Klaus wrote:
Claudius wrote:
By the way, I appreciate Arteta’s culture war. Arsenal has more than a talent problem. We have created a situation where it is acceptable to not apply yourself fully on and off the field.
This would have been great if he actually had any chops himself, but it doesn't seem that way. How can you say you want others to take responsibility for their performances when your own performance is highly mediocre... without it coming across as blaming the players for your own failures?
I've seen this line of thinking a few times, but what does this actually mean though?
He said the other week that they're going to review what went wrong at the end of the season and that he can already identify mistakes before the review even takes place. Does he strike you as someone who doesn't analyse his own shortcomings or the shortcomings of his decisions, that he's going to be lying on a deckchair somewhere thinking about how perfect he is?
The players don't strike me as a group that feel victimised by the manager either, not since the January purge. Take Pepe, here's a guy that had a bigger reason to feel hard done by than most players in the group, not only was he benched for Willian for half a season but he was publicly called out for his red in a OTT manner. Yet he seems to be working harder on and off the pitch than ever before.
You guys place too much credence on what manages say in public, usually in defensive mode when facing the press and already under pressure. I absolutely loved Wenger as a man as much as I did as a manager but even he came out with some comments that were very defensive and often came across as arrogant, but I have no doubt he'd go home and wonder what he could do to improve things every night.
The real issue is not about whether or not he holds himself similarly accountable, but whether his culture war is actually working. I think the results are a mixed bag, but ultimately I don't see anything on the pitch that tells me these guys are being converted into so called winners, the only exception being our performances in a select number of big games.
