Rakim wrote:
Kurt Eisner wrote:
The biggest problem with Wenger's later years was the fact that he had too much control and too many responsibilities. You look at Klopp and at both Dortmund and Liverpool he emphasized the importance of Mislintat and his equivalent at Liverpool, whose name I can't be arsed to google right now. Guardiola is the only true one man show left in football, and he's a special breed of psychopath, so I wouldn't bet on that model working anywhere else. And yet the club has given Edu, who has proven nothing, and Arteta, who has proven nothing, the keys to the castle. It seems to me the Kroenkes have convinced themselves that Arteta is the new Wenger and Edu will act as his David Dein, but Wenger was a once in a lifetime genius. And that's why I'm worried about the club letting Arteta stay on as the manager for too long, because if it does turn out both he and Edu aren't cut out for the job, we have to start from scratch again. And that is what will prevent us from moving forward, not changing managers every few years, that is just modern football. The sustainable method would have been to trust someone like Mislintat for a while, let him build a foundation and a long term vision that is not dependent on the coach, and eventually hire the right manager to whom you then give the power to decide who he wants to sign for fine tuning the team.
As it is now, I'm worried the Kroenkes will wait until the absolute last possible moment to replace Arteta. And you're right, it'll get even worse if they don't have a plan for what or who comes next. Which they don't. I don't think that justifies sticking with Arteta just for the sake of it though, quite the contrary, it makes it even worse.
All that being said, Arteta, Edu and our academy have built us a squad that is very exciting and supremely talented, I think that is the one thing everyone on this forum can agree on. So if we get Top 4, I won't call for Arteta's or Edu's head, even if I'm not convinced by them and bitter about the way some of our players have been treated. But I'll definitely remain skeptical, because I rate our squad very highly and I am concerned we're gonna waste their Arsenal careers by sticking with a manager that I'm not convinced about for too long. The other side of the fence is that you believe Arteta is the one who built this squad in the first place and thus the right man to lead it going forward. It all comes down to how much you rate his ability to get the team to play good and winning football. And that divide will only go away once we either start winning things or he's fired I'm afraid 😆
Wenger was ridiculed and questioned far before his last few years, among other things during the period in which he probably did his best work for the club. But that is a discussion for another time.
Is it modern football though? Other then Chelsea, which club does that approach work for? Liverpool got lucky with Klopp, Tottenham had Pochettino + their golden generation and are now struggling, ManUtd tried the modern football approach and have been failing miserably, City are a cheat code. Even Everton is a good example how that approach is not really working. Tbh I think the biggest problem for all these clubs including Arsenal is that the manager/coach talent pool is really dry right now. That's one of the main reasons I'm fine with Arteta staying, there's literally not one name out there that would excite me right now. That's not to say there are no quality managers out there, but it's evident for the last few years that it's quite hard for any club to find one. We tried Emery and he crashed quite badly. Now we are trying Arteta, he was on the way to crash but somehow survived and is now doing allright by anyones standards imo. Let's see how it goes. If Utd showed us anything it's that just going through managers on a yearly basis is no guarantee for any success. A proper plan has to be the priority. Even if that plan is with an inferior manager I'll take it over just appointing the hottest name in the moment.
Just the fact we have players in the squad right now that we rate quite highly is quite an improvment over the last 3-4 years. It's a step in the right direction. I think the striker and midfielder additions are going to be crucial for our future. Even more than getting top 4 this year. I agree with pretty much everything in your last paragraph. Except the fact that I so far have not that big of a problem with the way some players were treated. (this also depends a lot on the way we deal with Saliba over the summer)
No matter the coach or players, I really hope we achieve some proper success in the next 10 years. Would be amazing to be able for all the fans to finally all be on the same page and celebrate something together. It's really been a long time...
Yeah, Wenger got a lot of undeserved stick, but to be fair, it was a really frustrating time to be an Arsenal fan with the near misses, terrible losses against rivals or in the Champions League and the feeling that the club was always gonna be stuck in the limbo between 4th and actually challenging for titles. You're right though, discussion for another time, and one where I'd furiously defend the man.
I think it is modern football, yes, although the Premier League is a bit of an outlier because of the obscene amounts of money available. Tottenham are an example where it worked that way though imo, they had a good team that played for a lot of different managers, they replaced their better players with reasonable signings and they were always relatively successful for their standards, yet fell short until they struck gold with Pochettino .. and still won nothing. Man, being a Spurs fan must really suck. Liverpool are a bit different, because Klopp replaced pretty much anyone bar Henderson, but they too kept reinforcing their squad, trying to build a side to challenge for titles until they finally found a manager who could deliver it. Getting lucky with the right manager is probably the only way clubs like them or us will be able to build a competitive side with City, United, Chelsea and now Newcastle having endless cash reserves. Had they kept Rodgers, they never would have won anything. So in their case their frequent changing of managers paid off eventually, and so did their long term squad building, because had they not been able to sell Coutinho for obscene money, they never would have been able to afford the likes of VVD or Allison.
I don't think we're that far apart in our evaluation here though, I agree that changing managers on a yearly basis won't get us anywhere, but I am advocating for not being afraid to do it as often as necessary, and most coaches don't really last much longer than 2 years nowadays. As for names that excite me, Potter does, but he'd be a gamble as well, Tuchel did, but it would have probably been too early to appoint him after Emery. Gasperini is another one, so is Ten Hag. But it needs to be the right fit for the players we have, the football we as a club want to play and the budget we have available. And like I said, that's what worries me, that Arteta and Edu, who are entirely unproven still, are the ones that make all the football decisions. I'd be a lot more confident about the club's future if I knew we had some people behind the scenes who have a vision for what the product on the pitch should look like and are competent enough to identify the right personnel to get us there. With out current model being very much reliant on the manager, I'd really only be confident if we had someone like Klopp, and it is true that there's currently no one out there who has a comparable CV, so I get the sentiment of trusting it to Arteta rather than try someone like Potter, who's a bit more experienced, but hasn't played CL football or won titles yet.
I mean we did win the FA Cup recently and that was a brillant day. I want more though 😆 I've never seen a full season where Arsenal won the league as well, the Invincibles and the double and all were all in a time before streaming, and as the lone Arsenal fan in my family I couldn't convince my mom to pay for whatever Pay TV the PL was on back then in Germany, so I had to follow the seasons via teletext, radio and highlights, would be nice to actually watch us win this fucking league properly 😆
