Has Arteta Truly Turned it Around?: Page 251 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Has Arteta Truly Turned it Around?

goon

5 of those games are against top half opposition. Either way, we don't need to maintain 2.5 points per game average, so if we drop more points as the games get tougher, it's fine as long as we keep winning the games we should win.

Klaus

All of them aside from the Manchester City fixture where games you would have expected us to win comfortably both given the size of the opposition and their respective form when we played them though. As far as fixture lists go they don't come much easier than this. And we still managed to go out to Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA Cup in-between, and Liverpool in the league cup although the latter one was expected and Xhaka will have to take most of the credit.

Klaus

That's not to say there hasn't been a big improvement for everyone to see in the way we play, score and create chances, but it's also hard to draw too many conclusions from it. We have received a lesson in how football should be play one too many times this season, and I don't mean from teams like City and Liverpool, I mean from the likes of Brighton and Crystal Palace, for me to feel comfortable that we've learned it. Things tend to go bad very quickly for us, and the first thing we do every time it happens is we throw all the attacking football out the window.

jones

goon wrote:
5 of those games are against top half opposition. Either way, we don't need to maintain 2.5 points per game average, so if we drop more points as the games get tougher, it's fine as long as we keep winning the games we should win.

West Ham (4th, vs 10 men), Wolves (8th) 2x and City (1st)

Southampton (16th) Leeds (16th) Norwich (20th) Burnley (17th) Brentford (15th) Watford (19th). Klaus is right it's been a really easy run of fixtures, still reason to be positive as we've looked much better in attack and the Wolves return game was the first good and mature game we've seen in ages but we've turned a couple of corners like this in the past, bit too early to announce the new age.

goon

I mean that's the big test now, to see if we can maintain it. I've said this a few times but we need to turn the big dips in form into the odd blip with longer stretches of wins in between.

Qwiss

Klaus wrote:
I can't remember the last time we ever had such a prolonged easy fixture list, and the only reason no one expected us to get much out of it beforehand was because our results were so rotten going into this run. For that reason I'm still very sceptical of where all this is going. When we do a post-mortem at the end of the season things like this will have to be considered carefully.

Pretty much agree. The only thing I'll say in defence of Arteta at the moment is good runs of fixtures only come if you have had tougher runs of fixtures. Its where you finish at the end of the day that matters. Plus not dropping many points in easy runs is a quality in and of itself. Just look at United for instance.

Klaus wrote:
What this season has told me so far though is that we have an excellent generation of kids emerging, most of them seemingly as likable as they are talented, and we've made some really good signings of similar character to complement them. If Arteta can't get results in the short term now it should be more urgent than ever to replace him with someone who can formulate a plan while playing consistently good football.

I agree with this entirely. These players wont seem half as likeable if don't start going places as a club and they push their way out. Getting into the CL is a great first step to keeping these guys happy but it will also bring more attention. We need to be ready to keep these lads happy and at the club if we want to get back to where we should be.

Burnwinter

The easy fixtures argument's distorted by other factors in my opinion, but nothing short of a statement win can really prove that.

If we beat a Liverpool side desperate to keep its title hopes alive a lot of what's just been said would need to be revisited.

Rakim

The jury is still out regarding if Arteta will be a top quality coach. That's true. He's had a lot of ups and downs so far and is quite new to the business anyway.
However, in my opinion it is quite easy to see that he's a far better and smarter coach then Ole or Lampard ever were or will be. Those comparisons to me make no sense...

Klaus

He's actually following Ole's trajectory with eerie accuracy so far. There are far more similarities than differences. United won everything for

after he got appointed, even knocking PSG out of Champions League. It's not dissimilar to our FA Cup run. They then had

which was equal to how we were sitting 14th in the table around Christmas last season with the worst chance creation in the league.

Now we're om

which, if we finish in the top 4, could be compared to United's second place finish last season.

flobaba

Burnwinter wrote:
The easy fixtures argument's distorted by other factors in my opinion, but nothing short of a statement win can really prove that.

If we beat a Liverpool side desperate to keep its title hopes alive a lot of what's just been said would need to be revisited.

Actually, this goes back to why I was so mad at Xhaka post City. Just imagine if we had managed to win that game in addition to all the others. It would’ve done wonders for the players and their confidence. And the easy fixtures claim would have been severely undercut.

But it is what it is. Xhaka! will Xhaka!

flobaba

Rakim wrote:
The jury is still out regarding if Arteta will be a top quality coach. That's true. He's had a lot of ups and downs so far and is quite new to the business anyway.
However, in my opinion it is quite easy to see that he's a far better and smarter coach then Ole or Lampard ever were or will be. Those comparisons to me make no sense...

He has established his style and footballing vision. It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s winning. And winning is high up on my preferred attributes, so I’ll absolutely take it.

My bigger fear is what happens when we get to the champions league. It is a step up from the dross we are used to playing week in week out, with a variety of tactically astute managers and teams. His in game management then is going to be critical. How quickly can he see the holes in our game being exploited by the opposition and plug them? How quickly will he be able to see the holes in the opponents set up and exploit them? How does his team react, and will he be able to pick us up after a bad loss to say a Bayern Munich?

There’s so much unknown about him and the future, and I would much rather be in more experienced hands, but I’m happy to give him a chance to qualify first. If not this season, then next (even though that would be hugely disappointing knowing we had/have a great opportunity this year).

AAStyle

We have improved in our performances but that's easy when you play against low table teams. I don't want to be ungenerous: Maybe Arteta has found the correct formula and even against stronger teams we would still have played well and earned points.

Still, as others have said, we'll have a complete picture by the end of the season. If he reaches top 4, definitely that is an achievement and it will be virtually impossible to deny that.

AAStyle

Just to clarify: I still think that we made the bad choice in picking him and we should have gone for a top tier manager.

goon

AAStyle- wrote:
Maybe Arteta has found the correct formula and even against stronger teams we would still have played well and earned points.

Is this an Arteta endoresement from AAStyle?

Ladies and gentleman, fellow Artetastans, Artetasexuals and Controllball(TM) enthusiasts, we've won.

RowJimmy

Must have been something worthwhile on that iPad he carried.

Bosscielny

goon wrote:
AAStyle- wrote:
Maybe Arteta has found the correct formula and even against stronger teams we would still have played well and earned points.

Is this an Arteta endoresement from AAStyle?

Ladies and gentleman, fellow Artetastans, Artetasexuals and Controllball(TM) enthusiasts, we've won.

I’ve always been partial to being called a Dicteta Apologist.

We won when the club gave him the keys to the city and didn’t relent to the side of the fanbase that was filming their meltdowns in their parents cars because he couldn’t win the Europa League with Dani Ceballos or because they hadn’t watched Aaron Ramsdale play before.

We’re out of the mess we were in because of him and Edu, and we’re not even close to where they want us to be yet. This time next year this thread will either be locked or 30 pages down, and you won’t hear stuff like him keeping his job because of his name or his haircut or some other bullshit lol. You might even hear people acknowledging that maybe these guys aren’t football terrorists or a cancer to the club. Unlikely, though.

QuincyAbeyie

If there ever was a straw man personified..^

Burnwinter

flobaba wrote:
Actually, this goes back to why I was so mad at Xhaka post City. Just imagine if we had managed to win that game in addition to all the others. It would’ve done wonders for the players and their confidence. And the easy fixtures claim would have been severely undercut.

But it is what it is. Xhaka will Xhaka

I love "Xhaka" so much 😆 … right up there with "the Prize™" …

That day was a glimpse of a brighter future denied by the old ball and chain. The meltdown was so holistic though. I do think we're short of a big victory to confirm the progress we seem to have been making, but even if we are at a higher level, that doesn't necessarily translate to getting past Liverpool at home.

flobaba

And no one is really asking for that. We just ask that they go out there and give it a go. Be confident enough to give it a go.

E: And I think they will.

AAStyle

goon wrote:
AAStyle- wrote:
Maybe Arteta has found the correct formula and even against stronger teams we would still have played well and earned points.

Is this an Arteta endoresement from AAStyle?

Ladies and gentleman, fellow Artetastans, Artetasexuals and Controllball(TM) enthusiasts, we've won.

Don't make me search for the posts where you admitted that Arteta should have been sacked (or was it Coombs? I'm not completely sure) 😆

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