unlikely to fit, and others like Willock, Pepe, Bellerin will have to pull up their socks defensively. Saka and Martinelli fit the template of every outfielder working off the ball.
The point about Newcastle, Wolves, Villa etc is not that they are “lower” clubs… but they are historically big to biggish clubs with good followings that have fallen on footballing hard times. Like Leeds, for example. I want Arteta to take over, and I want him to remove my doubts. But as of now, I cant see when he brings to the table, because his head coach/manager sample size is non-existent. This is not the Arsenal that Dein brought Wenger into. This is a very sick patient.
In a fit of negativity, Tim just thought
“I honestly hope Arteta drops half of this team on his first day. Players like Ozil, Auba, and Lacazette, who are either toxic or lazy have no place. Players like Guendouzi who consistently don’t play defense or are lazy in defense have no place.”
tim’s thought is ridiculous! someone has to play the games and have the requisite talent to win said games.
i don’t agree that auba or laca are toxic or lazy. they need a manager who knows how to maximize their talents and they’ll begin to enjoy their football again. it was emery who was toxic. even mesut will be jealous if arsenal are playing good football and he’s not involved…he’ll begin to work hard as well. this is really simple.
guendouzi is young and extremely talented but needs to be mentored. that’s not his fault, it’s the nature of being young and talented. it would help tremendously if he had an experienced mentor (cazorla) in the side to help with his development. instead, he’s stuck with xhaka. matteo is still super young and i have zero interest in seeing that guy moved on.
likewise, arsenal need to watch their back with martinelli; a team in the champions league will come for him if the club don’t get their act together. the same goes for all of the arsenal players with the requisite talent to be playing champions league football. that includes pepe, guendouzi, leno, aubameyang, and lacazette. arsenal could find themselves depending on players like nketiah, who’s simply lack the talent to lead arsenal to the champions league places.
Auba is far and way our leading goalscorer, and the first Ballon D’Or nominee we have had in ages. But yeah, drop him. And Laca too! Arteta may be inexperienced, but I doubt that he’s suicidal.
Well.. we are playing them and we aren’t winning. Ozil isn’t creating. He also isn’t playing defense. Auba is screaming at players for bad passes, his brother is posting crap on Twitter, and from what I’ve heard he’s already saying he won’t respect Arteta. Honestly? I don’t care if we finish 14th without Auba – you cannot allow the players to run the club.
My late father drilled (or tried to) manynlifenlwsson into me. A famous one on our family was:
“Any job that needs doing is worth doing and any job that’s worth doing is a job worth doing well”.
Lond-winded advice for give it your best and the context was much humbler than plying your trade as a rich athelete.
If Ozil got the same lesson at some point in his development he clearly has lost the plot.
Great post Tim
The comparison with where Liverpool was before Klopp and where we are now is spot on. The end of the wenger era was a disaster and going downhill quickly. We had an aging squad and the front office was dominated completely by one man. The squad and the front office both needed a complete rebuild and that was always going to be difficult and there some mistakes were inevitable and we are certainly seeing that now.
The squad we have right now is a mixed up mess similar to the one Klopp started with. Klopp and the Liverpool front office completely rebuild his squad and I think that’s what Arteta and our front office is going to have to do. It’s going to take time.
The state of the squad at the end of the Wenger era was much worse then it looked on paper. On paper a squad with ozil xhaka Kos Bellerin nacho mikhitaryan Mustafi Cech looked great and I am certain that Emery had a plan and a style of play he wanted to use. Unfortunately not a single one of those core of those experienced players were anywhere close to as good as they looked on paper and that totally ruined Emery’s plans.
Emery was just not a good coach. He will never be a good coach.
agreed…smart guy but bad coach.
We often talk about managers improving players but the miracle of Klopp and the Man City dominance were not really achieved because the manager made miraculous improvements in the players he had but both of them completely rebuilt their squad and bought all new players
I was wondering when you’d say this!
You’re right, managers don’t matter. They should fire Klopp and hire Emery.
it takes more than sound tactical knowledge to be a good manager. you need charisma to get players to buy into what you’re selling, which is leadership by definition. i believe emery was an intelligent coach but lacked the charisma of say a jose mourinho.
with that, i expect arteta to go through a steep learning phase initially. he’ll apply dozens of the techinques he’s learned from his favorite and least favorite coaches throughout his career, coupled with his own ideas and personality. pep is a micromanager where wenger encouraged player expression. where will arteta fall in this mix? we’ll see. i think we’d be fooling ourselves to believe arteta will be like guardiola.
what i am predicting is that xhaka, being coached by a cdm who has been mentored since being a barca youth player by another cdm, may find himself exposed, especially in the film room. an aside, the only reason pep ever got into the barca team was because cruyff recognized that he was the smartest player at the club, not the most talented. a similar thing could be said for arteta’s intelligence. without a doubt, xhaka is talented, arguably more so than both pep and arteta but is he smart enough to be a top cdm? does he have the humility to improve instead of just relying on his talent? this is the most important position and i believe will be a much bigger deal than mesut ozil.
I am not suggesting that Emery was the right manager or that he should not have been sacked. Clearly what he was trying to do was not working and instead of improving with time we were going the wrong way. However, he had almost zero chance to be successful early in his tenure because he had to build around a group of players when most of the them were well past their prime or not nearly good enough. Klopp was flop in his first year finishing 8th and conceding 50 goals and Pep had an incredibly expensively assembled squad but he finished 4th and didn’t win a trophy in his first season. Both of them had to rebuild their squads before they could be successful. The difference between Klopp and Emery is things started to improve and we are going backwards.
The idea that a manager can improve individual players is heavily over rated. A manager can’t turn an player who has talent ceiling is on a mid or lower table squad into a player who is a good enough to be a regular player on a CL level squad. Pep or Klopp could not have done much with the squad Emery inherited.
Klopp absolutely made Henderson into a top quality player, well beyond his ceiling.
Tim
You grossly overstate my point in order to try and dismiss it. Certainly managers matter, no one would deny that. However, the idea a manager can change the ability level of individual players and overcome a significant talent deficit with tactics is heavily over rated.
Klopp, Mourinho, and Pep are serial winners and have been (in case of Klopp and Mourinho) with some less than excellent players. Zonal Marking has a podcast which goes into great detail about exactly how Klopp’s system was able to overcome (in some cases great) deficiencies and improve players hugely at Mainz, BvB and Liverpool. And the history of football is replete with examples of coaches making teams and players better with their tactics and training. Even at Arsenal there are tons of players that Wenger made better: Thierry Henry, Kolo Toure, Alex Song, Adebayor, just look at some of those players’ careers after they left Wenger’s system!
There are a lot of mediocre coaches. There are bad coaches. There are coaches that make players better and make some that make them worse. If that’s your point, fine. No argument. But you tend to start much higher than that and dismiss coaching first and then after I counter you, then you drop back to a “coaching is heavily overrated” position.
It’s bizarre that you keep hammering this point and frankly I don’t know what your actual point is. Go ahead and explain it to us.
If you give Klopp and Emery the same supportive ownership and front office and given them each a few years to build a team I am almost 100% certain that Klopp would be more successful then emery. However, IMO Klopp could not have taken the squad emery inherited last year and improved the individual players and made them into a team which played attractive flowing football and finished in the top 4.
it’s taken from 1988 until 2018 for Liverpool to regain the top spot.
not easy…
and history states they are bigger than us.
football goes in cycles not just johnny come lately cycles.