Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch

[awop]

I think it’s a bit on the weird side. Players miss penalties. It happens.

I think this may not be about the penalty miss but maybe the mountain of racist abuse he received for weeks.

 

[The Corinthian]

He’s such an insufferable prick on the touch line. Would love the opposing manager to just fill him in.

 

[Daydreamer]

Such a weird club

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Well I, for one, am embarrassed to be associated with a club that showcases the genuine connection fans have with an local academy graduate who suffered a torrent of racial abuse and decided to rally round and communicate their support.

 

[Sweet Square]

Well I, for one, am embarrassed to be associated with a club that showcases the genuine connection fans have with an local academy graduate who suffered a torrent of racial abuse and decided to rally round and communicate their support.

Saka already has the letters and this is reproduction that is now a permanent wall. It’s bit much imo(Arsenal are not going to do the same for other players who get abused, I mean the club wouldn’t stand with a player for talking about the persecution of the uyghurs Muslims ).

Reminds of their special kit to try and end knife crime. Just another in the long list of stupid pr stunts.

 

[Nish115]

Saka already has the letters and this is reproduction that is now a permanent wall. It’s bit much imo(Arsenal are not going to do the same for other players who get abused, I mean the club wouldn’t stand with a player for talking about the persecution of the uyghurs Muslims ).

Reminds of their special kit to try and end knife crime. Just another in the long list of stupid pr stunts.

Ah okay, the club should just do nothing then.

 

[Daydreamer]

Saka already has the letters and this is reproduction that is now a permanent wall. It’s bit much imo(Arsenal are not going to do the same for other players who get abused, I mean the club wouldn’t stand with a player for talking about the persecution of the uyghurs Muslims ).

Reminds of their special kit to try and end knife crime. Just another in the long list of stupid pr stunts.

I’m totally with you in terms of how we treated Ozil in light of him speaking up. All sarcasm aside, I actually was embarrassed about that.

And you’re right, we’re unlikely to repeat anything like this in the near future. But that’s because we’re unlikely to have a black kid whose been with the club since he was eight years old miss the fifth penalty in the European Championships Final shootout at Wembley Stadium and receive racist abuse en masse.

It’s a pretty singular set of circumstances, which is why it has a unique response.

All in all, I’d say supporting a player and simultaneously highlighting the inclusive attitudes that (I hope) represents the majority of the British public is a good thing.

 

[RedC]

I hope they get top 4, and Conte leaves Spurs. Can't see them doing anything under Arteta, having more than 1 game a week will hit them hard and fast next season.

 

[PoTMS]

Maybe Arsenal getting top 4 wouldn't be the worst of outcomes. This fraud gets to live another day and maybe Conte fecks Spurs off too.

 

[Gazautd18]

Is Nketiah out of contract?
Should start more for them.

 

[Jezpeza]

Hes barely been doing acceptably in the league without european football. I think its more likely hes sacked by november than this being the start of anything with the gunners

 

[adexkola]

Hes barely been doing acceptably in the league without european football. I think its more likely hes sacked by november than this being the start of anything with the gunners

They've won more games than Chelsea in the league so far.

 

[Jezpeza]

They've won more games than Chelsea in the league so far.

and? Chelsea have been having a tip top brilliant season have they?

 

[GoonerBear]

Hes barely been doing acceptably in the league without european football. I think its more likely hes sacked by november than this being the start of anything with the gunners

I'd say it all depends in how they can improve the squad in the transfer window. Probably say the same for all teams though.

 

[Pintu]

They are gonna keep that 4th spot. Great job by lego Pep.

 

[Mogget]

They've won more games than Chelsea in the league so far.

Ah but you see that's only because United have been poor this season

 

[Jezpeza]

I'd say it all depends in how they can improve the squad in the transfer window. Probably say the same for all teams though.

perhaps. For my money, your team still has no identity and once you are playing 3 games a week and cant do a tactical deep dive into every league fixture hes going to get badly found out.

 

[BurgerVan]

Hes barely been doing acceptably in the league without european football. I think its more likely hes sacked by november than this being the start of anything with the gunners

'Barely been doing acceptably'? ok bro, because of course we were widely predicted to be challenging for top 4 this season, particularly afting losing the first 3 games by an aggregate of 9-0.

I 100% read that we would be lucky to finish top half on here. Don't worry about giving any credit where it is due, it shows we're relevant.

 

[cesc's_mullet]

I think it’s a bit on the weird side. Players miss penalties. It happens.

You really didn't think this one through, did you?

 

[ThierryHenry14]

I hope Arteta can convince Nketiah to stay. He is doing fine at the moment.

 

[The Corinthian]

You really didn't think this one through, did you?

I thought it was for the penalty miss. Someone said it wasn’t and was for the racist abuse he received.

 

[Jezpeza]

'Barely been doing acceptably'? ok bro, because of course we were widely predicted to be challenging for top 4 this season, particularly afting losing the first 3 games by an aggregate of 9-0.

I 100% read that we would be lucky to finish top half on here. Don't worry about giving any credit where it is due, it shows we're relevant.

ok mate i hope you arent crying under your bed about it….

A good example of your fans mindset and shows how small your clubs become. You were bitching about wenger ‘only finishing top4’ for 15 years. Now you are doing backflips because you might finish top 4 and had expected 8th. Like a handful of shit thats slowly sliding down the wall

 

[GoonerBear]

ok mate i hope you arent crying under your bed about it….

A good example of your fans mindset and shows how small your clubs become. You were bitching about wenger ‘only finishing top4’ for 15 years. Now you are doing backflips because you might finish top 4 and had expected 8th. Like a handful of shit thats slowly sliding down the wall

We're all shit sliding down a wall compared to City & Liverpool. Thought you would be used to it by now.

 

[Jezpeza]

We're all shit sliding down a wall compared to City & Liverpool. Thought you would be used to it by now.

we’ll fight to get back up there. Our fans accept top 4 as a minimum, not celebrate it. I think Arsenal will be a casualty at the top after Newcastles take over. You cant compete with us financially and never could. Newcastle will be on the up for several seasons - they have unlimited money now. Chelsea are still there. You have an artificial 4th place anyway atm, its taken our worst PL season, spurs and Leicester falling apart and West Ham running out of steam because of Thursday nights to get you there. As i pointed out earlier, you are a team without identity and when you cant spend the weeks between games figuring how to scrape wins against mediocre PL teams Lego pep is going to get really badly found out.

 

[allen7]

As someone said, the success of Arteta will be decided this summer on his signings. He’s getting the top 4 and should be able to attract some top talents, if he could do that and build a solid team that can compete for top 4 regularly then it’s not right to call him lucky or fraud or whatever.
But at the moment they are scrapping wins by some luck through referees and also other teams falling apart.

 

[AshRK]

Arteta and Arsenal finishing 4th has to be respected and appreciated. It is not his fault that Manchester United are having a mare. The challenge is to sustain or else the patience shown on him will become waste.

 

[RedC]

Arteta and Arsenal finishing 4th has to be respected and appreciated. It is not his fault that Manchester United are having a mare. The challenge is to sustain or else the patience shown on him will become waste.

Not particularly, their 2 main rivals for it sacked managers mid season, and they've had no midweek football. They also spent 150 million quid or something.

 

[Fridge chutney]

He finished 8th and 8th, so finishing 4th is progress.

I think, however, that will be as good as it gets for Arsenal under him. Like with us under Ole, i don't think Arsenal will ever challenge for the League or CL under Arteta. In fact, i would be shocked if they finish 4th again next season.

 

[erinoco]

I've written off Arteta twice during his reign: both times, he has managed to come back. Next season ought to be the moment when he really demonstrates results from his project. I'm currently confident that he can show some sort of progress - a trophy of some kind. But I also have reservations. Namely:

- His in-game management. Arteta has been excellent at identifying structural flaws in our game, and slowly squeezing them out of our play. But he has been slow to adapt when opposing teams have zeroed in on a weakness they have spotted. He usually does something to remedy it two or three games in the future - but that might be two or three games too many. And he is so caught up in driving the team from the touchline that he could fail to see what needs to change right there and then. It's partly because he is both a control merchant in the Pep sense and a cautious counter-attack minded manager, and he tends to revert to the latter whenever he is worried about the opposition (as we saw against West Ham).

- His man-management. Özil wasn't really his fault; but Aubameyang, Saliba and Guendouzi are losses which hit us. There are a lot of smaller things which recur from time to time (such as the way he interacts with or speaks about players) which make me wonder whether he has really developed the kind of bond with his players that great managers demonstrate. If he can't, that will come back to bite us at crucial moments.

I think he is good enough to work on these flaws, and become a better manager for it, but I'm still not certain he solve them while at Arsenal.

 

[cesc's_mullet]

we’ll fight to get back up there. Our fans accept top 4 as a minimum, not celebrate it. I think Arsenal will be a casualty at the top after Newcastles take over. You cant compete with us financially and never could. Newcastle will be on the up for several seasons - they have unlimited money now. Chelsea are still there. You have an artificial 4th place anyway atm, its taken our worst PL season, spurs and Leicester falling apart and West Ham running out of steam because of Thursday nights to get you there. As i pointed out earlier, you are a team without identity and when you cant spend the weeks between games figuring how to scrape wins against mediocre PL teams Lego pep is going to get really badly found out.

Explain what you mean by "a team without an identity?" You "pointing it out" multiple times doesn't make it true.

I am not an Arteta fan by any stretch of the imagination, but that's a laughable suggestion to make - if there's one thing he's done right it's been him trying to develop an identity by creating a hard-working, no-nonsense, team-oriented squad.

He has moved on players he has deemed a distraction and taken a real no-nonsense approach to his squad management. Ozil, Guendouzi and PEA are all players that he has moved on because he did not like their attitudes. All of those players still had something to offer us on the pitch at the time of them being moved on. But despite that, they obviously did not fit into the identity of the team that he was fostering.

He has also implemented a very distinct game plan. Rightly or wrongly, he's made the players stick to it.

All of these things are what a normal person would consider equates to creating an identity.

Now if you want to look at a club that's without an identity then look no further than this current United side. From Ole until this current day it is a team without an identity. There is no distinct game plan. There are no pervasive team-wide traits. Players are regularly taking the piss.

It seems that either you're projecting, or you simply haven't paid any attention.

 

[cesc's_mullet]

Not particularly, their 2 main rivals for it sacked managers mid season, and they've had no midweek football. They also spent 150 million quid or something.

What should he have done then?

 

[Revaulx]

I can’t stand Arsenal and am far from convinced that Mr Lego is anything special, but the saltiness of some United fans on here does seem a bit OTT; it isn’t as if the Gooners are unreasonably Glaston-ish.

At least they seem to have achieved the Cultural Reset that United have yet to embark on. We should take heart from their experience; clubs with evil, distant and clueless American owners are capable of change.

 

[Mogget]

I don't really buy this argument that if we finish fourth it'll be because United and Spurs were poor. If we win 2 more games we'll have the same amount of points that 3rd place got last season.

 

[Donaldo]

I can’t stand Arsenal and am far from convinced that Mr Lego is anything special, but the saltiness of some United fans on here does seem a bit OTT; it isn’t as if the Gooners are unreasonably Glaston-ish.

At least they seem to have achieved the Cultural Reset that United have yet to embark on. We should take heart from their experience; clubs with evil, distant and clueless American owners are capable of change.

It's a desperate urge to wind up, a sort of schadenfreude club of the really piss poor lot out of the 'top 6'

 

[GoonerBear]

we’ll fight to get back up there. Our fans accept top 4 as a minimum, not celebrate it. I think Arsenal will be a casualty at the top after Newcastles take over. You cant compete with us financially and never could. Newcastle will be on the up for several seasons - they have unlimited money now. Chelsea are still there. You have an artificial 4th place anyway atm, its taken our worst PL season, spurs and Leicester falling apart and West Ham running out of steam because of Thursday nights to get you there. As i pointed out earlier, you are a team without identity and when you cant spend the weeks between games figuring how to scrape wins against mediocre PL teams Lego pep is going to get really badly found out.

Do you not think this attitude is part of your problem. "We're Utd, we'll be challenging, we have a lot of money, we'll be back."

I hate to break it to you but you've had just as shit as last 8 or 9 years or so as us (our stretches even longer). In fact your probably further away than you've ever been currently in that the me. So it's ok saying 4th is a minimum, we won't settle for anything less, but it's not done you any good so far.

Also, yeah, you might have more money than us, that might help you finish higher than us, but have you more than City, Chelsea, Newcastle now? I don't know why Arsenal fans should fear their place in the pecking order & Utd fans shouldn't.

See, perhaps that's what a lot of Arsenal fans have learned since the Wenger Out days. This league is hard, & it's actually difficult to get it right, & easy to get it wrong. From what I've seen of City, Liverpool & Chelsea, you need some sort of combo of the most money, the best structure & the very best managers. Until you get 2 or 3 out the 3, your just noise, & that's what we are just now.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I can’t stand Arsenal and am far from convinced that Mr Lego is anything special, but the saltiness of some United fans on here does seem a bit OTT; it isn’t as if the Gooners are unreasonably Glaston-ish.

At least they seem to have achieved the Cultural Reset that United have yet to embark on. We should take heart from their experience; clubs with evil, distant and clueless American owners are capable of change.

What do you mean when you say they have “achieved the cultural reset”? What is this change you speak of?

It’s all meaningless guff really. Same stuff was said about Ole a couple of years ago with his young team and talk of “playing the United way”. Fairly sure the same “cultural reset” phrase was used when he shipped out Lukaku et al. And Ole actually made a top two finish!

And I can understand why this rubs United fans up the wrong way. It’s classic Arsenal. The British media has always been full of Arsenal fans desperate to exaggerate their achievements. Going all the way back to Wenger and the insanely over the top praise every time a bunch of their kids smashed a team of PL reserves in the league cup, en route to scraping a top four finish. It’s tiresome.

 

[GoonerBear]

What do you mean when you say they have “achieved the cultural reset”? What is this change you speak of?

It’s all meaningless guff really. Same stuff was said about Ole a couple of years ago with his young team and talk of “playing the United way”. Fairly sure the same “cultural reset” phrase was used when he shipped out Lukaku et al. And Ole actually made a top two finish!

And I can understand why this rubs United fans up the wrong way. It’s classic Arsenal. The British media has always been full of Arsenal fans desperate to exaggerate their achievements. Going all the way back to Wenger and the insanely over the top praise every time a bunch of their kids smashed a team of PL reserves in the league cup, en route to scraping a top four finish. It’s tiresome.

Like the Utd media was with Ole after they put out PSG, or the likes of Rio crowing with glasses of champagne after you signed Ronaldo back? Why do you think Oles at the Wheel got popular whatever the opposition by the end? Don't think we have any more friends in the media than Utd do, especially when the biggest media company in terms of EPL coverage Sky has an ex Utd player as 1 of its 2 main protagonists.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Like the Utd media was with Ole after they put out PSG, or the likes of Rio crowing with glasses of champagne after you signed Ronaldo back? Why do you think Oles at the Wheel got popular whatever the opposition by the end? Don't think we have any more friends in the media than Utd do, especially when the biggest media company in terms of EPL coverage Sky has an ex Utd player as 1 of its 2 main protagonists.

Exactly like that, yes. United shades it with sycophants on Tv. Arsenal in the print media. They both consistently get vastly over-rated after achieving not very much.

 

[Bebestation]

I feel that Mikel has made Arsenal a bit more "cool" again after a long time.

Playing with the Odegaard's, Martinelli's and Saka's than the Ozil's and Aubameyang's.

It's not much but it's something id like to have seen at United in a season we didn't achieve much.

 

[GoonerBear]

Exactly like that, yes. United shades it with sycophants on Tv. Arsenal in the print media. They both consistently get vastly over-rated after achieving not very much.

Fair point again, can't really argue against it.

 

[footyfan019]

I don't really buy this argument that if we finish fourth it'll be because United and Spurs were poor. If we win 2 more games we'll have the same amount of points that 3rd place got last season.

Correct, usually the team finishing 4th will be having an inconsistent season very similar to what United, Arsenal and Spurs had. It's just the matter of who can squeeze out few extra points when it matters the most.

With clubs like newcastle,wolves,villa,hammers etc getting good investments it will be the norm going forward. When everyone has money it gets tougher. It's not like Arsenal can't spend, we have spend well in last few years. At this point every team apart from City and Pool falls in same bracket, they all can do well or fall apart next season it's very hard to predict.

I am not a big fan of Arteta, he still has a lot to learn to coach a top club. We have to live with his limitations and hope that he keeps improving. But he has brought some good changes in last few years. Arsenal had to change from how club was run under Wenger, it was outdated.