I don’t think this is a fair comparison because it is too early to say how the youth project is going. Last season it was mainly Saka and ESR, while Arteta was giving mixed messages with his picks of Wilian for the first half of the season and holding back Martinelli and loaning out Saliba. It was actually that incoherence that I was criticizing Arteta the most, because it was a con to say “trust the plan” when it was hard to see any plan.
The youth plan has really only clarified after transfer business this summer (Ramsdale, Sambi, White, Tavares). As good as the signings individually may be, it still has to be given more chance to bed together. Arsene had a number of seasons with his youth projects, although there are specific things like bad luck with injuries that hampered him.
There is no youth project.
It’s a myth perpetuated by Arteta and Edu to keep their jobs.
A real youth project is what genuine top managers like Wenger and Ferguson used to do.
They would find players from the youth set up and gradually incorporate them into the first team to play alongside more experienced quality players.
Arteta spending 200m on younger players does not represent a project, he’s just an entitled manager who doesn’t feel he has to use any players already at the club but must be given a massive budget to take us absolutely nowhere.
How anyone thinks that this poor excuse of a manager should still be in a job is unbelievable but until the equally clueless Kroenke realises how incompetent he is, we’re stuck with him.
The Kroenkes and Arteta have been in a dynamic where they protect each other. Arteta became the PR man for the Kroenke’s after the ESL debacle. It’s not really about Stan (and Josh) being incompetent in that regard. Arteta has been useful for them.
Exactly.
No other team would spend 200m on “youth project” and ask for more time for the players to get mature and grow.
200m on 5/6 players needs immediate improvement and challenge.
Scraping results against inferior teams and not able to “challenge” the superior teams are not good signs.
IMO, probably White and Tomiyasu are the real deals here.
Guen cannot be worse than Sambi.
With Saliba and White to accompany Gabriel, with Tomiyasu and Tierney, I truly believe Leno could be more consistent. Might not have some super saves like Ramsdale but he would be sufficient and more stable.
Tavares, sorry, an all out attacking full back is not helping our defense much really.
Sambi, really not needed also. AMN is sufficient.
The money we could have saved, should get us a better midfielder (I think Ode is still good if we have better tactics/manager) or a striker.
The United game in any other context wouldn’t be such a big deal if Mikel hadn’t already been on probation. The loss against a poor United side is getting to conclusive proof territory. The fact that we have no extra fixtures to play as we’re out of Europe is just further evidence of Mikel’s limitations.
Mikel and Edu get credit for assembling some good young talent that a top manager could do more with. With spots available in attack and midfield there’s the prospect of a new manager bringing in their signings.
There’s no big manager available so I get why Mikel would get until the end of the season. If we’re not top 4, which I don’t think will happen, then it’s MASSIVE that we get rid and bring in someone new.
Leicester-Win
Watford-Win
Liverpool-Loss
Newcastle-Win
Man U-Loss
9 points from 15.
Beat Everton and 12 from 18 is achieved. Somehow, the manner of losses against Liverpool and United just show Arteta hasn’t been able to fix some of our issues even after 2 years in charge.
I’m not angry with Edu. I think his squad management has been positive and I think outside of a couple of shady deals like Cedric and Mari, he’s pretty much got the deals spot on.
The squad isn’t perfect but he’s got rid of a lot of dross and actively put Kolasinac, Xhaka, Lacazette and Bellerin on the market too.
I’m happy to continue with Edu, I’m just not sure there’s really much more we’re going to extract from Arteta. We’ve lost over 30% of our league games this season which is astonishing at this stage in the season. We have lost 5 of our opening 14 games and we’re pretty behind a club who sacked their manager and likely to fall behind another club that sacked their manager (United).
I didn’t expect us to finish top 3 this season but the expectation should really be 4th. Arteta has had 2 years, hundreds of millions in transfer investment and plenty of patience and goodwill.
The Liverpool result didn’t make me as mad as the United one did. They were poor beyond belief and we never really managed to make them uncomfortable. We got a goal from DDG laying on the floor and another from some well worked play but outside of that I didn’t see much in the game that made me think we’ve really progressed.
I’m no expert on managers by any means but Ten Hag at Ajax is one I’ve heard allot lately. Makes sense with the style of play and the Overmars/AFC connection.
We really need a manager to push us back into a CL spot.
Kieran Gibbs on Arteta: “Anyone who played with Mikel throughout his career will tell you he was destined to be a manager. He’s got something extra you can’t explain, that extra love for the game.
Loads of players love the game and I’m sure loads of them have got that “extra” but it doesn’t mean we should be employing them.
When will the Arteta PR machine realise that, no matter how many ex players they can get to come out and tell us about Arteta’s genius, most of us aren’t buying it?
Since when have we been taking advice from Kieran Gibbs?
Im really curious. Do people really believe that an Arteta “PR machine” exist? Like an actual organised group of people working to boost Artetas reputation?
No, but as an example, I don’t think Athletic favorable coverage of him to date matches up with results. I think truth we can all acknowledge here is if he was at any other club of Arsenal’s size he wouldn’t still be in his job.
I don’t know but I’ve never known such an underwhelming manager have so many ex players come out to say how brilliant he is, especially when he is under pressure.
