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

It is clear Arteta has a lot of power at this club, I would say more power then Edu. I can post a lot of transfer stories where Edu wanted one player and Arteta wanted another and they did what Arteta wanted. Every summer since Arteta has been here we got at least 1 such story. And to be fair, in a lot of them he was right(Tomyiasu over Emerson, Ramsdale over Neto? maybe etc). Califiori is the last one, the club did not want to spend 50 mil on another defender but Arteta pushed for him, and we have to be fair again to Arteta, he looks like a great player, but the truth is, we did not need another injury prone left back, we needed someone in attack. And that is all I want, a director who can push back when it needs to be done. No need to go the other way, have the director of football make all the calls, I feel it is normal and healthy for the club to be a back and forth.
But as others have said, we gave power to Wenger before and it did not work out good, so many seasons I can point to and say, if we had a director of football that went out and got 3-4 players we would have won so much more...but we didn't. It was not ok to give that much power to a manager like Wenger, or to any world class manger out there, so why do it for one that is not world class, like Arteta?

And someone else pointed our in the other thread, I feel it can be a good thing for us, getting a new director in, with different connections....maybe we will have access to different markets and so on. I mean Edu got us nothing from the Brazilian league, bar Martinelli. His connections started and stopped with that con man little shit Kia.

Gurgen yep. Wenger with Dein was a different animal vs Wenger alone

Don Pacifico Agreed, only thing plausible is Ornstein had a little advance warning Edu was on his way and wanted to deniably insinuate Arteta was somehow at fault.

You have to assume Arteta notices these little jibes. Personally I'd rather hear a decent Arsenal manager than a slimeball journalist any day.

dein had the advantage of being wenger's boss and the only reason he got the job in the first place.

the only boss arteta has at arsenal is the kroenke's and edu knew it and his replacement will as well.

The key is getting someone in that Arteta respects, or even admires. I wouldn't take shit from a moron hired above me, and neither should Mikel.

    For me I don't necessarily weight or can easily attribute what Edu's contribution is to what we've done. But I do recognise that I feel the team has made a mistake in that we elevated Arteta's control. The concentration of power in Wenger was disastrous and is not a good model which ultimately led to stagnation and decline.We started having a model where the coach function was at play but after that first season the message seemed to be Arteta had been given much more autonomy for things like recruitment.

    I thought that was a mistake at the time and when you look at our recent recruitment, whilst we've achieved some positive outcomes, there is imbalance in what we've been doing and possibly nobody with equal footing as Arteta. I personally don't think that's been a good development and is something I would worry about given how things seem to be going.

    Coombs well, if Arteta were to list every person he respects and admires, that list wouldn't include everyone capable of doing the job (i.e. not morons). There are definitely capable people out there that Arteta hasn't even heard of.

      QuincyAbeyie I didn't say he had to know them personally, but at this level it'd be insane to higher a nobody that doesn't at least have a respectable and admirable track record.

      Clrnc Just get the Begiristain in.

      Whoever is in charge of stationary better order in some brown envelopes.

      What’s so special about Txiki Begiristain?

        Coombs i mean in building those squads. so DoF at one of La Liga's 2 biggest teams, he brought in Alves and Pique. And then built around Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, etc who all came from the academy.

        Arsenal fans constantly complain about Arteta signing defenders. Here is a quick factoid. Pep/Txiki have spent €450m on defenders since joning City. I'll list them for you... Angelino, Danilo, Ake, Mendy, Cancelo, Laporte, Stones, Dias, Porro, Akanji, Walker - in addition to already having guys like Kompany and Otamendi on the books. Maybe Arteta and Txiki ARE a match made in heaven.

          Claudius perfect. We need to build around our academy products as well. He's got vision, clout, connections, respect, and title winning pedigree. What else do you want in a sporting director? Maybe he can help us bribe and blackmail referees, too.