AAStyle- wrote:
This is his 3rd season mate. Top4 or nothing; there are way more better coaches out there.
Also, take into consideration that margins are thigh, difference between 4th and 7th could even be of only 3 points! One more win instead of a loss can result in playing the CL as compared to not play it.
Still, if we end 5th with one point less than 4th, I would recognize that there was development. Good enough considering that this is his 3rd season? Answer is a big no.
If we're being precise, it's his second full season. My perspective is that given the mess Wenger left, which Emery made worse, getting back into the top four would be a very impressive (and unrealistic) feat. For any manager.
Others disagree and that's fine.
The point you make about tight margins if anything reinforces what I've been saying in terms of success vs failure being a more nuanced assessment than CL or bust.
Quincy Abeyie wrote:
@Don I think my issue with that is that it sounds like you'd be happy with any manager no matter who it was. If the requirement for Arteta was to after three years come back to where he was when he started I don't think there are many managers if any who would fail. Would it be worse if he didn't first fall out of the Europa League, because then the rise back to the starting position couldn't be classified as "improvement"?
Well yes, but I think my perspective on our situation is different from yours. As mentioned above, my reflection of the Emery period is that he made things even worse than Wenger had left them, which requires time for adjustment (eg. a squad overhaul). If in the longer term we end up in the right place, then I'm happy with that and if we get back into the top four in a couple of seasons with a young, rebuilt squad then I'd take that.
Overall, I think the key difference is that my expectation for how long it takes to regenerate our squad after years of mismanagement is that it needs a bit longer.
