Anzac wrote:So far as a more experienced manager we turned our noses up at Ancelotti IIRC, and the club blinked at the opportunities to sign the likes of Klopp, Guardiola etc.
People forget where Ancelotti came from. His tenure at Napoli was virtually identical to Emery's at Arsenal, including the team falling apart towards the end with their worst string of results in decades and open mutiny in the dressing room.
Claudius wrote:If Arteta was as incredible as everyone says he is, we should’ve asked him to go to Brentford for a couple of years to prove himself.
Aye, we should have grabbed him after he tried standing on his own legs for a bit. In retrospect Ancelotti would probably have been a better option than Arteta, but he'd still be the wrong one in my opinion. We don't need someone who's entering his last few comfort years as a manager, we need people with vision and drive who can build a team. Arteta fits that bill - it's just the ability that is missing. Something that would have been more obvious if he had held another managing job before being handed the keys to Arsenal.
Then again Emery had multiple jobs before Arsenal and managed to grow a big reputation despite being a complete bungler, so it's not that black and white I reckon. I guess the bottom line is that when you're about to make big decisions, such as appointing a manager, the more information you have, the better.
All in all we got another FA Cup out of this, so it's hard to feel any regret about appointing him, but it's also worth remembering that getting to cup finals is performing to expectations at a club like Arsenal, not exceeding them. It was definitely exceeding them at the time though, and it put a positive spin on what was our worst season in Premier League. But we've followed it up with an even worse one now.
