If Arteta had just taken the job I'm sure there would be some understanding of the issues we once again have to live through. The sense of deja vu is strong this time though.
We had the summer to plan. We weren't affected disproportionally by things like the Euros and the Olympics compared to our rivals. We haven't had less money to spend, we haven't been afforded less time for preparations relative to other clubs. Yet we ghostwalk through preseason and enter the league looking physically unfit and mentally unprepared. We still can't create a goal chance if our lives depended on it.
When a team is plagued with issues like this it goes beyond just a few bad decisions or a few unfortunate factors, such as injuries and a tough fixture schedules. It's become endemic to the way the team is coached and structured. I respect people here who feel differently, but relative to his resources I genuinely think Arteta is doing one of the worst jobs (if not the worst) in English football at the moment. That doesn't mean he's the only one failing at their job at Arsenal.
Who are we, what are we attempting to do, and where are we going? These are questions that you should be able to answer at any time regardless of form or fortune. It used to be one of the big selling points of the managerial change, to gain back our identity and ambition, but it's been left behind in the long trail of baffling decisions and pigheaded tactics.
I can't see any distinguishable features at Arsenal, at least not good ones. We probably play the worst football in Premier League from an entertainment point of view. We treat club legends, employees and old players badly. We have hired some of the most incompetent people in football; scammers and grifters originating from the ad industry (they always do) who left a burning garbage dump behind when they exited their previous clubs, only to be replaced with even lesser versions of themselves once they left us in the same state. We have frankly disgraceful owners who in a short few years have undone decades of legacy.
Ever since they started getting more involved it's all been a fucking theatre. Say this and then do that. Sack 80 day-workers to save a dime. Then attempt to form a breakaway European Super League and end up spending ten times that money on fines to appease UEFA when we get caught red-handed as part ringleaders. Their solution has been to spend more and more money for every year we've been out of Champions League (and consequently Europa League), money that we don't have, and they've spent it incompetently. When they metastasize in a few years like the human cancer they are and find another organisation to infect they're going to want every cent back.
We stand for nothing, on or off the pitch, except things that are fucking ugly, both from an aesthetic and a financial perspective. Things like this spill over into the frustration people feel over Arteta's football too. It's not entirely fair to him, but it is connected. The fact that he even has a job after last season is incredible. That we can then begin the subsequent season in this right state is astonishing.
