Mikel Arteta, First-Team Manager

[KG3]

My main concern now is we are turning into Liverpool a few years back buying lots of overpriced average English players, remember when they bought Caroll, Downing, Henderson. (Tbf to Henderson he turned out to be good in the end, before klopp he was average though)

Then theirs us paying 50M for white, rumours of 30M for Ramsdale and 40M for Abraham if those other two rumours are true and we pay that money, it’ll be painful for the club for a few years like it was for Liverpool, we’ll have to get used to mediocrity for a while, I doubt we are going to get a revolutionary manager like klopp in the next few years that can fix the damage which would have been done by Arteta and Edu either.

[jayramfootball]

My main concern now is we are turning into Liverpool a few years back buying lots of overpriced average English players, remember when they bought Caroll, Downing, Henderson. (Tbf to Henderson he turned out to be good in the end, before klopp he was average though)

Then theirs us paying 50M for white, rumours of 30M for Ramsdale and 40M for Abraham if those other two rumours are true and we pay that money, it’ll be painful for the club for a few years like it was for Liverpool, we’ll have to get used to mediocrity for a while, I doubt we are going to get a revolutionary manager like klopp in the next few years that can fix the damage which would have been done by Arteta and Edu either.

We only bought one British player so far and he is an England international.
The English national team pretty damn good.

[Highbury Hillbilly]

My main concern now is we are turning into Liverpool a few years back buying lots of overpriced average English players, remember when they bought Caroll, Downing, Henderson. (Tbf to Henderson he turned out to be good in the end, before klopp he was average though)

Then theirs us paying 50M for white, rumours of 30M for Ramsdale and 40M for Abraham if those other two rumours are true and we pay that money, it’ll be painful for the club for a few years like it was for Liverpool, we’ll have to get used to mediocrity for a while, I doubt we are going to get a revolutionary manager like klopp in the next few years that can fix the damage which would have been done by Arteta and Edu either.

Yes, things were pretty dark at Liverpool from 2010-2015 transfer-wise. Dalglish went full Brexit with the Torres money, while Brendan Rodgers couldn't attract good players with the Suarez money. I remember crazy buys like £20m each for Lazar Markovic and Mamadou Sakho.

Only when Klopp arrived did Pool start bringing in top players.

[PairyGrows]

Personally, I'm struggling to get behind Arteta. I understand there's hype about him, but I don't see it. Maybe he proves me wrong, but my hopes aren't high.

[jayramfootball]

Personally, I'm struggling to get behind Arteta. I understand there's hype about him, but I don't see it. Maybe he proves me wrong, but my hopes aren't high.

I think it's fair to say he's in a position where it could go either way for him.
I'd say the club will make a decision on his future based on where we are at Christmas.

[DiamondGooner]

He hasn't changed a bit and if anything he's worse.

I can't support a manager who doesn't even know himself, has no game plan, copies better managers and is more interested in keeping players who blow his trumpet rather than build around the talent.

We finished 8th and he's changed nothing about the team.

Same formation, same starting 11 ......... all of it.

Arteta is at his best when he's playing a defensive formation, it suits his work hard and more organised work ethic more which is why we got all our best results under him when he first came here and we were playing 3-4-3.

Won a FA Cup and beat all of the top 4 teams ..........then he tried to copy Wenger and Pep and now look at us, an absolute state.

When we played Chelsea last time near end of season and won, how did we beat them? 3-4-3.

Some people don't like the formation but all I'm saying is it suits Arteta more, he's a micro managing task master, that sort of approach doesn't work when trying to create a creative, offensive team.

[Highbury Hillbilly]

He hasn't changed a bit and if anything he's worse.

I can't support a manager who doesn't even know himself, has no game plan, copies better managers and is more interested in keeping players who blow his trumpet rather than build around the talent.

We finished 8th and he's changed nothing about the team.

Same formation, same starting 11 ......... all of it.

Arteta is at his best when he's playing a defensive formation, it suits his work hard and more organised work ethic more which is why we got all our best results under him when he first came here and we were playing 3-4-3.

Won a FA Cup and beat all of the top 4 teams ..........then he tried to copy Wenger and Pep and now look at us, an absolute state.

When we played Chelsea last time near end of season and won, how did we beat them? 3-4-3.

Some people don't like the formation but all I'm saying is it suits Arteta more, he's a micro managing task master, that sort of approach doesn't work when trying to create a creative, offensive team.

Agreed. He was doing OK with the 3-4-3 Emery left him with. He was also playing PEA much closer to goal. Didn't we have our unbeaten run at home towards the end of that season?

As soon as he started bringing in his players and switched up the formation, our form collapsed and chance creation fell off a cliff.

[theHotHead]

My main concern now is we are turning into Liverpool a few years back buying lots of overpriced average English players, remember when they bought Caroll, Downing, Henderson. (Tbf to Henderson he turned out to be good in the end, before klopp he was average though)

Then theirs us paying 50M for white, rumours of 30M for Ramsdale and 40M for Abraham if those other two rumours are true and we pay that money, it’ll be painful for the club for a few years like it was for Liverpool, we’ll have to get used to mediocrity for a while, I doubt we are going to get a revolutionary manager like klopp in the next few years that can fix the damage which would have been done by Arteta and Edu either.

We only bought one British player so far and he is an England international.
The English national team pretty damn good.

Don't believe the hype Jay. They are the same that they have always been - overrated. Couldn't win the championship when EVERYTHING was in their favour and they were setup to win.

[theHotHead]

If Arteta knew what he was doing we wouldn't be loaning players left right and centre. I see it as "try before you buy" when we loan inbound and "hoping a player comes good" when we loan outbound.

It all seems to rely on hope not good coaching or good decision making.

[Phil71]

If Arteta knew what he was doing we wouldn't be loaning players left right and centre. I see it as "try before you buy" when we loan inbound and "hoping a player comes good" when we loan outbound.

It all seems to rely on hope not good coaching or good decision making.

Save the top spenders, the vast majority of clubs in all divisions across Europe are getting involved in loans rather than cash transfers.

I think this has been influenced by the impact of Covid19, but I also think it will be far more common going forward.

[jayramfootball]

My main concern now is we are turning into Liverpool a few years back buying lots of overpriced average English players, remember when they bought Caroll, Downing, Henderson. (Tbf to Henderson he turned out to be good in the end, before klopp he was average though)

Then theirs us paying 50M for white, rumours of 30M for Ramsdale and 40M for Abraham if those other two rumours are true and we pay that money, it’ll be painful for the club for a few years like it was for Liverpool, we’ll have to get used to mediocrity for a while, I doubt we are going to get a revolutionary manager like klopp in the next few years that can fix the damage which would have been done by Arteta and Edu either.

We only bought one British player so far and he is an England international.
The English national team pretty damn good.

Don't believe the hype Jay. They are the same that they have always been - overrated. Couldn't win the championship when EVERYTHING was in their favour and they were setup to win.

If I believed the hype I would believe all these foreign players raved about as superstars were actually good - when in fact the vast majority range from average to rubbish.
Right now England are amongst the very best countries in the world at the international level.
There is a reason for it - an investment in development that started over a decade ago.
It's why England have reached a final and semi-final in the last two major tournaments.

[Phil71]

Arteta out = White is overpriced and not good enough. Saliba will be the next Beckenbauer and Areta is a c*** for loaning him out.

Give Arteta more time = White is a good signing and Saliba must have been loaned out for a good reason.

[Santi]

I'll have some of this My posts in red

Well Arteta won a trophy in his first 6 months and Emery won f**k all, so if you want to make such basic incomparable arguments then we can. Btw pointing out that a 15+ year seasoned manager beat a 2nd year manager over 2 legs by 1 goal doesn't really give you a strong argument. Arteta won a trophy, but is also responsible for putting us 15th at Christmas and our first non participation in European competition for 25 years, so clearly that load of shite cancels out the good of the trophy. Emery with a shit team/squad beat Arteta over 2 legs and guess what, Emery won the Europa League with a shit team as well. Levels.

This is what annoys me about this forum, it's just a constant slinging of specific stats to suit either side of the argument and yet it goes on for days going nowhere. The stats I provided in my comparison are not cherry picked stats, I don't need to cherry pick stats when the full season of stats are there for both managers. the best comparison is the full season stats for both managers, they both only have one to choose from.

End of the day we've had shit for the last 6 years or so at least:

Wenger - once the complete and utter monsieur GOAT Arsenal manager, slowly but surely making more and more excuses as we fell down the table. Maybe some of it was right, maybe he did actually do a good job to keep us top 4 for so long but at the end of the day he was faltering and had to go. He also had enough responsibility at the club to be blamed for bad signings and therefore our slide. Few FA cups helped delay the inevitable.

Emery - first season was utter dogshit football from the off but the results were keeping him going until the top 4 choke. Had he not f***ked that up or embarrassed us in the EL final then we'd have been back on track pretty quickly. In the end it proved that he was just shit and the second season was a travesty.

Arteta - looked decent albeit not spectacular from the start, seemed to make us a bit more solid with 5 atb and guided us to another FA cup in his first season of management, a good achievement but not one to dwell on. More than his predecessor had done at the club despite 15 years experience. Second season was pretty shocking from the off and really he could've been sacked after Everton in December, scraped through that and got us playing some better stuff (by fluke or recognition who knows) in Jan/Feb before reverting to average at best football for the final 3 months.

I agree, all 3 managers were shit.

Now does it really f***ing matter whether any of them are better than the others? We've gone from 30 years experience to 15 years experience to no experience. Of course there are going to be differences, other clubs don't stand still and players move on/get older/stop performing (looking at you auba) so trying to compare Arteta to Emery is futile imo. All we should do is look at the entirety of last season and say 'that wasn't good enough, how do we improve?'. It does matter because you are standing there arguing the point in favour of Arteta, I am arguing against Arteta. If it didn't matter you wouldn't have chosen to argue for Arteta. We who argue against Arteta, for the most part, want consistency, if Emery's performance was not god enough that it warranted him getting replaced the same standard should be the case when judging Arteta, he too should be replaced.

The board have decided that the manager can improve this team so no point bursting blood vessels over it, he will be the manager for at least the first 10 games I'd imagine. Now we just have to focus on this season and how we can take maximum points with the manager, players and staff we have. It makes no sense why they would give this support to Arteta but not to Emery. Emery was a proven manager with trophies to prove it, Villareal are back in the CL next season, meanwhile Arsenal won't even be in the Europa League. Kroenke backed the wrong horse.

Given the current state of those 3 items in place, my view is that our realistic best (including no Europe) is 5th place in the league. Regardless of last season or seasons 20 years ago, I would deem that a good season because it's the maximum (again in my view) that we can achieve league wise. Signings, new manager, over-performing players could obviously change that but I'm fairly sure we'll get none of the 3. I think top 4 is perfectly achieveable, given the lack of distractions and the fact Man U have an even worse manager ... and I still don't rate Chelsea.

Gonna get pretty difficult to keep responding in line so let me try this way

I'll take your points in order

1) Yes, the poor season does take a lot of the weight off the trophy but it really should've gotten him more grace from the fans than it did last year. As of now, it means nothing anymore other than something he can point to in future for other jobs.

I did pretty much already say that though and the part about Emery I've already covered, I would more often than not, expect the far more experienced manager to beat a rookie one. There's no levels about it, it was just a poor setup from Arteta and Emery using his experience to make another final, not really much use for comparing the two...I doubt you'd be loving Arteta had he won this tie by 1 goal.

2) Well, it is cherry picking because Emery did the best in his first season and then went completely dogshit in his half season. Yes in theory the comparison works but it shows very little, there are 2 years between Emery starting his first full season and Arteta starting his. Half the squad has changed, there have been issues with players (maybe Arteta's fault) and other clubs have moved on more than us as I have already said, never mind covid making it a weird season all round. So, as was my original point, comparing the two is futile whether you think your stats are fair or not. For me it's a complete waste of time to isolate Emery's best with Arteta's worst while dressing it as 'full season stats'.

3) Good, we agree on something

4) I'm not arguing in favour of Arteta, I've said all along for the last 6-9 months than I am not really bothered about him personally. What I have always said is that I believe consistency in the managerial role is hopefully better long term than turning into Chelsea and keep sacking managers post-Wenger. Now, I'll admit, maybe in the face of all the shit thrown about on this forum I've said some things positive about Arteta but that's because of two factors;

a) He is not responsible for everything wrong with the club unlike the impression portrayed by those who don't like him on here.
b) The squad, as I have said to you personally many times, is and has been shit...for the last 5-6 years at least. Now this is what gave me hope for next season, we were finally looking to complete the huge upheaval that was necessary. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be true after all (probably shouldnt be surprised).

Now back to the above, if you have somehow read my post as arguing in favour of Arteta then you have misunderstood the entire post because you have a pre-conception that I am backing him.

Almost every post I have made on the topic is fighting against over the top bullshit against him because people are over-dramatic in my opinion. The one you have responded to was not in favour of any of the last 3 managers, you have even agreed that they are all shit in the last 6 years, so you must recognise I also believe that. I will say I think Mikel is better in his time at Arsenal than Emery was, but still don't really care, Emery is gone and Arteta must perform better this season. That is the reality.

5) Why does it make no sense? They backed Emery over Arteta the first time round when hiring him, they explicitly chose him despite liking what Arteta had to offer back then. Now I don't know what their agreements were or what promises were made but the board determined Emery didn't meet them. Personally I have no doubt it's because the players thought he was a joke and were fed up of him so they had no choice, meanwhile for Mikel that hasn't quite happened yet although Auba seems off to me. Also, the fact he hasn't lost the squad fully yet, does suggest to me that he is doing something right behind the scenes.

As for Emery getting back into Europe, that's really good for him. I felt really sorry for the guy the way it ended, he didn't seem like a bad person and I really did feel bad for him despite never liking him here. It's a classic case of a club and manager not being the right fit, I think he is suited to mid-tier Spanish teams, his time at Sevilla and now Villarreal reflect that. I wish him all the best but he was not right here.

6) That's your opinion and that's perfectly fine, I pointed out it was clearly my view as people seem to take everything anyone says as if they believe it to be fact now. You may have a different view of what this squad and manager are capable of or a different view of our competitors (like we saw in our Everton v Arsenal squad debate) so you can judge based on your expectations and I will judge on mine. I hope that will be allowed rather than being swallowed up in the usual shitshow that occurs daily on this board now.


I really hope you will take the time to comprehend what I've said, because I've been pretty fed up of this board lately but taken the time now to discuss this, in what I think is a pretty fair and open manner. If it ends up coming back to the usual 'you phil and jayram are Arteta lovers' BS then I won't bother again because it just proves the lack of comprehension on here. Note, this is not an attack on you but across the board it has become a common lazy response. I've stated my position enough times but people prefer to take cheap shots for easy likes.

I do wonder when he inevitably gets sacked, will everyone move on to Auba as the main source of divide? It is baffling that for a group of fans so passionate about the same topic, in the last 10 years there always has to be a divisive topic and a source of arguments.

[theHotHead]

My main concern now is we are turning into Liverpool a few years back buying lots of overpriced average English players, remember when they bought Caroll, Downing, Henderson. (Tbf to Henderson he turned out to be good in the end, before klopp he was average though)

Then theirs us paying 50M for white, rumours of 30M for Ramsdale and 40M for Abraham if those other two rumours are true and we pay that money, it’ll be painful for the club for a few years like it was for Liverpool, we’ll have to get used to mediocrity for a while, I doubt we are going to get a revolutionary manager like klopp in the next few years that can fix the damage which would have been done by Arteta and Edu either.

We only bought one British player so far and he is an England international.
The English national team pretty damn good.

Don't believe the hype Jay. They are the same that they have always been - overrated. Couldn't win the championship when EVERYTHING was in their favour and they were setup to win.

If I believed the hype I would believe all these foreign players raved about as superstars were actually good - when in fact the vast majority range from average to rubbish.
Right now England are amongst the very best countries in the world at the international level.
There is a reason for it - an investment in development that started over a decade ago.
It's why England have reached a final and semi-final in the last two major tournaments.

Jay, you are having a laugh mate. This was one of the WORST England squads for an international tournament since I have been alive and interested in football (since the late 70s), they flatter to deceive, they ALWAYS fall when they reach decent opposition in the actual tournaments. Everything was set for them to win, that was the worst Italy squad that I can remember. How are England one of the best at international level ? Because they smash their qualifying groups ?!! Purlease ! England are a meat and 2 veg footie team, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, Sweden, Croatia, all European teams that have thwarted England. some of them, like Croatia, are generationally good teams, as opposed to traditionally good teams.

Its rinse and repeat when it comes to England, look good until they meet a decent team ... then they lose. The run in the Euros is continued proof of that, the run in the World Cup is continued proof also. They are not at the top level, not even close to it, its arrogance like that that makes england the laughing stock, because they ALWAYS lose after running up their mouth about how they are top level.

[jayramfootball]

My main concern now is we are turning into Liverpool a few years back buying lots of overpriced average English players, remember when they bought Caroll, Downing, Henderson. (Tbf to Henderson he turned out to be good in the end, before klopp he was average though)

Then theirs us paying 50M for white, rumours of 30M for Ramsdale and 40M for Abraham if those other two rumours are true and we pay that money, it’ll be painful for the club for a few years like it was for Liverpool, we’ll have to get used to mediocrity for a while, I doubt we are going to get a revolutionary manager like klopp in the next few years that can fix the damage which would have been done by Arteta and Edu either.

We only bought one British player so far and he is an England international.
The English national team pretty damn good.

Don't believe the hype Jay. They are the same that they have always been - overrated. Couldn't win the championship when EVERYTHING was in their favour and they were setup to win.

If I believed the hype I would believe all these foreign players raved about as superstars were actually good - when in fact the vast majority range from average to rubbish.
Right now England are amongst the very best countries in the world at the international level.
There is a reason for it - an investment in development that started over a decade ago.
It's why England have reached a final and semi-final in the last two major tournaments.

Jay, you are having a laugh mate. This was one of the WORST England squads for an international tournament since I have been alive and interested in football (since the late 70s), they flatter to deceive, they ALWAYS fall when they reach decent opposition in the actual tournaments. Everything was set for them to win, that was the worst Italy squad that I can remember. How are England one of the best at international level ? Because they smash their qualifying groups ?!! Purlease ! England are a meat and 2 veg footie team, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, Sweden, Croatia, all European teams that have thwarted England. some of them, like Croatia, are generationally good teams, as opposed to traditionally good teams.

Its rinse and repeat when it comes to England, look good until they meet a decent team ... then they lose. The run in the Euros is continued proof of that, the run in the World Cup is continued proof also. They are not at the top level, not even close to it, its arrogance like that that makes england the laughing stock, because they ALWAYS lose after running up their mouth about how they are top level.

A semi final and a final, both tight games.
But apparently, England are not a top international side.