RC8 wrote:
Anzac wrote:
IMO his biggest error has been to err on the side of experienced international players acting like such for the team and club ahead of individual agendas based upon career.
This was also Wenger's undoing and Emery's and even Freddie's.
Arteta came in and showed that working as a team we could be a solid, hard to beat defensive unit.
But going forward we are encountering the same blocks we have had since Santi and Sanchez stopped bailing us out.
My beliefs are that:
a) We should have overhauled the squad instead of sacking Wenger if we wanted a real solution to our problems. If Wenger got in the way of doing that he should have been kicked out too, but getting rid of Arsene without starting over with a different team was stupid.
b) Emery forced us to sack him due to his poor communications skill, but a lot of what went wrong under him was down to our terrible squad and to the fact we bought Pepe instead of Zaha (his preferred target).
c) My gut feeling is we should have given Freddie longer to see what someone who understood the squad and would prioritise youth could do with it.
d) Arteta was a gamble but he is clearly smart, driven, and knowledgeable. People with these traits, given time, can often turn bad situations around. He did a good job last year and this year he had no pre-season and a nightmare schedule.
e) In spite of the above, Arteta's reluctance to play the Europa squad in the league is extremely difficult to understand from the outside.
Therefore: I am willing to give Arteta more time, but only if he starts playing the exciting players who have been performing in Europe, and stops behaving like everyone else who failed before him.
a) AW was part of the problem in that he was in charge of recruiting.
b) Agreed re Emery - I also think he was a 'victim' of inheriting the culture under AW as much as the squad.
c) We could have given Freddie more time and more staff resources.
d) IMO Arteta has struggled once teams figured out his shape and tactics from last season and how to nullify the threat of the left flank bias. He has since tried to balance the play/threat on both flanks, but has gutted the middle.
This has meant Xhaka can no longer play the false LB/CBL role and is more exposed at CMD/DM, but he also still drops into the same positions
on the pitch, which in turn creates a bigger hole between defence and attack than we already have/had.
Arteta also needs to start to back himself and his end game rather than compromises because he doesn't have the players he wants.
For example IF he believes and inverted 3 man midfield is the shape he wants to resolve the creativity issues, then he needs to play it. If he wants physicality in midfield then he needs to use the likes of AMN / Willock in lieu of Partey.
