Wilson wrote:
Ricky1985 wrote:
Southampton is a well run club, they use their resources well, and their squad, limited in quality as it may be, is fit for the coach's purpose. Cedric Soares' switch from there to here perfectly illustrates the different approach of both clubs - and obviously does not reflect well on the idiots running ours!
Just saying "is our squad the 15th best in the League? No! So he has to go". Is the sort of unidimensional analysis I didn't think I would see on here. And certainly the line that also crops up about Arteta needing "11 perfect footballers" is an absurd way to look at a squad that has the paltry midfield options we have.
Arteta is struggling with this lot badly. Obviously that is true. But is it because he's suddenly a bad coach or not able to motivate players to play for him? Because that clearly wasn't true for the 6 months prior to this run of terrible results. Could it be that he has a poorly put together squad that are mostly very happy with being overpaid underachievers? Or is it some of both, and if so to what extent? How much of the chaos is due to the turmoil off the pitch caused by the global pandemic that has killed the transfer market and altered the dynamics of top level football to an extent not seen before? How much has the club-created turmoil contributed, driven by the utter ineptitude of those above Arteta that have run the club in the past few years? And that's a long list of decision makers that have added to the chaos and then promptly left the building.
We were incredibly well organised, tactically spot on, exhibited a very, very well coordinated press, had clear and effective attacking patterns, even if they were mostly based around counter-attacking, and the players were clearly  putting a lot into every game - that was the case for the overwhelming majority of the first 9 or 10 months of Arteta's time here. I'm not sure what has happened since, and it is slipping away from him for sure, but basking in the glory of a bit of success is hardly new to players that make up most of this squad.
January is pretty much here - big things have to happen. One of the effects of pandemic has been for us to limp through half a season with 10 players on the books that know full well that Arteta doesn't want them here, some of which have been completely ostracised because of their shit attitude too and are no doubt causing big problems - the club need to back the manager and get these players out of the club, give Arteta a chance of moulding and then controlling a squad he actually wants, that is fit for his purpose. And Arteta, for his part, needs to demand exactly that and nothing less from the club. Edu and the board cannot get away with the sort of arrogance we saw from Gazidis and others previously when they patted themselves on the back and pretented paying £70m for Mustafi and Xhaka weren't terrible mistakes that, along with 15 other mistakes, needed immediate and financially painful rectification.
You talk about big squad turnovers to fix this so can you tell me what you want to see that amount to in practice?
The club making decisions and getting them right. Not limping along and making do or making decisions and getting them wrong.
What exactly I would do doesn't matter, but Arteta and Edu need to decide what exactly they're trying achieve on the pitch in terms of style and end of season (and beyond) objectives and then make good decisions about which players have more value to them here or somewhere else, generating a transfer fee and/or freeing up wages to be reinvested in more suitable players.
From what I suspect of what Arteta wants, I would speculate the players that Arteta will want to keep and build his team around are:
Gabriel
Tierney
Partey
Saka
Martinelli
Aubameyang
And that's literally it in terms of players that matter. The rest are either players that might be decent to even very good players but don't imo fit Arteta's style (Leno, Bellerin, Xhaka, Pépé, Lacazette), are replaceable squaddies (AMN, Holding, Chambers, Mari, Elneny, Ceballos, Willian), not rated at all (Macey, Cedric, Mustafi, Sokratis, Kolasinac, Özil), or are too young to have really made their mark one way or another (Runnarson, Saliba, Willock, ESR, Nelson, Nektiah (I actually think he might be on Arteta's "replaceable squaddie" list but didn't want to upset Klaus at Xmas!), Balogun). At this point David Luiz is probably on the list with Özil' too, but leaving him out entirely mid-season wouldn't be wise.
So it'll be intriguing to see what the reality actually is and then what Arteta and Edu decide to do in January/summer as a result of those estimations, if one of both of them survive that long that is!
