Hi folks, sorry I haven’t been publishing much lately but frankly there hasn’t been much I wanted to say or rather, much I wanted to argue about!
Arguing about Arsenal was my real reason for starting the blog back in 2008. There was a growing faction of Wenger haters among Arsenal supporters and I thought that they just didn’t “get it”. I thought that what Wenger was doing was miraculous and let’s be honest here, it was.
Not only was he given no money to strengthen his team, the club needed to sell players every season just to keep the books healthy. And not only that but he had to keep the club in the Champions League places! So, especially in those first few years after the Invincibles, Wenger was a genius and Arsenal wouldn’t be the club we are today without him.
The weirdest part of all of this is that those same Wenger haters are still at it. According to them, all of the problems at the club came from Sir Arsene Wenger. His coaching style was too permissive, we are told, and the culture of the club needed to be changed.
There’s probably some truth to those allegations. Toward the end, it looked like some of the players took advantage of Wenger’s methods and Wenger’s fatherly love approach might have been a bit outdated. But when he was fired, he left the club with an incredibly healthy balance sheet with massive cash reserves and also with some crazy salaries that we probably shouldn’t have signed.
And I know that Wenger ran almost everything at the club, which means that it’s mostly his fault for that Ozil contract, but there were others there who had some responsibility as well. It wasn’t Wenger’s fault, for example, that the Kroenkes didn’t care enough about Arsenal to plan for his swift exit in 2016. Wenger didn’t give himself a contract when it was clear that he was past his sell-by date. And the chaos that ensued after Wenger left isn’t Wenger’s fault, that’s on Enos and Josh. They are the ones who hired that shady Sanllehi and greenlit all of the deals that we were burdened with until this year.
I’ll always defend Wenger’s tenure at Arsenal, even while admitting he got a lot wrong in the final two to four years. People sometimes get things wrong but Wenger got a lot right in his 22 years.
And Arsenal have since had two full-time coaches. And man, it’s been four years since they fired Wenger. FFS let the poor man rest and hold the people in charge responsible for what’s happened in those four years. Unai Emery, Auba’s contract, paying WAY too much of Pepe, and the way that we have constantly let players run their deals down are all on the owners and folks who ran the club. Not on Wenger.
And if we hold them responsible, they should also be praised when they get things right. For example, I was in the camp that Kroenke would never “put money into the club” but he has. The loan he secured during the pandemic, which allowed Arsenal to keep running while spending $150m on player acquisitions, was not against Arsenal, but was personally backed by Stan Kroenke. That’s pretty huge and not something I thought they would ever do. So credit there to ES Kroenke and his scion for investing their own money into the club. Now, if he starts taking dividends to pay for those loans or anything like that, that would be “taking money out of the club” and I will be one of the first to say “I told you so!” But as of right now he’s not.
I also have to give credit to the organization for standing with Mikel Arteta and backing him with both money and power. They have literally done everything they can to make sure Arteta is successful. Backing him when he wanted to get rid of expensive players and bringing in new players who fit with Arteta’s personality. And they seem to be interested in further investment in Arteta – going after big ticket players like Vlahovic and Bruno Guimaraes.
They also stuck with Arteta when I think most top clubs would have cut and run. Last year, Arsenal were playing some utterly crap football and finished in 8th place. I’ve heard people I respect say that they felt the first half of Arteta’s 2020-21 season was “the worst football they have ever seen from Arsenal” and I agree. I’d go so far as to say that we’ve mostly played bad football under Arteta, until just recently. I’ve been fairly vocal about this myself and short of calling for Arteta to be fired – which I did once in a fit of pique on twitter and later deleted the tweet – I’ve labeled him as “mediocre” and often criticized his approach (both on the pitch and off it).
But, I’ve never wanted him to fail. Of course I don’t want Arteta to fail, I want Arsenal to win things and I don’t much care who’s in charge. His management style is annoying and old school but hey, look at the results so far. The players he has working for him seem to like it and we are playing some of the best football I’ve seen in years. Those three goals against Watford on Sunday were all goal of the season candidates. Every one of them was taken perfectly, the passes were one-touch, and the movement was sublime. It was the kind of football I love to watch!
You don’t have to forgive me or forget that I was harsh on Arteta. I said what I said and I don’t think it was altogether unreasonable given how we were playing. But I will just admit that I was wrong. There is more to him as a coach than I saw at first, which is my own failure as a writer and “pundit”. I’m not going to go so far as to say he’s a “great” coach or anything, but he is learning and he’s adapting, and his coaching seems to be getting better, which I think are qualities which point to greatness.
I’ve never been one of those people who say “Arteta has to get top four or he needs to be fired”, I just don’t think that way and it actually sounds kind of silly if you think about it. The club have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in this man and he’s showing signs of both personal progress and the club and football are getting better. Fire him if he doesn’t reach some arbitrary target that some fan set? Weird.
The other day Avie was telling me about his PE class at school. They make the kids do a running test pretty much every day – they run back and forth across the gym and the test is to see how many times you can do that within 15 seconds for each lap (I think it’s 15 seconds!). He told me that he sets himself a personal goal to get one lap better every time. The teacher will allow them to not improve a few times a semester but Avie doesn’t take that luxury. In fact, he said that he improved his laps with a hurt foot the other day. That made me so proud because gradual improvement is the way I approach everything in life, those are the values I instill at work and in my family. We don’t climb the mountain all at once, you put one foot in front of the other.
And there is no question that Arsenal have improved under Arteta. Bukayo Saka has improved, Martin Ødegaard has improved, Emile Smith Rowe has improved, and on and on. And the football has gotten so much better these last few months that I’ve almost forgotten about the way we played in 2020! Almost.
Getting top four is harder than people think. There is an incredible amount of competition for that one spot. That’s why my only (arbitrary) goal for this season was for Arsenal to finish above Spurs. After these last six months, though, I would add a second one: keep playing football the way that we are right now. Win or lose those are the only two things I care about at the moment. If we can also get some kind of European football, then that’s all the better. And if we can finish in the top four, well that’s an incredibly good season.
But for right now, I’m happy with gradual improvement.
Spot on re Arsene, Tim. I think the way we played in possession on Sunday is the way Arteta has wanted us us to play since he was appointed (plus a clinical striker) though I expect he would want the defence to be more secure than they were in that game. The time since his appointment has been disrupted by extraneous issues and personnel problems and he had to address a Keystone cops defence and get rid of self-indulgent prima donnas who were very bad examples to the young players making their way towards the first XI. I believe the future of the Arsenal with Arteta is extremely bright.
Man, I really wish more people online and IRL would embrace learning and life with the same humility. Thank you.
Wow.. thank you B!
Excellent piece, Tim.
As revealed a couple of weeks ago, our financials are absolutely dire. we’ve managed to squander Arsene’s financial legacy.
One of the areas in which we’ve taken a beating is in the current regime decimating player value. For example, we signed an agreement with Marseilles that saw them utilising our best young midfielder (Partey is 29) to the max, then getting him for less than a third of his market value. You’d never catch Arsene flogging a high potential 21 year old French international for bag of Doritos.
We are paying our ex captain to play for Barcelona, after his current manager leaned heavily on him to re sign. presumably, the non negotiable were the same then.
So let’s not go handing out bouquets to Arteta as yet. On field results are another matter, and I love our trajectory there… but his approach to value building and retention is unsustainable. The Vlahovic prototype? Time’s coming fast when we may not be able to afford signings like that.
Go read Swiss Ramble’s account of the financial mess in which ArtEdu (and Raul et al before them) are complicit, everyone. Arsenal are in deep shit financially. We’re going to have to stop giving away players that the young manager doesn’t have the nous to manage.
Huge fan of Ode, but im loath to bracket him with MG, Xhaka, Elneny, AMN or Torreira, even though we played him deep when we were short. He’s a 10. Emile is an AM. When I talk about MG, im talking about the guys in the engine room. And apart from Thomas and Ode if you count him, he’s better than the rest. All of this is subjective anyway. What isn’t is that we’re not realising his full market value and leaving 18m on the table, for the sole reason that he and the coach dont get along. Madness.
Who the heck is going to pay 18m for MG??? Maybe a few years ago but he’s not English so no prem team will buy him and everyone in Europe is skint atm.
Why? I suppose you have the freedom to say whatever you want, but Tim writes a nice piece admitting that perhaps things aren’t on as bad a trajectory as everyone was saying months ago, and here you come with the negativity. Some people will never be happy I guess, always look for the bad.
So much nonsense here, I can’t leave it…
Decimating player value? According to Transfermarkt:
Saka – $71.5m
Odegaard – $46.2m
ESR – $41.8m
Gabriel Martinelli – $30.8m
Ramsdale – $27.5m
Tomiyasu – $27.5m
Kieren Tierney – $35.2m
Nuno Tavares – $14.3m
Sambi – $17.6m
All of these players – the core that is our reason for having the youngest team in the entire PL – have gone up since being purchased by Arsenal.
You keep beating on about Guendouzi… a player with a history of behavioral problems. His current value is $27.5m… we’re getting $24.2m from Marseilles. We paid $8.8m. I’d say that’s decent business for getting rid of a “distressed” asset that other clubs knew we didn’t want anymore.
We are playing more attractive, fluid football without Aubameyang. Coincidence? I don’t think so. He didn’t fit the team and we’re better for having Lacazette leading the line. Do we adjust our team to fit a 32 year old? No, that’s insane. That’s what idiots like Man United do.
Who did we “give away”? Ozil? Nobody wanted to pay money for him. Kolasinac? Nobody wanted to pay money for him. Mustafi? Nobody wanted to pay money for him. We “gave away” aging losers that were part of an 8th place squad.
And every club that isn’t backed by oil money is in trouble. Chelsea is about to be sold, let’s see how they get on in future years with an old undersized stadium and without an owner floating $1.5b in loans to the team. Conte is bitching about Spurs lack of spending power. The pandemic hit everyone. Teams on the continent are in even worse shape.
Again, it’s just negativity when we should be enjoying the fact that we have a young talented team that hasn’t even hit its peak yet but is here at the back third of the season challenging for a Champions League spot. The best years are still to come.
“Negativity”, you say. If you have a substantive rebuttal, just offer it. Trash my argument. Fine. Just ease us on the tone policing. It’s become tiresome. you get so huffy and prickly at criticism of the bosses. I don’t get it. What should be done about my being less than perpetually positive, comrade? Sending me to re education camp? 😊
A couple of things…
I did say that I like our on field trajectory, but that does not mean that all is hunky dory. You don’t cheer the team any more loudly than any other fan on match day
Tim did suggest that we did not maintain the financial position that Arsene bequeathed. Covid lockdowns were a large part of that, but bad contract management and bad value retention were a large part of that.
You cite Saka et al, and that is true, but it’s one third of the story. You seem to misunderstand the core point about our finances, because from your comments it doesn’t look as if you read the last financial statement.
Here’s the bottom line… it isn’t sustainable. The kroenkes have been fairly hands off, but they know that it isn’t. There could be a correction, and that could come in being able to buy that Vlahovic type CF. I’m not able currently to post the report, so go do your own digging.
Trepydation,
I don’t set transfer valuations. And neither do you, mate.
I’ve read all of Swiss Ramble’s stuff. And I’ve read all his other threads about other teams. I’ve read a lot of articles about our finances. I’ve also read dozens of articles about the state of finances at clubs like Real, Barca, Chelsea, United, Spurs, Bayern, Juve, Roma, Inter… We. Are. Not. Unique. Everyone is experiencing financial distress.
Honestly, I come to Tim’s site to read his take on things but when I see you, joshuad and MattB commenting, I’m completely turned off. It’s why I haven’t posted anything for a while. And I’m prickly about it because it’s all based in fantasy, conjecture, mind-reading, imagined slights and re-interpretation of events and facts.
But, you have your right to say whatever you want. And I have a right to challenge your b.s.
Well, challenge my bs if you have to. I do get things wrong, hopefully not often. All that said, nobody appointed you thread magistrate.
What you want to partake in it sounds to me is a fan site. Like the Bey Hive (ask your teenager). Sorry, that’s not how I see this space. But wherever brings you back, it is welcome, so I suppose I did you favour? 😉
That said, I am plenty positive about Arsenal a lot of the time. I strive to be balanced, actually. That’s what I’m here for… balance, not perpetual positivity; or neverending negativity
I;ve missed you, Jack! I’ve been more of the optimist recently, and having your support on a rosier view of things would be welcome for me. Hope to see you back.
Hey Jack, apologies if anything I’ve written here offended you. That was never my intention. I try to respect the broad church of opinions shared here. Peace.
I agree that we don’t, the market does, and the market payed 10m for a very disruptive player to the team. Much better than all of those awful deals mentioned in the article and your comments.
Should also add I agree on a lot of points with you Claud. Sure it’s great that we have all of these players worth so much but I don’t want Arsenal to sell any of them, take just one away and we’re in trouble!
Chill out Jack! Fight the argument not the person
I agree that our financial path is not sustainable, but I think you can’t understate the context of the pandemic. Selling players has been very difficult across Europe. How else did we manage to get Odegaard for 30mm? Real had no other offers!
Also agree that our player sales have been dreadful, but we had lots of overpaid, older players who just weren’t sellable at the wages we were supporting. There is no market for aging pricey underperformers like Ozil, Sokratis, Mikhi, Mustafi et al normally, let alone in a pandemic. KSE had a choice – get out from under as much of the contracts as possible, or continue to pay every penny for the entire life of every contract. They decided to cut their losses. I don’t see what the other choice there was. Poor recruiting and poor results had put us in a bind.
Josh K has been very clear about a EL team with CL wages. That’s been the bigger long term issue in terms of sustainability. Our wage bill has come down dramatically this season. I believe salaries are always the top expense for clubs, and reducing them should make year on year results better.
I’m actually optimistic that KSE are serious about making us contenders. Swallowing the player salaries – even by floating new debt – and funding 160mm in new player spending says they are supporting the new regime. Arsenal will pay it back over time as debt and/or it will be rolled into an eventual sale. For me, that’s KSE’s issue, as long as we are staying within FFP rules.
I’m choosing to dwell on the clear uptick in form and the exciting attacking play that made me love the club. And as you know we are making top four, which should help finances considerably. 😉
Moreover Vlahovic and 2 more declined to join Arsenal when La Vendeta was running full throttle .
Guendouzi was valued at 40 mil when working under Emery ( Explanatory – don’t read this as endorsement of Emery)
Saka and particularly ESR saved our last season to respectable 8 . Nobody credits how these talents developed at Halle End.
Was infuriated by Wenger obduracy to spend and correct visible deficiencies. Not taking Forster for a “ princely(?) sum of 5 million and win the EPL . Wenger was getting his kicks from managing 4 for least expenditure. Whatever, even losses were enjoyable football. That is to credit of his footballing nous.
My reading of now is let the handbrake bark – bark off we have fantastic talents now capable of wins.
Credit where due
”You keep beating on about Guendouzi… a player with a history of behavioral problems. His current value is $27.5m… we’re getting $24.2m from Marseilles. We paid $8.8m. I’d say that’s decent business for getting rid of a “distressed” asset that other clubs knew we didn’t want anymore.”
Are we getting 24m for Guen?
I thought it was 10m
My mistake. His current market value is $24.2m. We have agreed to sell him for $13.3m (all values in $US). I misread things doing my quick research. No argument that Marseilles are getting a deal here, but also we aren’t giving him away for free either.
“I misread things doing my quick research”
Bless you, Jack. You brought a smile to my face with both the quick research and the misread. Can happen to anyone, being way off by that much….
Oh btw, “giving him away for free” is another misread. Carry on.
Is that valuation from transfermarkt? Their figures are decided by their community – the website is a glorified wiki. Take every number on there with a hefty dose of salt.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.in/transfermarkt-market-value-explained-how-is-it-determined-/view/news/385100
The smart alek answer is that a player is only worth what someone will pay for them.
Think we are getting 9 mil for Guendouzi. It was pre decided from last season
The club needn’t fire Arteta if Arsenal don’t make it to fourth, but it would be a failure to fail to make it to 4th from here on out.
All 4th place contenders (Arsenal, United, Tottenham, West Ham?) have to play more or less the same number of ‘big matches’ – matches against top 6 – and Arsenal have enough margin on all of them. United & West Ham have European football to contend with, while we have a match to play against Tottenham.
This leaves Arsenal in-charge of their own destiny and this is arguably the best opportunity to make 4th in recent times. Then again 2015-16 was arguably the best opportunity to win the league in recent times.
One wonders what could have been had the medical team been able to detect the deep-rooted problem with Cazorla’s foot…
Cazorla foot
That was the problem with Wenger one man show . Trusting his Geriatric Pals instead of Proper Orthopaedic.
But finally blame is unto the Kroenkes for being a—-les
Great post Tim, thank you. I feel very similar about Wenger.
The big picture view of this last couple of years has always sustained me through the bad football. I’m lucky that I saw things roughly the same way as Arteta when he joined – the home defeat to City sticks in my mind as an absolute low point, both fans and players completely disinterested and apathetic, and I saw that he was shocked by that on the opposing bench.
Since then there have been plenty of times when I questioned if he had what it was going to take to turn things around, but at least I felt that he got the mission.
The interview just now with Sky has two things that really resonate – the first when he talked about the connection between the fans and the players that he wanted to rebuild:
“If you had asked me what I wanted to do here, I would have said that I would like to make the Emirates the toughest stadium to play at in England, to create a really unique atmosphere that you feel on your skin when you go there … ‘Can we give something to the team knowing they are going to give it back for sure?’ ”
And the second when he talks about the way that every decision is made with a plan in mind:
“You have to have a certain courage and consistency in those decisions … even if you are tempted to do something, but you think it’s going to bring you trouble in the coming months or years, you should not do it.
[O]ur responsibility is to look further into the future, to say, ‘I want to get here and I have to work backwards from there because this is the aim and if I don’t do this now, we are never going to get there’.”
For all its faults in other areas, it’s great to have a club that’s prepared to follow through on this philosophy. Conte’s comments this week about how easy it is to slip behind in this league rang true to me, that was my strong fear under Emery and the last administration. Not so much now.
Have been checking the site a lot recently hoping for an article and I’ve got to say: I’d be happy with nothing new for a week if the posts are as good as this one! That’s a tough standard to set though so I would feel bad holding you to that.
Good old Wenger will always have a place in my heart, despite the lack of spice in his autobiography. I really do wish the #WengerOut crowd would wake up and appreciate the magic, regardless of their disappointment at results.
I know it’s a meme but I am starting to trust the process. I have the feeling that other young talents will look at our team and want to get in on it before the Arse go big time. I’m probably getting a bit ahead of myself but oh well, you gotta believe!
Tim, I don’t know why anyone would blame Wenger for what’s happening at the club now.
But, there are a couple of points I’d like to make.
1) Much of the ‘hate’ for Wenger (and some of this is from personal experience) came from the fact that there seemed to be no accountability for bad results/ decisions at the club. Anyone daring to point out mistakes being made in the present and suggesting a change in management were shot down with reminders of Wenger’s achievements in the past and branded a ‘hater’ . This further fuelled the fire and so the cycle continued until the divide became unnecessarily toxic. I can guarantee you a huge section of the fan base still didn’t think Wenger was ‘past his sell-by date’ when he announced his departure, which seems so obvious now.
2) The argument ‘Wenger didn’t give himself a contract when it was clear that he was past his sell-by date’ doesn’t do it for me, especially when compared to the only other similar case in the modern era, Sir Alex Ferguson. Both Ferguson and Wenger were considered more ‘custodians’ than mere managers at their respective clubs, who would always put the interests of their clubs over everything else. Fergie understood the club needed to move on at some point, and while the results have not been great, no one can fault the way he handled his exit. I respect Wenger’s footballing acumen enough to assume he was aware of his declining powers as a manager. Yet his reluctance to let go appears strange in this context.
Very juicy article, nuanced and balanced. It was worth the wait
Here’s an on site report from the London Evening Standard’s reporter visiting Colney and watching how Arteta operates. It might help give a more useful perspective to those who persist in relying on their perception of Arteta as a coach and man manager gleaned from their 42 inch televisions and their early prejudices rather than from watching the man operate at the training ground.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-mikel-arteta-transformed-culture-champions-league-push-b986712.html
I simply don’t understand the Arteta hate nor the ‘love’ for the likes of Guendouzi and Özil. Neither of the latter two has been missed. Talent with a bad attitude is no use to a team builder and is best discarded. Auba is a different kettle of fish but if you are the team captain (or leader in any walk of life – I’ve seen it in a different context) and repeatedly set a bad example and fail to respond to criticism, your days are best numbered. For whatever reason, Aubameyang’s form fell off a cliff and it might actually be significant that the team has been playing better and getting results since he was dropped and finally left. It might also be significant that none of his ‘mates’ seem to have had a problem with him being disciplined. The team’s performances have certainly improved. The mood in the ground has improved. It seems likely that the mood at the training ground has improved. Wake up and smell the coffee!
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/news/arsenal-news-emery-winning-sporting-15286175
I get there’s a difference between the outlets, but we’ve got to get past being suckers for “insider” briefings.
And there’s a couple of mentions above about our exciting young core – google British core (Wilshire, Ramsey et al.) and you get a sense why some are not so eager to jump on the bandwagon before we even secure 4th.
I was going to offer some nuance – recent results have been decent after all – but may as well get with the spirit of plain talking. Arteta’s being kept afloat by (1) some extraordinary young talent, particularly Saka and (2) because he’s compromising on his “non-negotiables” (ie defensive shape above all else), likely because Kroenke’s told him he doesn’t get another pie unless the team finishes top 4.
Tim, your views on Arteta are similar to what I used to think about him and what I think of him now. Thanks for writing this. I read a lot of noise these days from popular twitter accounts who are hell bent on re litigating Arteta’s performances post hoc to fit a narrative that the failures were part of some grand plan. I see things said like he was trying to teach his philosophy bit by bit to players even at the expense of results and performances. I view it more as a young, inexperienced coach learning on the fly how to effectively implement the things he learned – and failing early on. As you said, he’s personally improved as a coach and that is being reflected in the team’s performance. For example, if everything was planned, I don’t think Arteta would have given Auba a big contract and tried getting a tune out of him at CF. He’s experimented with a lot of players, formations, and systems and finally found an effective style of play and I am so happy about that. Finally, Arsenal are exciting under Arteta and I am waking up at 6 AM after 3 hours of sleep with no complaints to watch Arsenal. I just wish some of this fanaticism around Arteta would cease to exist – especially when it involves bad takes on Wenger and the constant need to belittle others who have a different opinion on the manager.
This. Fair, measured.
I read the ES article that Bathgooner shared earlier today, and it did a nice,detailed job of assessing the small but important things that improved his managerial effectiveness. Good piece of journalism.
But criticism isn’t “hate”, as he says. We need to stop ascribing motives to folks offering critical observations. As you and Tim say, he got stuff wrong, he’s learning on the job, and he’s refining and recalibrating. He’s got character flaws, as do all of us. I believe some of them to be significant, but his trajectory so far is good. Some gooners behave like we’re blaspheming Jesus in pointing out Mikel’s mistakes.
A negative can become a positive, and I’ll give an example. He overcoaches from the sidelines. But in our last match, that very urgency led to him retrieving the ball himself, Saka to take a quick throw in, and itbled to a goal. Good. The rough with the smooth.
Bath, the point about Guendouzi isn’t whether he’s been missed. I don’t miss him. The point is that we entered into a bad deal with Marseilles, and they’re getting a good, young player with huge upside for a fraction of his value. Why is this even a point of argument? We’ve got to be smarter. We’re not going to be blessed with a boatload of Sakas. It’s about the dozens of individual financial decisions that have contributed to us being in the hole we’re in. Gooners seem to be sleeping on our this.
Fair points all, Claudeivan. I fully agree that our financial incontinence has been staggering and certainly handicaps our future transfer budget.
Irrespective what said about Guendouzi valuation, he was a bit of a handicap since his compulsive extra touches and running was slowing our game progression as we see now. But watched Marseille recently and Guendouzi seems to have cut this, credit to his coach to have managed that.
“re litigating Arteta’s performances post hoc to fit a narrative that the failures were part of some grand plan”
I want to unpick this for a minute.
I would say that the process is one of exploration and experimentation along a trajectory. Failing is part of the process, like it or not, so in a way yes it’s part of the plan – they say in tech that it’s about learning to “fail faster”. But that doesn’t mean that you justify all of your failures and claim that you really meant them at the time.
The bad performances and failures were not part of the plan. We did not plan to finish 8th last season. It quite possibly could and should have been avoided. That said, if it was the price we had to pay for longer-term sustainable improvement back to the top 4, then it was worth paying.
In the same spirit I’ll point out that there is a lot of smoke being blown up the manager’s ass right now. The key part of what he’s offering is sustainable improvement, and the only way he can be judged on that is if it really proves to be sustainable. Just because we are top 4 today doesn’t mean that Arteta has remotely pulled this off yet, and to his credit he knows that.
“That said, if it was the price we had to pay for longer-term sustainable improvement back to the top 4, then it was worth paying.”
That is the definition of post hoc rationalisation.
Loved Wolves and Watford but big tests coming up. Every game a cup final now – if we’re still in 4th after our next 3, then I think I’ll start believing.
To be honest, over Mikel’s tenure, the club has acted in a way that could, and probably should, be considered as irrational in the current football climate.
its makes sense to invest heavily in a Jurgen Klopp, Pep, Ten Haag, Nagelsman and etc. They will show you a clear sign of what they want their team to do on the football pitch from the off and allow fans to buy into a project. Off the pitch stuff is good and all, but as “football” fans, what happens on the pitch will always eclipse everything else. What happens on the pitch is what determines the mood around a club. Not necessarily winning, but if the fans can see something to believe in, the mood and belief around the club can be high, even without winning.
Just like with Arsene and the years that seem to define him now, where he used younger players and played amazing football, the fans themselves bought into and even branded “project youth”. All of this while the club was selling players left, right and center. All of this while the club was winning f*ck-all.
I actually respect those that were critical of Mikel for the terrible football, bad tactical decisions and squad management. I hate blind faith and the only thing backing Mikel was just that, blind faith. But credit to him, he has managed to turn it around where it matters, on the pitch.
Its to the point where I have been hoping he learns from his shortcomings and improves as a manager, because I really love how his Arsenal side are playing right now. I cant picture anyone else in the hot seat, and this is coming from someone who predicted he would be gone by November.
I don’t think you need to be forgiven for anything Tim, or that anyone should forget what you said. I believe our criticism was always constructive and had merit, just as our praise right now is valid. Or at least I wont apologise.
From what I have seen in the last three months (small sample size right?!), I think Mikel and Edu are working well together and seem to be building something special. I will give praise where it is due, and they deserve serious amounts of it.
Tim,
You have created a substantial body of (mostly) Arsenal writing on this blog. Mixed with some of your musings on other topics, this place has always been worthy of my time and interest. Not just the hits, mind you, but the whole catalog.
As long as you keep posting, I’ll keep reading. Congratulations, mea culpas are wholly unnecessary.
Also, Everton; WtF? Rolling over to those wankers? They might even be relegated by then, but we’ll get vicarious revenge at the toilet bowl whenever that fixture is finalized.
Loved this read, TIm! I think a lot of gooners are going on a similar journey. I’ve never thought you were unfair or said anything unreasonable – so no mea culpa required. You have an opinion about a manager/team and it evolves over time. I wish we were all so willing to revise/revisit.
“I’ll always defend Wenger’s tenure at Arsenal, even while admitting he got a lot wrong in the final two to four years. People sometimes get things wrong but Wenger got a lot right in his 22 years.”
This really nailed it for me! Social media is always so black and white. Wenger was either all bad or all good. Arteta is all bad or all good. If you like one, you hate the other. It’s so absurd.
Wenger was a genius, not only a great coach and architect of the club’s success, but an erudite, sophisticated, empathetic human being. A rara avis.
Arteta is not in his league. He doesn’t have the sly wit, the sense of humor or the same empathy or a 22 year legacy. He’s not as skillful or patient managing personalities. That said, he has made great strides, and he’s done some great work with rebuilding and molding this team into something exciting, and any Arsenal fan should recognize what he’s accomplished. Only time will tell what his legacy is, but things look pretty good today, especially for such a young manager
I’ve had to revise my opinion of Arteta over time, and I suspect a lot of people have and will.
Fabulous post Tim
I have never thought Arteta was or is a great manager. Those sort of great managers are few and very far between IMO.
I never believed the criticism of his performance as a manager was realistic. The idea that someone who grew up in the Barcelona system and played for Wenger and learned to coach from Pep would turn into a manager who was defense first and wanted his team to play slow boring unimaginative football made absolutely no logical sense. When something seems as unreasonable as the that theory then you have to look at other more reasonable explanations for what we were seeing on the pitch. The idea that a manager has complete and total control of everything which happens on the pitch and everything the players do is because its what the manager has told them to do is another strange idea at least to me. Managers can put together game plans but if the players are not able to execute the things he wants to do then it will always look like the manager has put together a bad game plan. The manager can’t walk out on the pitch and kick the ball and there is only so much a manager can do if he does not have the talent he needs to play the type of football everyone wants to see. I don’t believe Arteta has suddenly changed into a different manager then he was last season. Its no coincidence the football and results have improved and the manager suddenly looks a lot smarter after we dumped the over paid underperforming players and spent a whole lot of money on new players.
I am always a bit surprised at the degree of recency bias that seems to be prevalent in a lot of fans. The Arteta out voices were loud and clear after the first 3 games of the season. Then we had a run of unbeaten games and the sentiment changed. Then we had a few bad games and it was Arteta out again. Then we had the great December run and the majority sentiment about Arteta’s ability as a manager made a significant upward move. Then we lost a couple games and fell out of the the cup competitions and lost to ManU and Everton and somehow Arteta suddenly forgot everything he had done correctly in December had gone back to defense minded roots and the Arteta out chorus was back on line. Now after a couple wins against Wolves and Watford most of the sentiment has radically changed again.
I don’t believe managers go from really smart for a few games to really poor and then back and forth. They have the same philosophy and use the same sort of game plans but the results can be radically different depending on the current form of the team. We have seen a huge sample size of evidence from the Wenger era that players and teams go thru runs of good and bad form which a manager can’t control.
My guess is we will go thru another run of bad form before the end of the season and then the sentiment that Arteta is a poor manager will be back. A rise tide raises all ships and a good run of form makes all the players and the manager look great while the opposite is true when a team goes thru a bad run of form. The reality he is the same manager now as he was during the great run of form in December and the bad run of form in January or the disaster that was the first 3 games of this season.
Bill – I suspect you’re right we will have a run of bad form. I saw an exchange on Twitter between Tim and Scott from AVP. We have a much harder run in than Spuds. Our last 10 games have been against relatively easy opponents. It will be a great test for a young manager and team. In here for it.
LAGUNNER
Everyone who watched the Wenger era has to recognize just how much the performances of the team and individual players and results change depending on current form. Truly average players like Flamini or Denison looked like world class players when the team is playing in good form. Laca who has been underwhelming for the last 4 years suddenly looks like world beater as a CF facilitator right now because the team is playing well. I think we also have to realize its very unlikely that any team will spend the whole season in the run of good form or bad form. Right now we are in good form for the last month and a lot of fans believe we finally broken the code and everything will be great from now on. Then we hit a run of a few bad games and results such as we saw around the loss to Everton and the sentiment will revert to the manager is back to being crap and team are back to being destined for mid table.
So ‘form’ is the new ‘firepower’ ?
no mea culpa, tim. you were working with the facts in real time as you saw them. we all were. the wenger out camp are a group of seemingly irrational fans who, even in retrospect, fail to appreciate the brilliance of what wenger did.
as for arteta, i agree with essentially all of what you said. i’ve stated several times that, despite my disapproval, i’ve never called for the man to be sacked and that i believe he’s a considerably better coach than he was two years ago. where we’ve disagreed is that i think he’s a better tactician than you.
my only gripe with arteta is with his leadership and management skills. it doesn’t take a lot of managerial skill to say you want to get rid of a player because you don’t like them. likewise, leadership is not making demands of players you don’t know with a list of unproven “non-negotiables” and seeking to fire or marginalize anyone who doesn’t fall in line right away. any talentless idiot can do those things. a manager maximizes the efficiency of the talent resources he has; he takes lemons and makes lemonade. a leader has the empathy, emotional intelligence and charisma to get his players to place the success of the team ahead of their own self-interest.
management and leadership are skills that can be developed but one must have the humility to develop them. does arteta have that humility? i certainly hope so but the evidence is inconclusive; the jury’s still out.
btw, claudivan is absolutely right in declaring that the arsenal player management model is unsustainable. i don’t know why jack and others are so upset about his statement. arsenal can’t continue to lose value on players. it’s their biggest resource.
losing 60% of guendouzi’s transfer value because the manager doesn’t like the guy is unsustainable. paying players with the quality of aubameyang and ozil millions to play for other teams is unsustainable. arsenal didn’t get save on wages with ozil; they paid him every red cent of that contract. likewise, they’re paying auba all of his contract this season to score goals for barcelona. that’s nuts! no one does that. NO ONE!
losing the likes of callum chambers, shkodran mustafi, konstantinos mavropanos, sead kolasinac, etc. for nothing is unsustainable. i know there’s a false belief that these players have no value but they are regulars for their respective teams, meaning they have value and arsenal should have collected that value. heck, kolasinac is about to claim a champions league spot with guendouzi and saliba at marseille. you don’t give that away. who does that? wenger got £18 million for a bench player in thomas vermaelen. hell, he even got £2.2 million for carl jenkinson and you say that kolasinac and chambers have no value? chambers starts every game for aston villa… all thanks to the arsenal player giveaway. they lost ramsey and welbeck for nothing. they’re about to lose lacazette, eddie, and elneny for nothing. nuts!
“claudivan is absolutely right in declaring that the arsenal player management model is unsustainable. i don’t know why jack and others are so upset about his statement. arsenal can’t continue to lose value on players. it’s their biggest resource. losing 60% of guendouzi’s transfer value because the manager doesn’t like the guy is unsustainable”
That’s the point, the whole point and nothing but the point. A few also jumped on who the player was, but he was offered as an example.
There’s not one person in this thread who would sell for $10k, a car with a resale value of $25k. Players are assets. If the overall financial climate is bad (and it is in ways we cant control), then youve got to be smart with your assets. That’s a no brainer.
Guendouzi, whatever you think of him, is a valuable financial asset… an international calibre young player on a low wage with increasing transfer value. A player is the process of putting up Team of the Season numbers. A player likely to be on the plane to Qatar in late October. OM got him to put up these good numbers while paying said low wage and are getting him for (we can agree on this) far less than half of his value. Under the contract, Arsenal are essentially forgoing 15m. In a bad market. Saying that that is bad asset and man management doesnt make one a “hater” (what a f****** childish term)
What sustainability means is that the owners and the board put the brakes on the expensive player recruitment that we need, because we’ve not been managing our assets properly. Then the fans will turn around and accuse them of being tight.
This 👇🏽 is worth 10 minutes of your time. The situation described is unsustainable.
https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1498554630120300544
Chambers was in the last 6 months of his contract. He was a good but limited squad player with no long term value because we had no intention of re-signing him nor activating his extension for another year. Since joining Villa on Jan 27, he’s made 4 appearances for Villa in five games, two of them substitute appearances. I’ve watched all of Villa’s last four games because they’re interesting with Coutinho… Chambers is still not exceptional, he’s a squad player.
Kolasinac was third on the depth chart for us at LB. He’s nowhere near Tierney or Tavares in terms of potential or quality. His market value is $3.3m. He’s made a grand total of 5 appearances for Marseilles for 154 minutes combined. You make it sound like he’s a contributing member to Marseilles CL push. He’s not.
Do you know where Shkodran Mustafi is now? Levante after being outright released by Schalke in July 2021. How can Schalke just waste value like that? It’s nuts! Market value, $2.75m.
Carl Jenkinson was sold in August 2019 to Nottingham Forest by… Unai Emery. Wenger was done May 2018 at Arsenal.
Mesut Ozil… $4.1m market value. When we let him go for nothing, he was worth $5.1m. If he were a house, that mortgage would be underwater, because we were paying him three times that amount in salary. Nobody was going to pay anything for an underwater mortgage. We did Ozil a solid by letting him go play somewhere. By the way, 33 years old, 24 appearances this season, 8 goals and 2 assists…. in the Turkish League. Not exactly pulling up trees.
I just don’t get it. The belief that Chambers, Kolasinac, Mustafi, Jenkinson, Ozil… that these guys were actually worth something to other teams hit by pandemic finances? It’s absurd thinking. Nketiah is a Championship level striker who doesn’t want to re-sign with us… what is Edu supposed to do? Lacazette is not a forgone conclusion that he will leave, I actually believe he will stay with us. El Neny? Who wants him? I’m sure if there were buyers these past two windows lining up for him we would have taken it and kept AMN – who btw can’t get playing time in Roma… because he’s just not up to the job.
It’s like some bizarro funhouse mirror where the players that formed the core of an 8th place underperforming team are worth gazillions.
If folks read the Swiss Ramble’s entire post they would see that Arsenal’s sales have actually been 2nd best behind only Chelsea and that the vast majority of our losses last year were covered by Kroenke and that if we get into Europe and start generating more money from player sales we will be right back in profit.
https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1498558676340297729
i get it but i’m not arsenal…i’m only an arsenal fan.
I’m not a fan of the personally insulting nature of this comment. If my writing is so laughable and my personality is so annoying, you really don’t have to read the blog much less comment on it.
A very good win, with some attacking intent.
Tim,
What were the probabilities on those shots from distance from Saka and Martinelli?
Me thinks those were wonder goals, not only to look at, but really outliers..
It’s a good question: the combined xG for all three goals was probably 0.25 or so!
I find it interesting that the recent manager who’s early years most mimic the current Arsenal trajectory hasn’t been mentioned in this thread. George Graham won an early trophy against the odds (Liverpool went into that final having never lost in a match in which Ian Rush scored) and had to dump a lot of highly paid & ageing pros in order to create a vibrant young team with a strong core of home grown talent (Merson, Thomas, Rocastle). The purchases have parallels too, youngish players from second tier clubs … Winterburn, Dixon and Bould became legends but Marwood, Richardson and Groves were just as important in creating the first title winning team for nearly 2 decades. There were few ‘big’ names in the 1989 title winning team, just O’Leary, Adams and Smith really.
That’s not to say that the parallels are completely consistent – Graham had taken Milwall to the heady heights of the top division so was a proven manager but also didn’t have to cope with the global pandemic etc.
Having said that, the parallels do make me feel more optimistic about the future than I have been for a considerable number of years. There’s a positivity and hunger about the current squad that matches the late 80s vibe
Interesting take, Peter. Graham does tend to unfairly fade into the background in these conversations
Some choice quotes from Swiss’ financial deep dive…
“#AFC have now lost money 3 years in a row for a combined £213m loss, each year worse than the one before. This followed 16 consecutive profitable seasons, during which they had a £393m surplus. The 2020/21 £127m loss is actually the 5th highest ever loss in the Premier League.”
“#AFC profit from player sales fell £48m from £60m to £12m, mainly Martinez to #AVFC. Club attributed lower profits to the depressed transfer market (COVID), but it did not help that Ozil, Mustafi, Sokratis and Mkhitaryan were all released for nothing. In contrast #MCFC made £69m.” (while paying a fortune for Grealish)
“In fairness, #AFC loss included £39m exceptional expenses: £32m break fees to refinance debt and £7m staff restructuring. The latter was not explained, but possibly due to over 50 redundancies and departure of “Rolodex” Raul Sanllehi. Spent £38m on staff changes in last 4 years.”
Quoting Arsenal themselves….
“AFC noted, “player trading has a significant impact on overall profitability”, e.g. £120m in 2018 and £60m in 2020, so the low £12m in 2021 has really hurt. This year will include Joe Willock to #NUFC, but again many have left for free, most notably Aubameyang to Barcelona.”
“Despite offloading many for free, #AFC still made an impressive £213m from player sales in the last 6 years, which was third highest in the Premier League, only behind #CFC £462m and #LFC £276m (not including 2021). The club has to find a way to make money from player trading.”
“That said, while #AFC have seen their revenue fall £23m since 2016, their rivals have powered ahead, despite the impact of the pandemic, with significant growth at #LFC £185m, #MCFC £178m, #THFC £151m and #CFC £106m. Only #MUFC have performed as badly as Arsenal (down £21m).”
How many ways can we spell “unsustainable?”
On the bright side, in game attendance will improve finances, but the club needs to be more frugal all round.
“the club needs to be more frugal all round.”
This is exactly what they are doing, IMO. Targeting younger players on lower wages, and paying off players or getting them off the books if they are on high wages, in order to save big money on the annual wage bill. As Swiss Ramble points out, Arsenal’s wage bill has been pretty steady, while everyone else’s has gone up significantly, and we are set to see quite a bit of savings ahead having cut Auba.
I actually think they will do the smart thing and NOT re-sign Lacazette if the player asks for one of those Bosman deals. Also would only like to see us offer him a max two-year deal. No more over30s.
I agree on Lacazette. In fact I’ve said that moving on is good for all parties, despite his valuable contribution to the cause since December. To their credit, the deal you describe is precisely the one they’re offering him, according to reports.
The movements on the wage bill are good and welcome (because the current picture is terrible), but they’ve got to get a handle on contract management and maximising returns from players on loan. Mavro, Torreira and Guen are all young players who we’re going to offload for a fraction of their value. That’s not good. Every $10m helps.
I mean, Tim got there first but I think this is the whole point Claude. Those figures you quote from Swiss Ramble are nasty, and they represent a massive hole that the previous administration got us into, exacerbated by the pandemic, and that now Arteta and Edu and the club are trying to dig us out of.
The only way for us to get back to good financial health is to get our fundamentals back in balance. Income needs to go up, costs need to go down. On the income side that means doing better in the league to get more sponsorship and revenue, including CL revenue at around £40M a year. On the cost side that means keeping a lid on salaries and NET transfer fees.
The important part on transfer fees is the net part. That means not only looking at individual transfers / players in isolation.
So I absolutely agree with you that we should avoid losing money on players wherever possible (like Guendo and Mavro), and avoid running players’ contracts down, because that hurts our net position.
BUT – if losing say £10M in potential transfer fees on Guendouzi means we can bring in Lokonga who we prefer as a player, who’s on a similar salary and who has an upside that’s more than £10M, then it’s worth it from a net position. Especially if he’s a better match from a football perspective and improves the side. (I’m not claiming that Lokonga is better than Guendo, I’m just running the logic).
Likewise letting Laca’s contract run down is probably cheaper in the long run than buying a player early who we’re not sure that we want, in order to sell Laca and claw back a couple of mil on transfer fees.
Time is also a factor. It’s not just net transfer fees, it’s long-term net transfer fees, and sometimes it’s worth taking a short-term hit in order to put you in a better long-term position. Auba and Ozil’s situations are somewhat similar here – we didn’t maximise our cash in either case but we did save some money and free up room on the wage bill for someone who may add more value to the team.
Saliba is another one – he’s a long-term investment. It doesn’t matter what his value is today, we want him to be worth 80M in three years. I’m excited about him.
So you’re not wrong, and I am as frustrated as you are on some of the contract situations that are still unwinding 2 years into Arteta’s gig (and he made his own costly mistakes e.g. Willian) but it’s also important to look at the bigger picture.
Claude, my take on the financials is Arsenal have moved from a very strong cash-rich balance sheet to more debt leveraged position. The lack of Champions League football has made a more significant dent in revenue than Co-vid (minimum £40m shortfall p.a.).
The debt only becomes an issue if like the Glazers, Kroenke starts diverting large chunks of money to service interest payments. However Kroenke may well choose to operate like Abramovich and not burden the club with debt repayment (fingers crossed).
Lets be honest he’s not selling anytime soon and if Chelsea are looking for a valuation of £3b why sell? It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
The other significant point (which really pains me) is how Arsenal’s revenues have failed to grow at anything like the rate of our rivals. In fact Arsenal’s revenue is smaller than Liverpool and Spurs and the gap has been getting bigger each year.
There’s a very clear line that goes back to falling out of Europe’s top competition and Gazidis doing a really poor job of growing commercial revenues. It’s valid to say the Kroenkes let things get pretty bad before they stepped up.
Just a reminder that I don’t publish this site for folks to attack me personally and I’m pretty quick to ban people who make ad hominem attacks on me or my readers. You can always go to twitter or Facebook if you want to be a fuckface.
”I’m not a fan of the personally insulting nature of this comment. If my writing is so laughable and my personality is so annoying, you really don’t have to read the blog much less comment on it.”
Tim, obviously a misunderstanding.
The fact it was posted in response to Josh’s ” no mea culpa” and not directly to your article in which you don’t ask others to admit to being wrong probably should’ve made it clear, but my style is sloppy at best so no surprise it all went sideways.
Your writing is tops and if you feel the need to do one (mea culpa), I certainly have nothing against it.
The ” laughable” part wasn’t directed at anyone on this forum and certainly not you, but a certain section of Arsenal Fandom who take any criticism of the club as a personal insult.
I appreciate the clarification.
Did someone say that we are exciting to watch?
I will need to remind myself to continue to pinch myself to stay awake in future games so that I can get to enjoy some of this excitement, which I assume is not intended to incude actually shooting on target.
I appreciate that my views are usually unpopular, but for my part I prefer to be a pleased pessimist than a disappointed optimist.
You may have the correct attitude: we have one of the most difficult run ins of anyone in the League.
PSG committing footballing suicide in Madrid. Bit of bad luck, but the casualness. A game is never won a goal up with 55 minutes played. Thought that Donnarumma was fouled on their first goal, though. Been the 2 French strikers, but Vinicius was incredible. Messi looks shrunken in a PSG shirt. I fear for Poch in that seat. He wont get to enjoy Mbappe in white.
Some sizeable systemic challenges at PSG. No sympathy for Pochettino. He got the golden ticket and could mould a team. He’s an underdog manager. Best case for us he joins ManUre.
What can you say about Modric and Benzema? Class is permanent.
Liverpool supporter here, soft spot for Arsenal, and Wenger admirer. I post comments here occasionally under a variety of names.
I remember a decade ago, Arsenal supporters were moaning about a lack of silverware. I’ve always felt what they didn’t get was that Wenger basically oversaw the acquisition of a NEW STADIUM without massive debt and continued to sign exciting players and qualify for Europe every year. If I’m correct, they were consistent top 4 finishes those years. That’s insane.
And I remember Arsenal fans in this new stadium calling for his sacking. Great blog. Good luck with the rest of the year Gunners. Top 4 looks very likely.
Thanks homie!
For the record, I think a lot of Arsenal supporters look at Liverpool as the model for how we need to grow and become competitive. I’ve made fun of Liverpool a bit but overall I do think that you all get a lot right.
Best of luck in the League and Champions League this year. Rather you all than Man City!
Tim,
I don’t think you were wrong about Arteta. He was wrong for the job when you were heavily critical. He has generally made Arsenal less enjoyable to he a fan of. However, right now he seems to have turned the corner and the team is fun to watch and seemingly on a good course. You were correct then and probably correct now with your updated opinion. They can both be true.
Thank you for that. I’m specifically “apologizing” for the lack of faith and some of the tone. I was pretty harsh with one post in particulart in which I said I thought he was “mediocre”. I think I see now that he wasn’t really that mediocre.