Has Arteta Truly Turned it Around?: Page 149 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Has Arteta Truly Turned it Around?

Qwiss

I don't think its controversial to say the quality of a squad matters but also that top managers raise players level.

Captain

Great managers can't win things with 'absolutely shit players', buy they can take a mediocre squad and make it out perform it's expected standard.

Captain

Equally, a terrible manager can easily make a good squad look rubbish.

Qwiss

Captain wrote:
Equally, a terrible manager can easily make a good squad look rubbish.

QED

goon

Sure but even then Klopp changed 70=80% of the first 14 go to players within a couple of years of arriving.

Being able to pull off a massive squad rebuild is probably among Klopp's biggest achievements. 100% there's average players in there that look good thanks to being in a functioning system, but they're still players that he wants.

This isn't a defence of Arteta btw, just reiterating that having both the right player and good players is definitely vital to success. If Conte came in tomorrow he would almost certainly push aside a few individuals he doesn't fancy.

Ricky1985

Every time a small/er team wins there's a story about fantastic recruitment at the centre of it. Obviously it takes a great manager to know what he wants in order build a fucntioning team, but unless your name's Arsene Wenger and you basically know every good young player in Europe (1996-2010), then you need the recruitment team to do some very good work too.

All of the teams mentioned: Atletico, Leicester, Liverpool, Dortmund - all the best around in terms of identifying players that are either undervalued or will increase in value because of their age and quality.

Anzac

Despite the presence of a majority of players that he didn't sign to begin with (Leno, KT, Elneny, Xhaka, Kolasinac, Pepe, Laca, PEA) that they are still here after 4 transfer windows since he took over makes this his squad regardless.

We have also just had a summer transfer window with over 100m in net spend.

No more excuses.

Big Willie

Arteta. Legendario.

Anzac

Big Willie wrote:
Arteta. Legendario.

In his own mind at least according to reports.

Burnwinter

Klopp has been doing it for twenty years … he's had his own big setbacks as well as big successes during that period, but he's got a powerful attitude and charisma, a flavour of football he instils that has worked across leagues, and trophies to point at.

Although Arteta has been a relatively polished performer for the press, he's showing presently that he lacks the conviction and charm behind the scenes to motivate the squad. In terms of his own development as a manager, he's got a long journey after he leaves Arsenal if he continues.

Gazza M

yep. from the players perspective, his resume was being built in real time in front of them. I get that this arsenal squad is in no position to be picky or demanding, but when you're repeatedly sent out with failed tactics it's only a matter of time before these modern players tune you out and the overall level starts spiralling. it's almost impossible to arrest once it happens.

Burnwinter

Do we reckon morale and spirits right now are the worst they've been around the club in memory? I've been following since the Graham era and it feels like it.

To be honest, I still blame Wenger for our situation, and to a lesser extent KSE. We had season after season in the decade before Wenger's eventual departure where we were still in a relatively strong position, but we weren't progressing. We could've patiently shopped for far better leaders to replace him.

It was never going to be easy, but it didn't have to be Unai Emery in the middle of a Gazidis walkout, succeeded by a pack of jokers.

Anzac

Burnwinter wrote:
Do we reckon morale and spirits right now are the worst they've been around the club in memory? I've been following since the Graham era and it feels like it.

To be honest, I still blame Wenger for our situation, and to a lesser extent KSE. We had season after season in the decade before Wenger's eventual departure where we were still in a relatively strong position, but we weren't progressing. We could've patiently shopped for far better leaders to replace him.

It was never going to be easy, but it didn't have to be Unai Emery in the middle of a Gazidis walkout, succeeded by a pack of jokers.

Agreed to all.

"I blame AW'" has been my unofficial signature block at work amongst the football circles for more than a decade.

As for KSE ownership = failure to plan is planning to fail?

Gazza M

Wenger and KSE had a somewhat faustian pact, total control of the club in exchange for regular CL football. problem is once that becomes your goal it seeps into every part of the club, and by default your floor starts getting lower and lower, and that's how it played out once the game caught up and overtook Wenger. it worked until it didn't, but the backwards trend would've been caught earlier if the owners had a shred of knowledge or ambition in them during those years from 2013-2018. the summer of only cech, the acceptance of giroud for years followed by back to back panic buys of lacazette and aubameyang. that type of crap doesn't happen with stronger owners at the helm

Burnwinter

I feel like KSE are much more involved now that we're floundering, and I don't think we can complain about the level of investment and backing, apart from where it's being directed.

But from 2011–2015 or so they failed to provide direction about Wenger's future, a deficiency that culminated in us watching Leicester fucking City win the league in a Steven Bradbury moment.

Anzac

Gazza M wrote:
Wenger and KSE had a somewhat faustian pact, total control of the club in exchange for regular CL football. problem is once that becomes your goal it seeps into every part of the club, and by default your floor starts getting lower and lower, and that's how it played out once the game caught up and overtook Wenger. it worked until it didn't, but the backwards trend would've been caught earlier if the owners had a shred of knowledge or ambition in them during those years from 2013-2018. the summer of only cech, the acceptance of giroud for years followed by back to back panic buys of lacazette and aubameyang. that type of crap doesn't happen with stronger owners at the helm

I think the problem was the way that AW looked to maintain the top4/CL status was also a consequence of the same approach that saw him only ever consider our game and not who the opposition were etc.
By this I mean that IMO AW hit upon the 'formula' that by maintaining a mid 70 points per season would usually achieve top4. If you had a good season and others didn't you could have a title challenge. The problem with this is that when it came to setting his goals for the next season his evaluation was retrospective. A prime example of this was his comments when we dropped out of top4 by emphasising that we finished 1 point less than LFC and with a points total that until then would have seen us qualify for top4/CL every year prior to then, and consequently he did not think there was much wrong and no need for drastic action.
I think this is where you can loose focus on the bigger picture with so much emphasis on the process, and as you say the bar gets lowered and the margin for error decreases.

IMO there were enough red flags to have given a wake up call for us to have avoided this and to have achieved a virtual lock-out of the top4 as we are currently seeing - FSG purchasing LFC, then signing Klopp, Poch at TH and the mega TV revenues that made our Cash Reserves redundant. Had we reacted positively to any of them we would still likely be top4/CL now, but we eroded our advantage on the pitch to the point we aren't even keeping up with the Europa clubs let alone top4. Hell we just spent 130m to simply retain our status quo from last season.

Anzac

Burnwinter wrote:
I feel like KSE are much more involved now that we're floundering, and I don't think we can complain about the level of investment and backing, apart from where it's being directed.

But from 2011–2015 or so they failed to provide direction about Wenger's future, a deficiency that culminated in us watching Leicester fucking City win the league in a Steven Bradbury moment.

What made it worse for me is that is my ex-wife's place of birth, so for me they are a constant slap in the face.

Burnwinter

Anzac wrote:
Hell we just spent 130m to simply retain our status quo from last season.

Sort of. We're in the middle of an unfortunately lop-sided squad rebuild. The big issue on the pitch is that we're woeful going forward and it's being amplified by both stolid, failing, defensive-minded management and recruitment.

However at least some of the money spent will still be delivering value in a couple of seasons, so we'll have the capacity to return to strength eventually.

Anzac

Burnwinter wrote:
Anzac wrote:
Hell we just spent 130m to simply retain our status quo from last season.

Sort of. We're in the middle of an unfortunately lop-sided squad rebuild. The big issue on the pitch is that we're woeful going forward and it's being amplified by both stolid, failing, defensive-minded management and recruitment.

However at least some of the money spent will still be delivering value in a couple of seasons, so we'll have the capacity to return to strength eventually.

Yeah agreed on paper ren the potential to do so, with the caveats being where the money is coming from (robbing the future to pay the present & no transfer funds until finances recover post COVID?), and the other being that they actually appreciate in value (which IMO is a hard sell under current management and structure).

That said I still maintain they do nothing in terms of moving the bar forwards in improving our options and capability from last season = we effectively stand still whilst the PL moves on around us.

Burnwinter

I predict KSE will keep pouring money in to get us back to CL status, FFP allowing.

The premise for that conclusion is the main long term investment strategy being ascension to a European super league, an objective that will be at risk if we continue to struggle for another decade.

If the Kroenkes stop liking the odds of that because their oversight and direction continues to be terrible, they'll sell to someone less risk averse.

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