• The Arsenal
  • Official: Mikel Arteta is the new Arsenal manager.

https://amp.theguardian.com/football/blog/2021/jan/09/super-clubs-lack-patience-for-rookies-like-arteta-and-lampard-to-learn-on-job?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter&__twitter_impression=true

Super-clubs lack patience for rookies like Arteta and Lampard to learn on job

Which means what, exactly? That all managers deserve a level of patience? Probably, although equally it can quickly become apparent some simply don’t fit and there is clearly a point after a year or two when it’s not unreasonable to expect some discernible progress to have been made.

The question is why are super clubs putting their fates in the hands of inexperienced managers? Is it FOMO?

I don’t think the the large majority of experienced managers offer anything more.

It's a good way to break the lithification of the game and to avoid being held hostage to the old guard and their cronies. Reward doesn't come without risk and all that.

Coombs wrote:

It's a good way to break the lithification of the game and to avoid being held hostage to the old guard and their cronies. Reward doesn't come without risk and all that.

yes. Especially since the guy who set us on our way down was also our best ever manager and most experienced.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert wrote:

It's High Fashun.

I think this is close, but there is some logic to the decisions beyond just being trendy and/or FOMO.

IMO Guardiola was the benchmark in terms of both being inexperienced when taking over at top level.
The other such appointment that solidified the decision as a genuine option was that of Zidane at RM.

The other key factor IMO is 'having club DNA' = Guardiola, Zidane, Arteta, Pirlo.
OGS & Lampard did have previous limited experience before their current appointments so they were not entirely new to the role, but they do meet the second factor.
Neither of these are actually anything new to club management & promotion from within used to be the norm with the LFC Boot Room Era being the best example, however it has become less likely in the modern era of mega revenues.

IMO it also possibly reflects the lack of options regarding both available top established managers, and bright new managers at lower level clubs.
Lastly it is also some recognition by the clubs that club legends are probably more likely to be given time to learn, than some bright young managerial hopeful from elsewhere who is more likely to be expected to hit the ground running.

banduan wrote:
Coombs wrote:

It's a good way to break the lithification of the game and to avoid being held hostage to the old guard and their cronies. Reward doesn't come without risk and all that.

yes. Especially since the guy who set us on our way down was also our best ever manager and most experienced.

IMO the management structure and playing style are massive factors in this.

Firstly how much of the decision making is centralised with the manager and how much is retained by the club.
Similarly how much of the playing style can be replicated if the manager is removed from the equation for whatever reason.

AW is the ultimate example of the former whereby he retained 'total control' of the football operations on and off the pitch, and his playing style based upon 'player intuition' was unique in top flight.  In both sides of the equation the club was more likely to 'fail' following the departure of AW as not, because he was the focus.

The Chapman Era offers a similar example of the first part, with Chapman being the first 'manager as god' and having total control as later became the norm.  However his playing style was able to be replicated by the club, following an internal promotion for successive managers to maintain both the style and success that dominated for a decade and was only broken by the intervention of WW2.  The success and longevity of the model was only later bettered by the LFC Boot Room Era from Shankly to Roy Evans/GH.

Barca have tried to replicate the Internal DNA model with Cruyff as the template in terms of establishing the club DNA, and with managerial appointments familiar with this from time at the club as former players. As such Arteta is a potential future managerial candidate, and more so if his preferred playing formation and style meets those expectations.

I actually think it is fucking crazy by all these clubs. In all your areas of discipline, more often than not some experience leads to better outcomes. There is a leveling off when the level of experience impacts outcomes, but it makes sense. A manager who has been on the job for some time will have had a chance to manage through multiple tactical challenges, has to deal with ebbs and flows of seasons, and has to manage multiple personnel matters both individual and team-wide. The experience will help him see patterns faster and react with much more subject matter authority.

So the smarter thing for these clubs to be doing is to do what Dein did when he hired Wenger. Go out and find an established manager who has already done it and has successfully deployed his ideas. Guardiola is not a great example: he had a risk free sandbox in which to test out his ideas with Barca B. What Arsenal did appointing Arteta was an act of mismanagement. Just as we did when we appointed Raul Director of Football when he had particular skills around player relationship management and not end-to-end management of football operations. We need to start using the language of governance around football because a lot of the things we see are an abdication of duty by club custodians.

Claudius wrote:

I actually think it is fucking crazy by all these clubs. In all your areas of discipline, more often than not some experience leads to better outcomes. There is a leveling off when the level of experience impacts outcomes, but it makes sense. A manager who has been on the job for some time will have had a chance to manage through multiple tactical challenges, has to deal with ebbs and flows of seasons, and has to manage multiple personnel matters both individual and team-wide. The experience will help him see patterns faster and react with much more subject matter authority.

So the smarter thing for these clubs to be doing is to do what Dein did when he hired Wenger. Go out and find an established manager who has already done it and has successfully deployed his ideas. Guardiola is not a great example: he had a risk free sandbox in which to test out his ideas with Barca B. What Arsenal did appointing Arteta was an act of mismanagement. Just as we did when we appointed Raul Director of Football when he had particular skills around player relationship management and not end-to-end management of football operations. We need to start using the language of governance around football because a lot of the things we see are an abdication of duty by club custodians.

Agreed and been saying this for some time.

Claudius wrote:

I actually think it is fucking crazy by all these clubs. In all your areas of discipline, more often than not some experience leads to better outcomes. There is a leveling off when the level of experience impacts outcomes, but it makes sense. A manager who has been on the job for some time will have had a chance to manage through multiple tactical challenges, has to deal with ebbs and flows of seasons, and has to manage multiple personnel matters both individual and team-wide. The experience will help him see patterns faster and react with much more subject matter authority.

So the smarter thing for these clubs to be doing is to do what Dein did when he hired Wenger. Go out and find an established manager who has already done it and has successfully deployed his ideas. Guardiola is not a great example: he had a risk free sandbox in which to test out his ideas with Barca B. What Arsenal did appointing Arteta was an act of mismanagement. Just as we did when we appointed Raul Director of Football when he had particular skills around player relationship management and not end-to-end management of football operations. We need to start using the language of governance around football because a lot of the things we see are an abdication of duty by club custodians.

I disagree. Obviously if you have two identical candidates, but one has experience as management level and one doesn't, then you go for the one that does. But if you talk to four people and the one without experience stands out the most, surely you go with him? Most experience counts for nothing, every club and every job is different. Experienced managers fail more often than they succeed.

I actually think one of the biggest things clubs get wrong is hiring managers based on their CV rather than one that's a good fit, and I'm glad we don't have guys at executive level who'll go for 'safe' appointments like Mourinho, Ancelotti or even Poch.

goon wrote:

I actually think one of the biggest things clubs get wrong is hiring managers based on their CV rather than one that's a good fit, and I'm glad we don't have guys at executive level who'll go for 'safe' appointments like Mourinho, Ancelotti or even Poch

Pochs CV is garbage. Got fired from two out of three clubs he's managed and won zero trophies, less than Arteta Laudrup Di Matteo or McLeish.

I definitely haven't believed Arteta is our main problem, but it's pretty noticeable how much calls for his head have receded based on a series of decent results against modest opposition.

This improvement will have to be sustained for ages for me to think replacing him would be an issue, at the moment it feels like a neither here nor there thing, or a decision that is mainly about the stability and character we lack in other areas.

Anyone who thinks that installing Pochettino would harm our fortunes is kidding themselves. The question isn't whether other managers can do what Arteta has done, it's whether any manager could make us competitive despite our many other deficiencies.

Burnwinter wrote:

I definitely haven't believed Arteta is our main problem, but it's pretty noticeable how much calls for his head have receded based on a series of decent results against modest opposition.

This improvement will have to be sustained for ages for me to think replacing him would be an issue, at the moment it feels like a neither here nor there thing, or a decision that is mainly about the stability and character we lack in other areas.

Anyone who thinks that installing Pochettino would harm our fortunes is kidding themselves. The question isn't whether other managers can do what Arteta has done, it's whether any manager could make us competitive despite our many other deficiencies.

IMO the answer is NO, simply based upon our squad and lack of ambition in terms of the required rebuild, whereby our priority decisions are based upon finances and not football.

As such I do not believe Arteta will achieve the objective without additional investment beyond our 'normal' revenues.
At best I hope he may be supported in the market in the summer, but even so it may come too late for several key members to the squad if we fail to retain UEFA football.

9 days later

Haven't played much attractive football this season but stylistically by stats we are getting there it seems behind those 3 clubs. You can also see what Potter is doing with BHA although having no results. 

Moyes team the long ball specialists as expected, WBA will probably go up there now that Big Sam is in charge. Below is a comparison of Arsene's time here.

Bascially we were slightly faster and more direct under Wenger while also having more passes. 

Perhaps the mitigating factor in each example can be explained in terms of players.

Currently we have the likes of Xhaka, Luiz, Elneny etc who like to recycle to retain possession = slower and more passes, whereas under AW we had more technical players AND we were more direct getting the ball forward to Giroud as the linking target man type at CF for our technical players to play off.

Lastly I'd say our play before and after the Boxing Day game v CFC has been chalk and cheese. We've scored almost as many goals in the games starting with CFC as we did up to then in about 1/3 the time. We've also upped our tempo and seeing more use of pace, movement and space on and off the ball. Defensively we have only conceded 1 goal and whilst Leno has made a number of saves they are of lower quality chances being conceded within the area.

As such if we continue in this manner I'd expect to see our direct speed to get closer to that seen with the likes of LFC & Co.

On a side note it is interesting to see the differences in terms of both the number of teams who take more passes per sequence now compared to earlier, and also the changes in style being more pronounced for the likes of MU & TH in particular following their changes in manager.

Anzac wrote:

Perhaps the mitigating factor in each example can be explained in terms of players.

Currently we have the likes of Xhaka, Luiz, Elneny etc who like to recycle to retain possession = slower and more passes, whereas under AW we had more technical players AND we were more direct getting the ball forward to Giroud as the linking target man type at CF for our technical players to play off.

Lastly I'd say our play before and after the Boxing Day game v CFC has been chalk and cheese.  We've scored almost as many goals in the games starting with CFC as we did up to then in about 1/3 the time.  We've also upped our tempo and seeing more use of pace, movement and space on and off the ball.  Defensively we have only conceded 1 goal and whilst Leno has made a number of saves they are of lower quality chances being conceded within the area.

As such if we continue in this manner I'd expect to see our direct speed to get closer to that seen with the likes of LFC & Co.

On a side note it is interesting to see the differences in terms of both the number of teams who take more passes per sequence now compared to earlier, and also the changes in style being more pronounced for the likes of MU & TH in particular following their changes in manager.

except for luiz all those players were here under AW for the season he's comparing.