"The journey continues" - Mikel signs extension until 2025: Page 41 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

"The journey continues" - Mikel signs extension until 2025

QuincyAbeyie

Claudius wrote:
Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Can't imagine anyone wanting him fired at the moment. I said the same thing earlier that I'd never want to fire a manager while he's doing well. The decisions I've disagreed with are still decisions I disagree with, i.e. leaving Saliba with the reserves, getting rid of Auba before replacing him, getting rid of Pepe before replacing him, not signing Bennacer (or another midfielder that's good enough), choosing option number three in the question "sell or play AMN" etc. The big thing for me after the summer was that our squad was way too thin. But we've come away with it unscathed and the January window is right around the corner so the risk paid off if we can get the players we want. Last january, it didn't.

We are now title challengers, which is above what I expect us to be. City clearly have better players than us, so Arteta has us doing better than the sum of our parts. Last season I think we did worse than the sum. I think many managers would've gotten us fourth last season, but few would have us challenging this season.

If you look at RtC's post right above mine, I think that's a big difference between our mindsets. He thinks page 20 is hilarious, so I went back to check, but I think everything that's there is reasonable. For me, that we're challenging now doesn't retrospectively make what we did last season less awful.

It actually is unreasonable. If you look at a lot of the commentary in the latter part of last season (when admittedly I had chosen to take a break), it points to a lot of short termism. People were frustrated that the team was not playing beautiful football or immediately competing for the title. I think one of the things I had said before my break was transformation takes a long time. You need to be patient.

Arteta had clearly laid out his vision early on. He said he wanted to play a 433 with possession and counter-pressing. We were not playing like this for much of his early tenure. Based on the vision he had laid out, we knew several things had to change
1) The personnel still had to change. We needed more players who were able to be good on the ball and athletic as well to enable us to play a high line to control possession.
2) We needed to improve the athleticism of the players that we did have
3) We needed to continue to coach in the playing patterns. So players were more comfortable on the ball

The expectation that the players that Arteta had inherited could either deliver his preferred ball overnight or that Arteta would indefinitely troubleshoot his way to 4th by doing the best he could with what he had was completely unrealistic and not in line with his ambition to fight for trophies.

Nobody was frustrated at not "immediately" doing anything. Last season wasn't immediately.

Claudius

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Claudius wrote:
It actually is unreasonable. If you look at a lot of the commentary in the latter part of last season (when admittedly I had chosen to take a break), it points to a lot of short termism. People were frustrated that the team was not playing beautiful football or immediately competing for the title. I think one of the things I had said before my break was transformation takes a long time. You need to be patient.

Arteta had clearly laid out his vision early on. He said he wanted to play a 433 with possession and counter-pressing. We were not playing like this for much of his early tenure. Based on the vision he had laid out, we knew several things had to change
1) The personnel still had to change. We needed more players who were able to be good on the ball and athletic as well to enable us to play a high line to control possession.
2) We needed to improve the athleticism of the players that we did have
3) We needed to continue to coach in the playing patterns. So players were more comfortable on the ball

The expectation that the players that Arteta had inherited could either deliver his preferred ball overnight or that Arteta would indefinitely troubleshoot his way to 4th by doing the best he could with what he had was completely unrealistic and not in line with his ambition to fight for trophies.

Nobody was frustrated at not "immediately" doing anything. Last season wasn't immediately.

What do you mean. It was barely enough time given how much squad turnover we needed in order to fit the playing style we were looking for. In the meantime, people complained that we were spending too much money on the very players who were fundamentally important to that style and that we should play Auba and Pepe more, and we shouldn't have dumped Guendouzi.

It was all very short-sighted, in the moment analysis. Very little what is the long term ambition and how are moves contributing to it? Are we moving in the right direction in the long term?

Burnwinter

I think the signs of our improvement were pretty clear after we recovered from our horror start to 21/22.

Most of us said so at the time, and although our poor run in the second half of the season was dire and deeply disappointing (and I worry a couple of injuries could hit us hard again this season), I don't think anyone who was still writing Arteta off altogether at the end of last season was being completely serious.

I'd add the improved atmosphere at the Emirates has been a very accurate predictor of our overall trajectory lately. The match-going fans got the vibe shift, it seems.

RocktheCasbah

But the views expressed on page 20 were rooted in, as Claudius said, short termism.

Of course, it's entirely understandable that people were upset that we missed out on Champions League given the position we had put ourselves into, but when you look at what ultimately did for us, it was losing a game at Spurs when we had to play around an hour with ten men. And our recent record at Spurs, as you are probably aware, is not great. It was also losing a game at Newcastle when Ben White and Gabriel barely had a functioning hamstring between them - and look at how impressive Newcastle have been since January, especially at home.

I guess my point is that I feel a lot of the brickbats being thrown around at the end of last season, on page 20 - "unforgiveable", "fraud" etc were rooted in Arsenal losing two games it was always possible, likely even given the circumstances, that we would lose. And that seemed like an overreaction which ignored the clear progress the team had made during last season.

QuincyAbeyie

Claudius wrote:
Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Nobody was frustrated at not "immediately" doing anything. Last season wasn't immediately.

What do you mean. It was barely enough time given how much squad turnover we needed in order to fit the playing style we were looking for. In the meantime, people complained that we were spending too much money on the very players who were fundamentally important to that style and that we should play Auba and Pepe more, and we shouldn't have dumped Guendouzi.

It was all very short-sighted, in the moment analysis. Very little what is the long term ambition and how are moves contributing to it? Are we moving in the right direction in the long term?

It's not either/or. Having a long-term goal of winning the league doesn't mean that getting fourth last season was off the table. If making different choices in 5-10 matches last season could've given us fourth, I'm not buying that this would've been so detrimental to our young players that it wouldn't have been worth it. Anyway, I was just answering Goon's genuine question, don't really see any point in discussing with you what you would've said if you were here at the time.

goon

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
goon wrote:
Agreed but I do find myself wondering how some of his bigger detractors feel about him now. If you've spent 2 years openly hating a guy, his decisions etc. it can't be easy turning that on it's head.

Genuinely curious how some of you guys feel about it. Do you still dislike him? Has our success this season made you review any of your previous assessments about his decisions? Do you think there's many other managers who'd have gotten us here just as quickly or quicker?

Can't imagine anyone wanting him fired at the moment. I said the same thing earlier that I'd never want to fire a manager while he's doing well. The decisions I've disagreed with are still decisions I disagree with, i.e. leaving Saliba with the reserves, getting rid of Auba before replacing him, getting rid of Pepe before replacing him, not signing Bennacer (or another midfielder that's good enough), choosing option number three in the question "sell or play AMN" etc. The big thing for me after the summer was that our squad was way too thin. But we've come away with it unscathed and the January window is right around the corner so the risk paid off if we can get the players we want. Last january, it didn't.

We are now title challengers, which is above what I expect us to be. City clearly have better players than us, so Arteta has us doing better than the sum of our parts. Last season I think we did worse than the sum. I think many managers would've gotten us fourth last season, but few would have us challenging this season.

If you look at RtC's post right above mine, I think that's a big difference between our mindsets. He thinks page 20 is hilarious, so I went back to check, but I think everything that's there is reasonable. For me, that we're challenging now doesn't retrospectively make what we did last season less awful.

The funny thing is I disagreed with a lot of those decisions too on the surface but given that I largely had faith in the project I was prepared to believe that they were made for the greater good and see how it panned out. Exiling Auba for example, in order to set standards and bring about greater unity within the squad, was perhaps was a bigger intangible gain than the cost of losing him as a player.

Some of the decisions I still think were simply errors, those 3 months Saliba spent in exile for example. But the others are a case of the ends justifying the means. A lot of what is happening now is down to those same decisions, whatever you think of the efficiency of their execution, rather it being in spite of them.

Personally I don't think you can look at what's happening now and completely disconnect it from last year. We were all disappointed about missing out on 4th but there were some very visible green shoots that indicated we were on a good path. Maybe not THIS good, but I was certainly confident about top 4 and ultimately challenging by next year.

Qwiss

Fair play Goon. At least you were here defending Arteta throughout.

Doc

Don't think anyone thinks its been smooth sailing. The transition from old to new could have been handled better... but its been largely irrelevant when you look at the big picture and are overhauling a squad and the culture at a club. Arteta and team have done a fucking MASSIVE job in the last 2 years here and a number of people realized that and where calling for time to see it through which is ultimately what has happened.

I guess you can have varying degree of grip with how things have evolved over the last 2 years and I'm fine with that... what I find still strange is the idea that some fans calling for Arteta to be sacked last year, still think its would have been the right decision to do so, even with hindsight.. Still not convinced that Arteta is any good, as if this transformation has somehow been some kind of fluke and not 2 years in the making..

Burnwinter

As Goon says, I think most of us were modestly confident of top four this season. I was very much not confident we'd make it in 21/22, I was pretty surprised we'd put ourselves in position to do it come January.

It does seem weird to flash back a year, or half a year, and say "Well it would've been the right decision to sack Arteta at the time" … but on the other hand, we haven't done anything yet, we might all want the guy sacked again in six months time.

Given that it's all still to be done, one of the things I've come to appreciate about Arteta is he hasn't rested on any imaginary laurels for more than a second. He's very diligent refusing to celebrate our progress this season while it's still up in the air, the only thing he celebrates is victories. That seems to have been transmitted to the players.

Don Pacifico

I think you can disagree with some of the decisions Arteta made without considering him a 'fraud' (etc.). I think we've all had decisions that have left us scratching our heads but I've never really understood the vitriol towards him as an individual.

I'd add that I still maintain that some of the criticism levelled at him was a conflation of mistakes made by the club as entity rather than the manager as an individual (Arteta is not the overlord that Wenger was). Unsurprisingly, the manager is the figurehead for things when they go wrong (last two seasons) and then when they go right (the first part of this season). As said, it still remains to be seen whether we'll be 'successful' this season but I do feel the longer-term vision Arteta had originally conceived is now starting to bear fruit. He's fairly been criticised for the way he managed the short to mid-term of his time as boss so far but if we broadly continue on our current trajectory, it'll be easier to forget about those things.

jones

goon wrote:
Big Willie wrote:
By the same token repeatedly asking whether people still want Arteta out us daft. Our performances this season is a shock to everyone who was Arteta out and I'm sure most of those who were Arteta in. Credit to him, he'd taken us from underperforming relative to the players we had available to hugely overperforming with what we've got. You'd have to be enormously blinded with hatred for the man if you still want him out at this stage. Won't change if you keep asking the question unless we somehow implode and drop out of top 4.

Agreed but I do find myself wondering how some of his bigger detractors feel about him now. If you've spent 2 years openly hating a guy, his decisions etc. it can't be easy turning that on it's head.

Genuinely curious how some of you guys feel about it. Do you still dislike him? Has our success this season made you review any of your previous assessments about his decisions? Do you think there's many other managers who'd have gotten us here just as quickly or quicker?

Why wouldn't it be easy to change your view on someone, you're known for literally nothing else but fence sitting here 😆

I will never like him personally. Wenger goes without saying was a lovely and smart man, Emery was very similar. Arteta in his pressers, decisions in the market or interviews is absolutely nothing like them, a lot more reminiscent of someone like Mourinho which simply doesn't sit right with me. You may not know the feeling because you like me only knew Wenger but at my hometown club I've seen several managers I disliked - and even those never came out with gems like I Am The Solution

The only interesting question in your post is the last one. Normally I would've said definitely, considering the unheard of backing a complete novice with nothing to show for received it's very likely another manager could've gotten us quicker elsewhere. I wouldn't have dreamt in a hundred years of being first during Christmas this season, that's where the unpredictability of football comes into it.

Stefano Piolo has been Milan's manager couple months before Arteta was appointed. Having followed their games regularly I can relatively safely say from all full time appointments they've made since Allegri got the sack - Seedorf, Pippo Inzaghi, Mihajlovic, Montella Gattuso and Pioli - he's probably 2nd worst after only Inzaghi. They played some eyebleeding football early on under him and he wouldn't even use some of his best players for personal reasons, when the likes of Zlatan and Rebic started regularly they immediately improved their form. He was manager at loads of clubs before too and no one rated him in Italy like that. Sometimes things just click for you like that.

Either way I'm extremely surprised about how well we're doing, difficult to say whether the much improved level of certain players Xhaka White etc is down to continuity or would've happened with someone else along the new starters. Safe to say however Arteta is no longer being an active hindrance to us like he used to.

RowJimmy

I would say 90% of coaches/managers etc. across all sports are dicks. More precisely: martinets. They get off on bossing other people around.
Wenger was a really unique guy in that he was a successful manager who was not a dick.
Arteta is a definitely a martinet, but he's a company-man style martinet (very common in US, probably why the Kroenke's put faith in him) as opposed to Mourinho who is an egomaniacal sociopath.

I also think he's turned out to be an excellent manager and I don't see how you can not attribute a significant percentage of our current form to his work.

jones

Row Jimmy wrote:
I would say 90% of coaches/managers etc. across all sports are dicks.

I don't know about other sports or your definition of what constitutes a dick. If 90% of all football managers are dicks then Arteta is in the top 10% of those easily. The amount of fallouts he's had in his first two years is pretty much unprecedented.

I also think he's turned out to be an excellent manager and I don't see how you can not attribute a significant percentage of our current form to his work.

He's the manager of a team that's sitting top of the league so very clearly a significant percentage has to be attributed to him.

Either way is he now an excellent manager that we're 1st? If our form collapses and we finish 3rd or 4th, do we still consider him great? Was he excellent already when we finished out the CL spots last season, or the season before when we finished 8th? Is he an excellent manager when he has great players to work with, and a mediocre one when his players aren't handpicked?

RocktheCasbah

jones wrote:
Row Jimmy wrote:
I would say 90% of coaches/managers etc. across all sports are dicks.

I don't know about other sports or your definition of what constitutes a dick. If 90% of all football managers are dicks then Arteta is in the top 10% of those easily. The amount of fallouts he's had in his first two years is pretty much unprecedented.

Have you heard of a gentleman named George Graham? He used to be quite popular in London N5, despite falling out with a whole heap of Arsenal players...

Burnwinter

I don't particularly warm to Arteta, but he's an intriguing figure and I think I'm coming to admire him quite a bit.

"I am the solution" sounds a bit different, more ambitious than absurd, when we've recorded the best ever start in Premier League history.

At this point he's made a number of high risk moves and backed them up. He seems to be good at getting buy-in from others around him at Arsenal as well.

In the transfer market, his eye for talent is entirely unlike Wenger's, but perhaps better for this cashed-up era of finer margins between the top clubs. Formerly Wenger would see some spark of genius or utility in an unexpected bargain player or kid, then spend years developing that player towards greatness. Arteta goes shopping with a crisply defined and expensive list, but he hasn't misjudged his targets. I really rate Edu and Arteta for assembling an Arsenal squad in which nearly every player is immensely likeable and adequately talented. It's been a while …

Anyway, Arteta hasn't "turned out" to be anything as a manager just yet. A very good league start isn't a major trophy or a dynasty of success. At the moment, Arteta gives the flavour of Guardiola with the stature of Kevin Keegan. If we somehow win the league this season, he'll be an instant legend, but it's likely we finish the season with the Prize™ and no trophies, and face even tougher challenges next season.

Nothing much can yet be celebrated, and one thing good about Arteta is he also repeats that fact every chance he gets.

jones

RocktheCasbah wrote:
jones wrote:
I don't know about other sports or your definition of what constitutes a dick. If 90% of all football managers are dicks then Arteta is in the top 10% of those easily. The amount of fallouts he's had in his first two years is pretty much unprecedented.

Have you heard of a gentleman named George Graham? He used to be quite popular in London N5, despite falling out with a whole heap of Arsenal players...

When I started following the club he was celebrated in N17 for winning some other London club their first silverware in a decade.

Truth be told from all I've heard and read about Graham he most likely would rate even higher on the prick scale.

RocktheCasbah

jones wrote:
RocktheCasbah wrote:
Have you heard of a gentleman named George Graham? He used to be quite popular in London N5, despite falling out with a whole heap of Arsenal players...

When I started following the club he was celebrated in N17 for winning some other London club their first silverware in a decade.

Truth be told from all I've heard and read about Graham he most likely would rate even higher on the prick scale.

It's definitely possible, but he also gave Arsenal the greatest of things after an extended period in the doldrums - hope.

I know it's been commented on before here, by invisibleman if I remember rightly, but there are so many parallels between George and what Mikel Arteta has done since he arrived here. The restoration of hope being just one, a trophy early on and the disbanding of cliques and overpaid stars another, the refusal to compromise on standards yet another and, of course, the creation of, and reliance on, a youthful core.

jones

Burnwinter wrote:
I don't particularly warm to Arteta, but he's an intriguing figure and I think I'm coming to admire him quite a bit.

"I am the solution" sounds a bit different, more ambitious than absurd, when we've recorded the best ever start in Premier League history.

At this point he's made a number of high risk moves and backed them up. He seems to be good at getting buy-in from others around him at Arsenal as well.

In the transfer market, his eye for talent is entirely unlike Wenger's, but perhaps better for this cashed-up era of finer margins between the top clubs. Formerly Wenger would see some spark of genius or utility in an unexpected bargain player or kid, then spend years developing that player towards greatness. Arteta goes shopping with a crisply defined and expensive list, but he hasn't misjudged his targets. I really rate Edu and Arteta for assembling an Arsenal squad in which nearly every player is immensely likeable and adequately talented. It's been a while

Our squad building has been class but we've been seriously lucky too. Wanted a CB in Tapsoba got a RB in White instead. Wanted Lisandro got Zinchenko instead, wanted Vlahovic got Jesus, wanted Raphinha etc, wasn't all part of a crisp masterplan but dumb luck too

Mirth

jones wrote:
Burnwinter wrote:
I don't particularly warm to Arteta, but he's an intriguing figure and I think I'm coming to admire him quite a bit.

"I am the solution" sounds a bit different, more ambitious than absurd, when we've recorded the best ever start in Premier League history.

At this point he's made a number of high risk moves and backed them up. He seems to be good at getting buy-in from others around him at Arsenal as well.

In the transfer market, his eye for talent is entirely unlike Wenger's, but perhaps better for this cashed-up era of finer margins between the top clubs. Formerly Wenger would see some spark of genius or utility in an unexpected bargain player or kid, then spend years developing that player towards greatness. Arteta goes shopping with a crisply defined and expensive list, but he hasn't misjudged his targets. I really rate Edu and Arteta for assembling an Arsenal squad in which nearly every player is immensely likeable and adequately talented. It's been a while

Our squad building has been class but we've been seriously lucky too. Wanted a CB in Tapsoba got a RB in White instead. Wanted Lisandro got Zinchenko instead, wanted Vlahovic got Jesus, wanted Raphinha etc, wasn't all part of a crisp masterplan but dumb luck too

There's always luck in becoming Champions, particularly around transfers though. Seems more like resourcefulness to deal with setbacks in the transfer market

jones

Yeah I mean the opposite, if we had gotten our way first time around we'd have been saddled with what looks like possible duds or at least players who wouldn't have fit as well

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