I was in the middle of an end of transfer window reprise of my previous article (“In defence of: Mikel Arteta and the process”) however I had the pleasure of listening to a recent The Athletic Podcast featuring Mark Chapman, Art de Roche, David Ornstein and Adam Crafton (link as follows: https://youtu.be/gJVNTIl_hEc) and couldn’t help be quite annoyed by the flow of discussion. So I have retooled it.
Usually, I try to find a balanced and impartial view of all things Arsenal. But I’m not going to do that here. If you are solidly #ArtetaOut and aren’t willing to at least soften your position, maybe stop reading now. From here on I am mounting my defence of the club as a whole from the very reductive, short-sighted and lazy criticism it has received of late.
Arsene Wenger
Very rarely will you hear Arsene Wenger mentioned when the clubs problems are discussed nowadays. Why? Surely a manager who retired in 2018 is an irrelevance now we are 3 years on? No – a resounding no. Arsene Wenger was the absolute keystone to the entire club for the vast majority of his tenure as manager for 22 years.
Initially, he had the support of David Dein (who was responsible for his hire in the first place; remember “Arsene Who?”) however when Dein left, the Arsenal ownership/Board allowed Arsene to assume full control. This being a fairly benign Arsenal ownership who took a backseat to the operations of the club (remind you of anyone?).
We can argue whether this was right or wrong (to allow one man to control everything) but he did, and it worked for a while. During this period, there were no structures put in place to compensate, no senior figures or “football people” (more on these characters later) to challenge.
Arsene was King and so long as results were good, no one cared. Arsene was more or less to credit/blame for the move from Highbury to The Emirates (see my other blog posts for more on that) but it represented the club moving with the times and seeking to boost its revenue to compete with its Premier League and European rivals.
Around this time, Stan Kroenke began to increase his shareholding, buying into the club and (more importantly) Arsene Wenger as the man who was moving the club forward both on and off the pitch.
However, the financial strain of funding the new stadium meant the club had to live more within its own means as it had before. Yes, revenue would increase with The Emirates move and continued Champions League participation. However, the club were now financing a £390m funding structure (having funded the development of the stadium at higher interest rates) from cash flow which was already restricted as one of the major covenants was interest cover via charges over cash – held on account (in escrow almost) and couldn’t be used by the club to fund transfers.
Hence our performance on the pitch began to suffer as we relied on (talented) youth and cheaper signings with every passing transfer window. We could not go and buy premium quality our rivals could – it was either made at Hale End or we looked to the bargain bin.
Arsene had the gift of finding unknown talent (or damaged goods) and moulding them into world-class players, culminating in The Invincibles. However, the football World was watching. Slowly but surely, everyone began to catch up and Arsene was no longer the pioneer, he was Le Professeur but everyone else had now graduated. By the time Arsene Wenger left, our commercial business was firmly “OK” but football-wise, we were now down the table and in the second-tier of European Football (and with it, lower-income streams).
Arsene Wenger leaving tore the heart and brain out of the club. As brutal as that reads, it’s true.
There was no structure left behind, no credible “football people” to take the helm. Arsene was Arsenal and what was needed was a full, top to tail rebuild.
Post-Arsene Wenger/Unai Emery/The Kroenkes
Enter Ivan Gazidis. He and Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi replaced Arsene but proved to be a case of Jack’s of all trades and masters of none. Gazidis promptly jumped ship and political infighting driven by ego, and not the interests of the club, led to this brave new world becoming false dawn.
During this period of turbulence, not stability, Unai Emery was appointed as Wengers’ replacement.
Rather than rebuild the squad, a few players where purchased to augment what Wenger left behind and what was put on the pitch never convinced as a structurally sound football team.
What about the Kroenkes? They are not “football people” and they don’t have to be. I don’t know why this is an issue or why it’s seen as a negative. Are the Glazers? Is John Henry? Abramovich isn’t. Sheikh Mansour absolutely isn’t. Mike Ashley famously sat with the fans and that didn’t work.
The owners of West Ham are Porn Barons. The owners of Leicester are retailers. The owners of Leeds are in media. So because its Arsenal the fact the Kroenkes don’t appear to know much about football (or so we are led to believe) is a massive issue – but not other clubs. Give me a break.
Their role is to finance the club and manage its commercial aspects (which there is room for improvement). They rubber-stamp the decisions made by the “football people” who make up the Arsenal management – who actually run the club.
The Arsenal Decision Makers
Apart from the Kroenkes, who make up the key decision-makers in the club?
Lord Harris of Peckham. Appointed in 2005 and comes from a retailer family (founders of Carpetright). Knows and understands the club but has never kicked a ball, professionally at least. He knows business though, so I don’t think his skill-set would go to waste providing oversight to the commercial aspects of the club.
Tim Lewis. A lifelong Arsenal fan (good start), Lewis is a lawyer by trade and was involved in Arsenal dating back to 2011 as the advisor to the Kroenkes – who later appointed him to the Board in 2020. Sanllehi soon received his P45, which tells you Lewis was there to clean the house. Does it matter Lewis doesn’t have direct experience of football? No. It does not.
His specialism is corporate law, governance, corporate structures but also being the eyes and ears of the Kroenkes (who have other interests aside from Arsenal to manage). There is no such thing as “football law” or “sports law”. The law is the law. So Lewis doesn’t need football experience to make him effective at his job. He is a specialist and is there to make sure the club is run properly and smoothly.
Vinai Venkatesham was appointed Managing Director following Gazidis’s departure in 2018 and then CEO in 2020. He has worked at the club since 2010, is Oxford-educated and has also worked in sport as a Non-Exec Director for the British Olympic Association.
This man knows Arsenal from top to bottom and has worked in a variety of roles in the club. Again, to what degree is his experience of football matters not adequate for the job? He has worked in a Premier League football club for 11 years – is this not experienced enough?
Edu Gaspar. Edu, as you know, is a former Invincible. This man played for the club (as an actual footballer) and beforehand held roles at Corinthians, assisted the Brazilian National Team during the 2014 World Cup and was General coordinator of Brazil until 2019 where he became Arsenals first Technical Director.
So not only has he played the sport but he has done so for Arsenal and Brazil (which has one of the greatest footballing legacies in the sports history) and now works for the club he used to play for. His experience is limited to South American football, so what? A Latin region from which many players and super star herald and shares cultural similarities with Spanish clubs? This is insufficient somehow?
Mikel Arteta
I have written about Mikel Arteta already. He is an Arsenal Man and understands the club as well as, of course, being a former professional footballer. Maybe the realisation he is not “Guardiola Lite” (the box “learned” football commentators put him in) is a cause for people questioning his ability?
That he didn’t just turn up one day and, hey presto, Arsenal are playing the kind of football the blue half of Manchester play on a regular basis. Arteta is his own man. He has a clear plan to drive the improvement at Arsenal. Unfortunately for him, results have to be good NOW! We must win trophies NOW!
The rebuild that has been needed for at least a decade needs to happen NOW! NOW! NOW! Arteta has learned from the best coach in the world, played for the best manager and now has a chance to put that into practice. He became a manager before the covid-19 pandemic (the impact and ongoing issues from which are easily dismissed by some – for some illogical reason) and is now in charge of the rebuild the club has been crying our for, for years.
Thanks to prudent investment at Hale End and more obvious financial assistance from the club/Kroenkes, Arteta has assembled a truly exciting team. Yes, he has made mistakes – he will. And will again. Some of the most decorated and successful managers do and did (Ferguson and Wenger made plenty of duff signings and tactical choices) but because he is under the insane microscope that nearly all other managers aren’t, he is judged on each answer to a question, each substitution, each tactical choice, each transfer, each perfectly styled hair on his head. Its ridiculous.
Yes, the style of play is lacking – but Arteta has been without the players he needs. Once he has them and his team has played a consistent run of games, then you can judge if his system, tactics and gamelan are worthy of scrutiny.
Conclusion
Bottom line: if you have no experience managing a club, coaching a team, playing the sport, working in finance, formulating and executing a game plan, winning trophies etc, then what are you doing? If you don’t work in a club and know how things are being run, what decisions are being made and why, then how are YOU best placed to pass judgement so confidently and with the finality of someone who does have the above experience?
Arsenal, for many, many reasons, have fallen down the table. Fallen while others have sped ahead. It’s a two-way street. We are no longer part of the “top 2”. Older supporters and observers were used to Arsenal being one half of the centre of power in English football for so long. Its a different world/galaxy now than you remember. Please, kindly get over this and stop judging the club through your rose-tinted glasses that are fixed permanently on the past.
Arteta is the man for the job, unless you can point to someone who could do a better job without requiring a massive transfer budget commitment, a recklessly financially frivolous owner or an existing squad of serial trophy winners? Arsenal need a rebuild.
Arsenal need rebuilding. Rebuilding takes time, whether you like it or not. Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea all spent time outside the European places in order to rebuild themselves. We don’t have their resources so it will take us longer. It’s a fact that we have to live with. Arteta will do it, if he’s given time. He must be, otherwise, the rebuild of the club will be protracted for longer.
So next time you want to stick the boot in for some cheap commentary to create “content” or fill the airwaves, please actually give us some considered opinion with context and insight.
Half baked opinions based on simply what you see on the pitch for 90 minutes aren’t useful, constructive or informative. Arteta will succeed if he is given support and time, something the club cannot afford not to give him.