Like many of you, I am a passionate Arsenal supporter/fan, and witnessing the rather tepid defeat to Brentford FC last Friday (the 13/08/21) was hard to watch….up until I switched channels following the second of the two goals, which decided the game.
I appreciate this isn’t really what “real” supporters should do – but the performance I saw was reminiscent of many I have seen before – so why continue to watch something I already know the ending to?
However, am I one of the (many) supporters who are clamoring for something different; shouting at the TV screen (at home or at the pub – as some YouTubers have posted)? No. Am I someone who is frustrated to the point of fury at Arteta’s seemingly pedestrian form of possession-until-we-bore-the-opposition-to-death style of play? No.
Am I someone who blames EVERYTHING on Arteta (as some supporters have)? No. Is Arsenal’s decline (we can comfortably call it that) down to Arteta? No.
I believe Mikel Arteta is the right man for the job. Whether or not you, the reader, agree with me is down to your level of expectation. So do you think Arsenal should be challenging for the Top 4? Do you think we are a Champions League club? Do you think the Europa League is more our level? Do you want the owners to pump millions into the club and follow the Chelsea/Manchester City route to buying success? Do you think we are a mid-table club adrift in a sea of mediocrity?
Personally, I think we have fallen into a coma and are now classed a “sleeping giant” – brought on by almost a decade of mistakes, poor choices, financial constraints, overblown expectation, and, frankly, our rivals (both traditional and new) over-taking us with financial firepower we cannot compete with. What Arsenal need right now is not a spend-happy manager like Allegri.
Not someone who bullies their teams to win, like Mourinho. Not someone like Eddie Howe who has no experience at managing a club like ours (you might immediately think Arteta does not either, but I would say you are half-right). What Arsenal need right now is someone to lead a proper rebuild of the club; many times in the past have we spoken of a “transition period”, but these have been false dawns.
What we need is someone who has ideas, to come into the club and restructure the football philosophy of the club, bring in players to play a defined system and, importantly, blood younger players to create a conveyor of (cheap) talent who play “the Arsenal way”. Arteta is the man for the job.
Many of Arsenals issues began under the dog years of Arsene Wenger. I was “Wenger Out” in perhaps the last 1-2 years of his reign, simply because I thought he should have gone after winning one of the three FA Cups he secured in his last four years. However, during the final years of his tenure, we played side-to-side, back-passing stale football which worked as we had the talent to deliver.
However, after a while, supporters became so familiar that real contempt set in, and ultimately the supporters drove Wenger out while the likes of Ivan Gazidis played the willing executioner (so he could, in his eyes, finally do his job). The club became used to falling short when it mattered in the Premier League and Champions League. We became a solid FA Cup team but even three of these in four years (!) were almost met with a decided “meh” by the Arsenal faithful.
We wanted Champions League and Premier League (again) trophies and nothing else would suit. When “Wenger Ball” worked, it was poetry. However, the diminishing talent replacing better players diluted Wengers’ vision of “total football” and we became a reliably average team, punching above our weight.
Arsenal have never been big spenders. We have always operated a self-sustaining model of financing the club and transfer business. This was very much the case pre-Kroenke and was one of the (many) reasons he took over the club in the first place. Stan Kroenke has an empire of sports “franchises” which are also decidedly average but he does not have so deep a pocket that he can pump millions of dollars of his own wealth into them to make them title contenders in their own fields and leagues.
Abramovich, for example, is a one-club man and will happily “invest” his money into his “passion project”. Kroenke won’t and I don’t blame him. I agree you don’t buy a sports club to win trophies, because the odds are so remote of guaranteed success that any businessman/woman would not consider such an endeavour a wise business decision in its own right.
You buy a club to make money and if it can self-finance its own existence, without the need for “outside investment”, then all the better. This does not marry with my desire for Arsenal to accumulate trophies, but that is the reality of the current world as we know it.
Wenger’s departure left a chasm of the kind Manchester United felt when Alex Ferguson retired. However, Gazidis and the Executive Management failed to prepare for life post-Wenger. This was a dereliction of duty. The Executive Committee created in Wengers wake; comprising Gazidis, Sven Mislintat, Raul Sanllehi and Vinai Venkatesham, was a case of too many cooks.
Too many cooks with big egos, jostling for position for control and ultimately ended up imploding; a fragile “structure” put together in haste but without an actual clue of how to run a football club.
The appointment of Unai Emery was made given his ability to operate within financial constrains successfully while also bringing an organised, diligent and dynamic style of play. Language barriers, a failed attempt to keep ego’s in check (Ozil anyone?) and a confused, impotent style of play ultimately cost him.
Which leads us to the appointment of Arteta, who applied for the role at the same time as Emery but was considered inexperienced next to his compatriot.
Mikel Arteta is an “Arsenal Man”. When he came to the club in the final days of the 2011 summer transfer window (taking a pay cut), he became the clubs captain between 2014 until his eventual departure in 2016. By many accounts, he became indispensable, dependable, showed leadership qualities in the changing room and further afield and was, generally, very well-liked by all at Arsenal.
He broke down in tears when he left in 2016, showing just how much he came to adore the club before he left to join Pepe Guardiola at Manchester City as an Assistant Coach.
Arteta spoke of giving players clean slates. He spoke of being ruthless. He said there were no excuses. I have heard him say these things many times and I cannot recall a moment when he has gone back on any of these things. The Mesut Ozil “situation” has never come to light, but I am willing to believe Arteta gave him a chance of redemption (if you can call it that) but ultimately it wasn’t meant to be. I think both parties are to blame there; Ozils PR attempts to look like the spurned, faithful servant rang hollow to me. A smooth operator that one.
Arteta clearly has ideas and a style of play many consider to be “Guardiola Light” but I think this is reductive. Playing out from the back, possession-based football which suffocates the opposition and creates changes is something many clubs have/are adopting following Barcelona’s successes using this style of play (AKA Tiki-taka).
Guardiola needed a season to impose this at Manchester City and many millions spent in transfer fees. Anyone remember Claudio Bravo? We have Bernd Leno. Arteta’s masterplan depends on having the right players – at the moment he doesn’t. Yes, Arsenal (not Arteta) have given out contract-extensions to players many consider mediocre/average, but, in the current climate, the financial outlay extending a contract is less than buying in someone new; especially if that someone isn’t available or comes at such a premium it precludes other transfer business.
The signings of Ben White and Sambi Lakonga (as well as contract extensions handed to Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith-Rowe etc) are indicative of Arteta’s plan – pure “Arsenal” youth with bags of raw talent requiring diversion into a dynamic style of play. However, youth needs supplementing with experience and, right now; we do not have the requisite experience to propel the club into the Top 6, we have experienced players to maintain a top 10 position that need replacing.
We finished 8th two-seasons running for a reason, that is simply were we are in our evolution which the likes of Manchester United went through post-Ferguson, Chelsea experienced with/post-Mourinho and Liverpool experienced in the early years of Jurgen Klopp’s tenure. We are following this well-trodden path too.
A major mistake of Arteta’s reign was the signing of Willian. Everyone saw that as a sensible proposal on paper at the time. A seasoned pro, decorated with Champions League and Premier League trophies with international experience with Brazil. Someone who could add experience to the first-team, let alone the developing youngsters. Whatever the reason, this was a failure but no sensible person can blame Arteta for this.
Yes, he played him at the expense of our younger players; however Arteta was not to know if the likes of Saka and ESR were truly ready for Premier League football while any new manager (either to the career or role) would lean on experience to get them through the bulk of a season. The emergence of our younger players was “by accident” to a point, but Arteta would have known their quality in advance (working with former teammate Per Mertesacker at Hale End) unless he would not have had them in the squad, let alone on the bench.
Ultimately, he did what the fans wanted; the youth played and became integral to the latter stages of the 2020/2021 season. Much talk is made of Arsenal being the 3rd best form team last year after the Christmas period – this is due to Arteta’s tactics largely working out and him having the players available to deliver it to a point. We also had one of the best defensive records that year. Arteta solved a major issue in fixing our leaky, unorganized defence. If you disagree then we will have to agree to disagree on that point.
The ongoing covid-19 pandemic has had an almost biblical impact on football (one for another post) but in terms of Arsenals’ ability to deal in the transfer market, it has been material. Arteta and Edu had a game plan for the 2021/2022 summer transfer window and clearly this has yet to really pay off (at time of writing on the 15/08/21). Players who Arteta and Edu would early love to jettison have no takers.
Players they would love to sign come at an additional +20% premium as vendor clubs look to any and all opportunities to repair damaged finances. We operate a self-sustaining model and do not have the resources other clubs do. So we need to be patient and do the best business we can. Maybe more “stop-gap” signings will be made. Maybe we will sign Houssem Aouar (hopefully you are also wondering why no other European club has gone in for him) or James Maddison.
Maybe we will re-sign Martin Odegaard (hopefully). Many supporters think just buying a player at the asking price is needed to not only get that player but also improve the team; this is simplistic to the point of farcical. Players cost more than the fee reported and if a club make such an outlay, they need to be as certain as they can the investment will be rewarded. We signed Willian on a free transfer for all the right reasons – imagine if we spent £25m on a Willian-esque player and ended up with an expensive bench warmer.
Aubameyang’s contract extension was almost demanded by supporters (as his goals were a key reason for our FA Cup win as well as league position) but who would have known his form would evaporate? Arteta made the right call but, ultimately, it is on the player to deliver and Aubameyang is older, wiser and talented enough to do so.
Yes, the Arsenal board could sack Arteta by Christmas if results do not meet the clubs or supporters expectations. Then where do you turn? An experienced manager, such as Allegri or Antonio Conte, come at a premium and will only do so if they can fund expensive quick fixes, which guarantee instant success their reputations/egos demand.
They are not project builders or ones to rely on youth. Arsenal cannot afford to hire/fire managers in the pursuit of trophies, as we are not in a position to challenge for them in the first place. We will become Tottenham Hotspur in that scenario and no one wants that.
We need someone like Mikel Arteta. Yes, he has made mistakes and has doggedly stuck to his guns on certain topics. However, so did Alex Ferguson (who almost got the sack in his first year). So did Arsene Wenger. So does Carlo Ancelotti. So does Pepe Guardiola. Any manager worth investing in does have a plan, one they will see-out and not waver from.
We need that stability, that certainty. We cannot afford to flip-flop between managers, styles of play, or expensive “hail Mary” signings in a desperate attempt to get back to our glory days. To do so would be expensive (in terms of financial as well as the little credibility we have) and only cause to sink our club further down the table.
Mikel Arteta has a plan, and any plan worth having takes time to implement. A restructure of a club cannot be done in 1-2 years. The temptation to gamble on chasing silverware needs to be avoided if we want to return to the consistent success we had under Wenger.
As yet, we do not know if Arteta will be successful at Arsenal. However, he needs time to build our club back to where we want it to be. We haven’t won the Premier League title in 17 years, what makes you think we can challenge for it now? We are out of any European competition (which many supporters thought would benefit us – and I agree) and this opportunity needs to be used to claw our way back up the table. I believe it will be. Mikel Arteta needs the remainder of the season to prove his worth, and I for one believe he will.
Finally, there is nothing wrong with being passionate. There is nothing wrong with being angry when we lose. There is nothing wrong with questioning the manager, his tactics, and choices.
However, there is everything wrong with being abusive and insulting. Not just to Mikel Arteta, but to fellow supporters. How about we all hold judgment until the end of the current season and see where we land?
Be prepared to be proven wrong as well as right. If Arteta succeeds, we all do. If he fails, we are back to square one pre-Arteta. He is an Arsenal Man. He cares. His reputation and credibility on the line. If you do not “trust the process”, then trust his ambition and drive.
Trust the fact he was once a player we cheered and commiserated with. If you don’t trust our American owners, trust the Arsenal people who run our club. We all want the same thing and, I believe, we will get there eventually.
Let’s all hope for success, however, you define it, and hope Arteta can deliver. I believe he can, and so should you.
The Twelfth Man (@mercurialwinger)