Bear with me, this may be a tough article to follow but I am going to attempt to argue with myself. Yep, this is what supporting Arsenal has reduced me to, resembling a man with a split personality shouting at himself in the shower. Alas, as Gooners we cannot escape the Mikel Arteta debate as it’s something we see online every single day.
Whichever side you stand on, you can’t help but feel the urge to state your case daily against those who oppose your view. We’ve gone from the Arsene Knows Best and the Wenger Out Brigade era to the Everyone Hates Emery train to Arteta In vs Arteta Out. As of writing, I don’t know which side I stand on but perhaps after this article, I will.
*Deep breathe* Here goes nothing…
#ArtetaIn: “He needs to be backed.”
Mikel Arteta has a great footballing mind, when he first arrived 16 months ago the way he articulated his intentions for the club was so refreshing. He spoke exactly in the manner I would expect of a man that got his footballing education from Arsene Wenger, Pep Guardiola, and David Moyes.
In modern football, the best teams cannot survive on ideas alone, they need investment. Jurgen Klopp wouldn’t have been able to take Liverpool from 7th place to European Champions without spending £514m to acquire 28 players, likewise, Pep Guardiola has also spent £500m since taking over in 2016. Let’s not even get started with Manchester United because their figures are astronomical.
The point of the matter is, no manager of a top team can succeed without serious backing in the transfer window. So far, Mikel Arteta has only spent £80m across three transfer windows. That’s a start, but nowhere near the required amount for a rebuild this big.
#ArtetaOut: “But, he’s already brought in some players.”
You flippantly mention £80m like it’s a minuscule investment, but that money brought in; Thomas Partey, Gabriel Magalhaes, Cedric, Pablo Mari, Matthew Ryan, Alex Runarsson, Willian plus Martin Odegaard on loan. That’s 8 players. So, how many signings does a manager need before he can start implementing his own ideas? 25? Come on. In addition to these signings, the Spaniard convinced Xhaka to stay, re-integrated Elneny, froze out Nelson & Nketiah, gave Aubameyang the biggest contract in the club’s history and decided against loaning out Rob Holding. You can’t say he hasn’t had his imprint on this squad.
The job of a manager is to get the best out of what you have available. Of course, you can argue that he doesn’t have the personnel he wants for a particular style, but that’s not an excuse to underperform. If they can’t execute your preferred philosophy, you adjust the system to their strengths instead. You cannot tell me that the current crop of players we have are mid-table quality, they are not. As it stands, we have the fifth highest wage bill in the league, but our position doesn’t reflect that.
#ArtetaIn: “You have to trust the process.”
Rome wasn’t built in a day, no great empire can be constructed without due process. In footballing terms, the bad decisions and loser’s mentality of the previous regime must be uprooted before progress can be made. Under Arteta, we’re looking to build a dynasty that will dominate European football across the next decade.
When the Spaniard first joined a lot of his refreshing rhetoric swirled around the word ‘culture’. Our manager wants to change things from the ground up, such a process could never happen in under two years. Philosophies not only have to be adopted but embedded into the mindset of every single person associated with the club.
Even his most ardent detractors will be hard-pressed to say they haven’t seen many examples of Arteta Ball over the past 16 months. Some of the patterns of play, automatisms and positional play we’ve seen have been right out of the handbook of Pep Guardiola. This shows Arteta can effectively communicate his ideas to a squad that haven’t been used to such, so imagine what he’ll be able to do after one more year.
#ArtetaOut: “Trust the process that’s seen him lose close to a third of the games he’s managed?”
You say process, I see a gradual decline. I can’t trust a process that’s seen my team slide down the table more than it did in the previous tenures. We hounded our greatest ever manager out of the club because he missed out on UCL football two years in a row, a feat we would die for today. We gave Unai Emery his marching papers because 1) he kept saying ‘Good Ebening’ and 2) he missed out on the top four by one point and lost a European final. Two things our current manager can only dream of getting close to. How do you explain that in Wenger’s last 50 games we had a 54%-win ratio, in Emery’s first 50 it was 49%, under Arteta, it’s been a shocking 42%? That is not a process, that is decline.
Well, that was exhausting…
Personally, I don’t know which side I stand on. I like Mikel Arteta and think he’s going to be a great coach, whether he should be doing his work experience at a club of our stature is another argument. I think he has interesting ideas and has shown promising signs, but I struggle to look past our alarming number of losses and league position. Having said that, Mikel has credit in the bank for me, the FA Cup and Community Shield triumphs were special, especially in a time where nobody gave us chance to achieve such. I feel he will come good and am willing to see how he does next season with a squad he can call more his own.
Regardless of how you feel personally about the manager, we as Arsenal fans must always do our best to support the team. Every time an Arsenal game kicks off, agendas & sentiments must be put aside for the betterment of our beloved club.
If you enjoyed this piece, let me know in the comments or if you didn’t you can abuse me on Twitter (@APresserV2).