I’ve reflected now and I’m proud of him.
My big criticism of Arteta is the lack of variety in how he approaches games this season. Watching Napoli they’ve made so many adjustments over the course of the season to deal with injuries, departure of key players and seem to always be finding a way to get the result.
Hasn’t worked for City this season but even Pep often changed formations and system around depending on the opponent.
We’ve basically approached every game with the same formation even when the injuries really tallied up and got out of hand.
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He’s done this for the majority of his tenure
Really frustrating
He adapted when Odegaard was out tbf but other than that I agree.
He also stuck with that change (Trossard/Havertz double act up top) even when it stopped working. So at the same time can criticise for that.
What do we call the usage of Tierney at LB/LW, Nwaneri at RW(compared to #8/#10 earlier in the season), Zinchenko in midfield, Calafiori at RB and Timber at CB?
I’d say he’s mixed it up quite a bit this season, probably the most he’s ever done so.
For the most part forced changes
He is lacking in invention, creativity and ideas
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If he persisted with any of them of them it’ll turn out like Partey at RB and people would be losing their shit every time he used it.
I think some people (and you can include me as one too to be honest) have had enough with the Merino up top experiment.
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I never understood the idea that because he got those two goals off the bench at Leicester it meant we should persist with him up top moving forward. It felt like Arteta made that decision in the moment because it worked and it may have given the team confidence going into the West Ham match to stick with it, but even with the players we have out Merino is by no means the best option there.
It’s hard to be too critical given the lack of options in the last month but it didn’t feel like something that was thought through at all, he stumbled upon it and crossed his fingers that we could get by with it and it’s fixed nothing for us.
I think the last two to three seasons, there was largely a structure in place but Arteta appeared to set the team up based on the opponent in front of him.
The immediate example that springs to mind is Tomi-San locking Salah down and this was a very pointed approach to that game specifically.
We do not have a fully fit squad so this skews the result somewhat but it does look like we have fully embraced the structural approach with little room to invent new systems or plays (whatever you want to call it). Even being forced to play players in different positions because of the injury crisis, it still doesn’t yield any positives.
The criticism I would put forward to Arteta and his team or coaches is that it’s great to have a style of play or a general system but maybe their is a time and place for that. We still have serviceable players that are capable of playing in a different way - so why can the coaches not look at this and adjust our style. The likelihood is that we catch teams off-guard with our approach and bamboozle them for a time until we begin to get our first teamers back.
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Tierney wouldn’t have gotten a sniff without the injuries.
Nwaneri playing RW similar albeit he had some minutes before Saka got injured. That’s not changing any approach though it’s just a player swap.
Zinchenko has come on as a sub about 3 times in midfield.
The one thing he has done is try Merino up front, again due to injuries and his refusal to look at Sterling but still not convinced we’ve maximised that or changed approach. We haven’t started going longer or putting more crosses in than before to suit the available players.
His subs are the same, largely like for like and rarely changing the structure.
Great manager but a valid criticism in my book.
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Example, we could’ve gone back to his original back 5 given the lack of forward options:
Raya
Saliba - Gabriel - Cala
Timber —————— Tierney
Partey - Rice
Odegaard ————— Nwaneri / Trossard
Merino
Put the onus more on wing play and crosses (revert to prime emery ball) while keeping Odegaard out there for the combination with Timber. Can also try Odegaard deeper next to rice and play both wingers.
Just something different to adapt to the issues. Might be shit as well but who knows.
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Exactly and its a bit nuts imo. You can’t rely on Tierney as your first choice LB to play every game but as a rotation option he’s one of the best squad players we had and we farmed him off to Real Sociedad.
Fast forward 12 months and he’s been brought on at left fucking wing at Old Trafford to win us a game.
Arteta must be embarrassed
Take some notes Mikel:
Long n boring u got that right
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I genuinely feel like our tactics are designed to just frustrate the opponent into a position until they get bored and end up making mistakes for us to capitalise on 
Did you actually watch the game?
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A win against West Ham and a win against Forest or United and we would have caught these Scouse frauds.
https://x.com/SkySportsPL/status/1901304456198918339
Comedian as well
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Got a good chuckle out of that.