Official: Mikel Arteta is the new Arsenal manager.: Page 185 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Official: Mikel Arteta is the new Arsenal manager.

Burnwinter

Clrnc Also, people like to big our manager and team up and keep saying next year is our year, it's okay not to win this year again because the process is right, the boardroom is sound, structure of the club is good etc. Shit on Chelsea's joke transfer strategy and horrible boardroom and they will never win anything.

Firstly I've gotta apologise for cherry-picking, but I think this section of a long and thoughtful post sums up my problems with it.

Thing is, I support what's been done as far as the Project™ is concerned and I've also been warning we won't get endless opportunities with this squad, and that it'll cost us badly not to convert the investment into trophies. These two things aren't exclusive. The structure and process at the club are pretty good and much better than before, but structure and process still aren't a cabinet full of silverware.

Most of us have been worried about that since at least the back half of 22–23 (that draw to Liverpool, fucking hell), whatever we think about Arteta, recruitment or any other aspect of Arsenal.

For all this fresh chat about Liverpool and Chelsea, both clubs were shit last season. We were runners-up in the league then because City happened to still be very, very good. And Chelsea's transfer strategy is a joke and all those seven year contracts are still going to fuck them.

It's a crying shame we're off the place, but we're not witnessing a huge trailing off and decline of the Project™ at the moment. We'll continue to be competitive. It's good if there's a bit of angst about where we're at, because I sense we're still very close to winning a major trophy. As with the past two seasons, we're at a moment where we actually could win the league or Champions League and frankly that's still a pleasantly unfamiliar feeling.

The rest of this season looms as a personal test for Mikel Arteta. The way I see it, he needs to get us ticking over again properly in the league, and we need to be pushing things further in the Champions League. Can he do it? It seems to me that both objectives are entirely possible at this point. If we do what we did from this point last season now, we'll probably win the title.

I'll be ready to gnash and wail with the best of us if the season truly disintegrates, but it hasn't happened just yet.

Qwiss

RocktheCasbah xmas is coming I for one hope that some ones bought me that lovely maroon and navy zip up the players have been wearing before matches.

RocktheCasbah

Qwiss it is lush, that. I'd have bought it myself but I know how much I've worn the blue and yellow Originals Beckenbauer which was put out a year(ish) ago.

Think I'm getting a bit tubby for trackie tops... 😱

Asterix

Last season Odegaard would have put one or two of those chances away and it's a different game. This season just feels like everything is a bit off - fitness, injuries, sharpness, cohesion, referees, scheduling. These are not excuses mind - we should be doing a bit better to overcome them - it's an observation of how I feel that nothing seems to be quite right.

awooga83

Well against Everton as well they aren't a great team and we really couldn't do anything but throwing crosses in which is so stupid and it's hard to not look at the manager why were we doing that.it isn't just the players for me and we've had some bad luck but I also think our football and limitations are really showing this season.

Rex

I like Arteta. A lot even, and I'm proud of the direction he has helped take the club in since he became the manager. I just wish he would take more risks. I'll give two examples.
My heart sank at Bournemouth, twice. First, seeing the line-up ahead of the game realizing we were starting SEVEN defensive players. Then, when Saliba was sent off, watching Arteta sub off Sterling. The same Sterling who looked to be the only offensive threat on the pitch, and this after a few minutes without subs where we showed that we could actually cope with the players on the field.
Second example is our last game, against Everton. Still can't for the life of me figure out why Arteta would take Odegaard off 'for tactical reasons', as he said in the post game presser. In a game where we are completely dominant, chasing a goal, it would have been so nice to see Arteta being willing to play both Odegaard and Nwaneri. Instead, we ended up making 5 subs but not really changing anything structurally. We basically just ended the game with 5 lesser players on the pitch.
Hopefully, this is something that Arteta will improve. And soon. He is a smart man, a really good manager, and I hope he will evolve as a manager when it comes to being willing to take more risks on the pitch.

Gurgen

Normal people who are chasing a goal sub a defender for an attacker. Not old Mik though. Need those four defenders to play against the lone target man.

Clrnc

Gurgen "If you can't win it, don't lose it."

Gazza M

Gurgen tbf he lived through some traumatic annihilations under wenger as a result of devil may care defending. he's managing like a guy who hasn't buried those demons 😆

daredevil

Gazza M

We lost 5-1 at Anfield, 6-3 at the Etihad and 6-0 at Stamford Bridge, in the same fucking season, during a title challenge....I'm all for structure over chaos.

Claudius

When Jesus first arrived, we were an unknown force. Games were more back and forth, and he was dominant. Helped us to 12 more points than we have now.

Gazza M

the decline of jesus really fucked us. at his best he was a more useful asset for the team overall than havertz imo, because of how creative and brave he was with the ball. that dynamism through the middle alleviated putting too much creative burden on ode and saka, which is what we're seeing now. he was the 3rd man. every team needs a 3rd man creatively, or even a 4th man. even a creative powerhouse like KDB still needed a supporting cast of bernardo/gundogan/foden/mahrez to really get over the top. havertz is more of an off the ball guy, which is fine when the rest of the team is functioning creatively, which we're not.

Claudius

Gazza M It's been a big miss. He was a dynamo covering large amounts of ground but also very active on the ball, creating space for both Martinelli and Saka. Between striker and L8, we need to find someone with a bit more of this drive, the way guys like Harry Kane, Wirtz or Musiala will get on the ball

goon

Gazza M

Id be tempted to put Jesus back in for a run of games with Kai looking jaded. He’s managed to stay fit for a while and is starting to look sharper physically. Injecting a bit of chaos can’t hurt.

Clrnc

Gazza M i think most of us knows Jesus is finished even last year. I know there are a few who said Jesus is a legit option on the wings and keep claiming how good he was but i have never seen any consistent tangible contribution from him playing as a winger.

On current form he's jack of no trades

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Are we playing this Boxing Day? If so, we really need GJ to be ESR from 2020.

Don Pacifico

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert it's not Easter but hopefully Jesus will be (re)born come Christmas.

Gazza M

if there's one thing about arteta, it's that he has somehow pulled us out of these funks every season. I'm interested so see if has another trick bag to turn things around.

Don Pacifico

Gazza M my one critique of comments like that (and to be fair, I don't know the context so may be picking up the wrong inferences) but I've never been a fan of (our) managers saying we deserved to win games, usually explicitly or implicitly backed up by stats other than how many goals we scored.

awooga83

Don Pacifico yeah I'm all for stats to shed insight but I think they've been used more and more to say whatever the outcome of the result this stat shows we are the true better team or winners. They can help understand but a bit too often they seem to become the metric I feel like the arsenal vision guys sometimes go too far in that direction in how they sum up things.

On the Arteta funk thing whilst that's been true so far the other side is we seen to regularly have them and haven't devised a way to mitigate it which is a little worrying from the coaching side.

Burnwinter

Don Pacifico I've never been a fan of (our) managers saying we deserved to win games

I don't mind it. Pragmatically the real audience for this is the players. If Arteta's direction is that we don't alter our tactical outlook much because it's giving us the advantage according to the numbers, then he should be expressing total conviction and optimism about this plan.

Put briefly I never want to hear our coach talking about our progress the way that a fan would.

Gazza M

probably because all of his undoubtedly labyrinthine models indicate that we should have won those games, and its an outlier that we didnt. he needs to put some more weighting on the ol' goals for column

Claudius

awooga83 a simple stat like xG is a very simple, sober way to assess what happened on the chance creation side of the game. At the end of the day, you win by scoring more than the other team. xG tells you if you were doing enough to make this happen. We have too many games with sub 2 xG when teams give us the low/mid block. Given variance around the mean, we don’t give ourselves enough room to win all these games. You want to be 2.5xG u moth over a goal xG Diff in order to start to make things certain.

awooga83

Claudius yep I think that's fair but again needs that nuance around just because the number is bigger doesn't necessarily mean all is well because if that translates to only one or two chances in a game your are adding massive pressure to execute them which is very difficult and places very high demand on the team. Also the team stats might say we had moments but if the players on the end of them aren't great finishers your going to underperform.

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