speedy wrote:
If anything arteta has made 5 years of changes in 18 months. The turbulence was expected but he was naive to change so much so fast. But the lack of fans in the stadium was a huge opportunity to just revamp everything. We'll need a settled period to form to stabilise. Partly, Ode, Esr, gabi and Saka have still only a tiny bit of time together.
He's attempting to build a entirely new style with a new team with minimal budget in 2 years. On top of huge cultural problems and difficult players. And its a bumpy road. Who knows if he'll hang in their long enough to see the potential.
If he'd been supported in the market by the club I doubt we'd have had a number of the issues we did and still do.
The purge needed to be done last summer (not in Jan), after Arteta had already made big noise about a change of culture and non-negotiables, and the failure to back him last summer went a long way to undermining his task before he got started.
Had we replaced those players at the time with those who were 'fit for purpose' in terms of formation and style and we'd be pushing top4 now IMO, simply based upon our form that see us top4 post Christmas re points taken, and top2 re GF and top3 re GA = that's not including the obvious elephant in the room being our own errors leading to goals which has directly contributed to half our goals conceded during the same period.
I'm certain that if he is genuinely supported by the club in the market then he will deliver a genuine top4 challenge. However the success of that challenge is likely to be determined by the quality and depth of that support, rather than by Arteta's failings as coach, tactician or manager.
ATM my greatest fear is that he walks away with the job half done because of a lack of support from the club in terms of the rebuild required.
