Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch

criticalanalysis

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Well Partey thought it was a good idea to leave the only stable team amongst the top 3 in Spain and the one currently leading La Liga to join the 8th placed team in England.
Yeah completely daft move from him. Hope we're ready to pounce when he inevitability wants out.
Wasn't it late in the transfer window and Atletico hadn't given him a pay raise? He turned 27 in the summer and before Arsenal there wasn't much interest from other clubs, so he could have potentially went into the 20-21 season with Atletico and not knowing about his contract situation come end of 2021.

From purely a financial POV, I'm sure Arsenal gave him exactly what he wanted, so it's not a bad 'choice' given the circumstances, as it could be his last big pay day.

I look at Oscar and think the same even if it's more extreme as he was really young and was promising.

I 'get' it.
 

OleBoiii

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Apparently he was supposed to be Pep Lite
To be completely fair: he might very well be. Pep has never coached a team that's not the best or second best team in the league. You could maybe make an argument that he had a tough task in his first season as City manager, but that team wasn't far away from challenging and City spent a lot of money to make sure he very quickly had the best team in the league again.
 

SinNombre

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To be completely fair: he might very well be. Pep has never coached a team that's not the best or second best team in the league. You could maybe make an argument that he had a tough task in his first season as City manager, but that team wasn't far away from challenging and City spent a lot of money to make sure he very quickly had the best team in the league again.
Pep had a CL semifinalist team in his first season with the majority of the squad in their prime or yet to hit it.

Their league results were more a result of Pellegrini being a dead man walking in the second half of his last season.
 

RedDevilCanuck

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I wonder how many gooners would take Arsene back.

Top 4 or thereabouts with goals, youth and nice football doesn't seem so bad, eh?
 

Lay

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Elite manager, keep him at Arsenal please.
 

Amarsdd

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Wasn't it late in the transfer window and Atletico hadn't given him a pay raise? He turned 27 in the summer and before Arsenal there wasn't much interest from other clubs, so he could have potentially went into the 20-21 season with Atletico and not knowing about his contract situation come end of 2021.

From purely a financial POV, I'm sure Arsenal gave him exactly what he wanted, so it's not a bad 'choice' given the circumstances, as it could be his last big pay day.

I look at Oscar and think the same even if it's more extreme as he was really young and was promising.

I 'get' it.
What!? For some reason, I thought he was no more than 23-24.
 

Wiltord02

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Wenger's time was at an end, regardless of what has happened since.

The ownership needs to take much of the blame for the mess we currently find ourselves in. The signal of intent they put out by their manager choices post Wenger shows Arsenal is not a club structured to "win".
 

Paul_Scholes18

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He has done more than Ole/Lampard so far by winning the cup.

Odds surely on him to be the first manager to go though. They look awful right now.
 

Maluco

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It is a surprise initially, but the more you think about it, the more likely it is that his vision of how football should be played would be shaped by his time at Rangers and Everton.

When he came to Arsenal, he was already a senior player who had been at clubs with unfashionable, hardworking managers for quite some time. Getting to the byline, getting the ball in the mixer and staying compact would have been drilled into him long before he turned up at Arsenal.

There are clear similarities in what he is doing to how his playing career teams would have played football and having Steve Round there just makes it more suspect.

The issue is that he is taking a team that is ill fitted for that type of already unattractive football. Even with the correct players in place, there is a limit to how well you can do playing that way as it’s quite antiquated in the modern game and easy to defend against.

They thought they were getting mini-Guardiola, their own Spanish maestro, but what they have got is a novice student of David Moyes.
 

Dancfc

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To be completely fair: he might very well be. Pep has never coached a team that's not the best or second best team in the league. You could maybe make an argument that he had a tough task in his first season as City manager, but that team wasn't far away from challenging and City spent a lot of money to make sure he very quickly had the best team in the league again.
If he was Pep lite he'd play something resembling that football even with a weaker team, like what Sarri did at Empoli and Napoli.
 

WeePat

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It is a surprise initially, but the more you think about it, the more likely it is that his vision of how football should be played would be shaped by his time at Rangers and Everton.

When he came to Arsenal, he was already a senior player who had been at clubs with unfashionable, hardworking managers for quite some time. Getting to the byline, getting the ball in the mixer and staying compact would have been drilled into him long before he turned up at Arsenal.

There are clear similarities in what he is doing to how his playing career teams would have played football and having Steve Round there just makes it more suspect.

The issue is that he is taking a team that is ill fitted for that type of already unattractive football. Even with the correct players in place, there is a limit to how well you can do playing that way as it’s quite antiquated in the modern game and easy to defend against.

They thought they were getting mini-Guardiola, their own Spanish maestro, but what they have got is a novice student of David Moyes.
If I played my entire career playing for pragmatic managers who I never won anything noteworthy with, the last thing I'm going to do is emulate their ideas.
 

Maluco

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If I played my entire career playing for pragmatic managers who I never won anything noteworthy with, the last thing I'm going to do is emulate their ideas.
Its not like he was at clubs that were supposed to be competing for the big trophies though, is it?

He got a double in Scotland and then came down to a team hailed for competing with the big clubs and being the ‘best of the test’.

David Moyes came to United and obviously said to himself “I’m just going to try the same thing with better players”. I think Arteta is doing the same thing.
 

sglowrider

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If I played my entire career playing for pragmatic managers who I never won anything noteworthy with, the last thing I'm going to do is emulate their ideas.
What do you think is going on on the training grounds and off the pitch? The manager and his coaches are explaining, drilling in their respective visions of how their idea of the game is being played -- and hoping that it becomes engraved into their brains and then gets translated onto the pitch. The hope is that it becomes muscle memory.

10 years later, how do you think you see the game?
 

rotherham_red

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He has done more than Ole/Lampard so far by winning the cup.

Odds surely on him to be the first manager to go though. They look awful right now.
The FA Cup does not wipe out taking 5th placed arsenal to 8th and then proceed to have them falling to 15th no matter how much you may want it to.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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The FA Cup does not wipe out taking 5th placed arsenal to 8th and then proceed to have them falling to 15th no matter how much you may want it to.
It does not wipe things out, but it will be in the history books.
Just as LVG will be for us getting a win and Moyes even with the shield.
 

GifLord

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They do have a lot of average players. I remember how they used to defend Xhaka by saying that Wenger didn't know how to properly use him yet here we are almost 5 years later and he' still the same mediocre player he was in his first season.
 

WeePat

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What do you think is going on on the training grounds and off the pitch? The manager and his coaches are explaining, drilling in their respective visions of how their idea of the game is being played -- and hoping that it becomes engraved into their brains and then gets translated onto the pitch. The hope is that it becomes muscle memory.

10 years later, how do you think you see the game?
I hear you but Arteta spent the last 5 years of his career playing for Wenger where he won his only English trophies, then spent years working alongside serial winner Pep, I don't know why I thought that he'd look at those two, having witnessed them up close, and be closer to them stylistically.
 
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2 man midfield

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For the first time in my life I genuinely don’t know half the arsenal players, or whether or not they’re any good. Even well into the banter years you knew what the likes of Cazorla, Koscielny and Walcott were about. Now it’s all El Neny this and Maitland-Niles that, and I’m left scratching my head. Some lad called Saka is wearing their number 7 shirt - where did he come from?
 

Sylar

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Has Tim Cahill said anything recently?

We lost clearly for the long game of keeping him there
Clearly

I don't get what arsenal's style is either, especially given all this talk from media that he's got them on the right track and has a plan in place (and this was on the back of sacrificing most of the attacking to basically crowd it out in defence)
 

AshRK

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It does not wipe things out, but it will be in the history books.
Just as LVG will be for us getting a win and Moyes even with the shield.
Ole has outperformed Moyes. Shield doesn't make Moyes' achivement more. Yes trophies are important but finishing 8th and winning FA cup or finishing 3rd. I wouldn't say the former was some big achievement.
 

Tapori

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It is a surprise initially, but the more you think about it, the more likely it is that his vision of how football should be played would be shaped by his time at Rangers and Everton.

When he came to Arsenal, he was already a senior player who had been at clubs with unfashionable, hardworking managers for quite some time. Getting to the byline, getting the ball in the mixer and staying compact would have been drilled into him long before he turned up at Arsenal.

There are clear similarities in what he is doing to how his playing career teams would have played football and having Steve Round there just makes it more suspect.

The issue is that he is taking a team that is ill fitted for that type of already unattractive football. Even with the correct players in place, there is a limit to how well you can do playing that way as it’s quite antiquated in the modern game and easy to defend against.

They thought they were getting mini-Guardiola, their own Spanish maestro, but what they have got is a novice student of David Moyes.
:D:D
 

Obiorahking_

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They really lack creativity in the middle of the pitch but yeah Arteta is suspect. Hire never really made sense because his mentor never coached a team with little talent so what did they think was going to happen?
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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He has done more than Ole/Lampard so far by winning the cup.

Odds surely on him to be the first manager to go though. They look awful right now.
He can win Cups all he wants but Chelsea & United are aiming higher to win major trophies not cup trophies. May be Arteta is a cup competition manager, could do very well at national team.

But then again, he can’t even coach his player to take a throw in. Bellerin got caught for fail throw like million times already this season. That’s equivalent to giving the ball away to opposition.
 

sglowrider

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I hear you but Arteta spent the last 5 years of his career playing for Wenger where he won his only English trophies, then spent years working alongside serial winner Pep, I don't know why I thought that he'd look at those two, having witnessed them up close, and be closer to them stylistically.
The shift in the narrative of from Pep-Lite to MoyesPure within a few weeks is amazing. My Gooner mate at the start of the season said that they had a top 3 frontline to they are now all crap players! Same shit, different day.
 

smi11ie

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He has a very serious demeanor. I think he could smile or joke around a bit more. I bet it is really boring to be a player at Arsenal right now, everything is doom and gloom there.

Also feels like Arteta has shot himself in the foot with Ozil. Makes me question his judgement and man management ability. It is very much "Arteta's way or the highway". I don't think it is going to work for him and can see him managing abroad after he gets canned.
 

Ace of Spades

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The shift in the narrative of from Pep-Lite to MoyesPure within a few weeks is amazing. My Gooner mate at the start of the season said that they had a top 3 frontline to they are now all crap players! Same shit, different day.
That is basically every modern fan these days. They do have other problems beyond the manager, and while I did think the whole elite manager thing was non sense, I felt he had started decently.

But they just have just become worse overtime instead of improving.