What connection does he have with Barca except that he’s Spanish and Pep’s so called disciple?
Mikel Arteta plays down speculation linking him to Barca job
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Barca have a great group of youngsters and a group of players clearly past their prime including Messi. What they don't have is great players in their prime. Compound that with terrible coaching appointment after terrible coaching appointment.
In not saying he's not done wrong, he's certainly made mistakes.
He's not starting any more in the must win games, & he (& Pepe) actually played well vs Leicester so maybe he's coming into some form at the right time.
He spent 5 years as a youth going through their system.
I mean, who cares? Arsenal are thirteen time English league champions. You're a huge football and shouldn't be a training ground for young managers to learn their trade. Note that this doesn't mean you should resist hiring young managers but that standards should be required to be met, whether the manager is 52 or 32. A young manager is not like a young striker, you can't persist with them for 5 years while they 'figure themselves out'.
Once Partey gets a good run going it will be interesting to see how things progress.
I agree with you on all points except the "first job" part. That is not an excuse for Ole, Lampard, Arteta or Guardiola at Barca or anyone at a big club. Clubs like this are not a place for learning but of delivering results and football.
I'm for the opinion of keeping Ole but not because he is still leaning but because he has shown progress above expectations (3ed in the league last season; 2ed at the time of writing) and bringing players in of the right character. If things were different I would have been the first to say "Ole out". My patience is down to the massive job of a rebuild, not the experience of the manager. I am pissed off we are 2ed and not 1st but I can see the progress that will bring us there.
We finish outside of top 4 or we regress or stagnate, it is time to find a new manager no discussion.
Using that logic literally anyone might be a success there. I mean, how would you know?!
What we do know is that Arteta has been in charge of Arsenal during one of their worst seasons in a very long time. Punching miles below their weight, in terms of wage bill and value of their squad.
Now there may be hidden depths that Barca are aware of but none of us know about. That’s a bit of a pointless basis for discussion though.
Which manager would have us winning the league instantly?
Exactly, there's limits as to what's acceptable at big clubs, even during rebuilds.
Wasn't really the point. I highlighting that it shouldn't matter whether this Arteta's 1st or 10th job.
Why would they want him?
In your opinion. The club can't attract the top manager, whoever that may be, because it's very clear that the owner has no interest in throwing money around to win titles.
And? As I mentioned before, Juve, Barca, Bayern, Real all bigger clubs, all hired rookies. Standard should be met, but there also needs to be basic understanding of the situation.
We are 10th just now, thanks largely to our sticky spell we had in October / November. We have since improved, both in results, & performances. The season isn't over yet, so we don't know where we'll finish.
So, our support have seen that improvement, can see we have good youngsters, & can see we have the potential to improve more with a couple more of the right signings.
It's like you almost seem perplexed that a club is willing to give a manager time & stick to a project. I and many others will judge him more harshly next season.
Absolutely not. If you believe that he has top class managerial ability you should definitely stick with him as the Arsenal rebuild with undoubtedly take time. But I don't think you should make concessions due to his being newbie when coming to that assessment of his quality.
Point taken. Its not the point he's a newbie I'm making concessions for mostly, it's the sheer scale of the task that needed done at Arsenal. Your talking about potentially turning over 10-15 players in about 18 months. In a Covid environment & restricted finances. I was critical of him during our poor run as he was getting his team selection wrong, & I wanted him to blood the likes of Smith-Rowe & build more for the future, or I feared he was putting himself out of a job, & my posts at the time on here said as much.
He has since done that, & performances & results have improved in the main. But I'll continue to assess what he does the rest of the season, what he & Edu manage to do in the transfer window, & will demand further improvement next season.
They're 10th right now, with a record of 11-4-11. You can't get more mid-table than that.
Incorrect.
This was placing just before he took charge:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50791634
Not great but miles clear of relegation and they were actually only 6 points off 4th with over half a season still to play so much closer than where they were in December this season.
Man. United (2 points ahead) and Spurs (3 points ahead) both lost that weekend. Both finished in the top 6.
Very average league form in his 12 months there. Let's remember Emery finishing 5th was seen as a disaster in his only season there. Arsenal need CL income one way or the other so Arteta needs to come up with answer soon enough but I wouldn't have them as anywhere near favourites for europa.
Edit: Oh think you were on about this season. Well considering they won their first two it was an abysmal run of form to even get themselves into that situation where they were only a few points above relegation zone at halfway point of the season.
Only defence I'd say of him is he's missed likes of Partey and Tierney for decent chunks of his reign so need to see what their results are like when those two + Saka, Auba, ESM/Martinelli, Odegaard can all start at same time.
Arteta had 0 job experience at managing. Arsenal is not in its best shape but there are loads of managers out there that have some level of accomplishments that can only dream of managing Arsenal FC. You've taken the best striker from Germany and one of the best wide attackers from France and the World, one of the best DM in the World, etc. You really think you would have trouble at attracting managers?
Barca took a chance on Guardiola after watching him in the reserves, Chelsea with Lampard after doing ok with Derby (mistake IMO) and United after Ole won Moldes first ever title. Arsenal went with Arteta completely blind. The man has never ever been in charge of a football team at any level and Arsenal chose him as the manager. It is an appalling decision and the results are not surprising.
Yeah this is what I don't get. Emery's first season was better than anything Arteta produced and his second season was... on par with what Arteta's been doing ever since.
He seems to have infinite amount of goodwill based on... well, nothing really.
Sure thing pal. It's clear you don't know what you're talking about.
Where you saying all this with Emery out of interest? He had arguably an even worse squad left by Wenger especially considering likes of Martinelli and Saka (who he gave debuts to) were very inexperienced compared to now.
Not saying he's the greatest manager out there but he's proving at Villareal he's a good enough top 5 manager in major league and they'll be difficult draw in europa.
5th and europa final in which Hazard was decisive factor in the second half. Went wrong the next season but even then the form wasn't as bad as the run Arteta had you on at similar time.
It really was odd end to 18/19 season looking back. Arsenal blew 4th with some bad away defeats, Man. United completely blew up after having that mass winning run at start of OGS reign and think Chelsea got 3rd in the end despite only winning two of their last 6 games. Would be surprised if Arsenal got as close to top 4 next season as that.
Emery lost the dressing room, & became a figure of fun, with players & media sneering at him (remember good ebening)? Once you lose the dressing room, it's very difficult to come back from that.
Emery had a very decent first season, we would have actually qualified for the top 4 had he not inexplicably rested players for a home game vs Palace that if we won would have sealed our place.
Unfortunately, that seemed the beginning of the end. I certainly don't lay the blame at Emery's door totally, he was badly let down by Raul Sanllehi in the market, & badly let down by the players in the end, but doing things like playing Ceballos as the defensive pivot while playing Torriera as a 10 certainly didn't help matters. His poor communication & all over the place tactics was what likely lost the players, & therefore his job in the end.
Yes I was on about this season and yes it was an abysmal run but they appear to have dug themselves out of it, he may well have been the wrong person for the Arsenal job but I think he'll do ok in his career, he knows how he wants the team to play and he's getting them playing that way.
Yeah but he didn't take them there. They've been a midtable club for a bit.
You think Arteta has them punching miles below their weight? I'd beg to differ
And yes, clubs have access to tons of information they use to decide whether someone is suited for the manager role, that we have no access to. We can guess the way we do on other topics but fans in general overstate certain factors when it comes to managers succeeding.
They finished 5th in 19/20 with 70 points. Ahead of United, even. Not exactly a title challenge, admittedly, but they'll be nowhere near 70 points this season.
Moyes and Ancelotti took over weaker squad's at pretty much the same time and are 8 and 9 points clear of Arsenal respectively.
I think it's clear you don't know how to answer with counter arguments but decided you should still answer with...something. Same attitude that keeps the Arsenal FC manager in job after having 11 defeats. I love it.
You could differ but (with respect) you’d be wrong.
5th highest net spend (last 5 years)
2nd highest wage bill (the metric that a lot of people argue has the most reliable correlation with success)
Arsenal are currently 10th.
Arteta clearly has them punching below their weight.
I agree with @Thunderhead & @GoonerBear here. When I see Arteta I just get the sense that he knows what he is doing and he is doing the right things there. There are some parallels with Ole's situation. Like United, they are still trying to fully recover their identity after having a strong leader leave the club. Also like United when they are good they are actually very good, they just struggle with consistency. I was very impressed with their performance against Leicester.
I can see why Barcelona would look at him (if it were true). There are arguments that they could be better off with someone with a lot more experience, and I won't argue against that, but sometimes when a club needs a complete reboot its not the worst idea to bring in someone fresh. Arteta could tick a lot of boxes if they choose to go down that route.
Mitigated by several injuries to Arsenal's squad IIRC.
Seriously, have you seen their squad? They should have no expectations of hitting top 4 yet.
That's not Arteta's fault, that's the fault of disastrous contracts handed out by their management over the years.
Plus, he (luckily) won a trophy last season. More than can be said for most clubs in the league.
I'm curious as to what you think their ceiling is.
It's probably better than ours last season that got 4th and it's certainly better than the squad Emery narrowly missed out on 4th with.
There's some mitigation for poor results but there's limits, it's still a better squad than 10th place.
Who should Barca hire/target?
Someone like Nagelsmann? Marsch? Blanc? De Zerbi? Other?
Someone like Nagelsmann? Marsch? Blanc? De Zerbi? Other?
I think they should have been in the thick of the battle for top four all season long. I also think that Arteta has missed a huge opportunity to take advantage of a season where so many of Arsenal’s usual rivals are off the pace. The fact that clubs with a fraction of the budgets of Arsenal (e.g. Everton and Leicester) have benefitted most from the struggles of Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea is a damning indictment of the job Arteta has been doing at Arsenal.
I even think you could include United in the “struggling clubs” category. Hate to say it but Manchester United with Ole in charge is an opportunity for Arsenal to get one over on us that someone like Wenger could only dream of.
Messi as player manager
I probably worded that badly. My point is Wenger could only dream of coming up against a United manager as green as Ole. To have Fergie in charge throughout his Arsenal career was a bit of a nightmare.
What does that even mean? He got a plenty over you when you were in your prime.
Well maybe, but let's be honest....you're not the gold standard anymore. We had your number before but then along came Chelsea and then City
I actually think Arteta is pretty good. He's been chopping / changing / dealing with dressing room drama / injuries start of season but they've finally settled on a system and a set of players and are racking up the points now. Their movement, press, defensive shape all look solid.
The squad itself is nothing to write home about. Saka, Auba, Tierney are good, but other starters like Smith Rowe, Xhaka, Cedric, D. Luiz, Holding, Eleny are all fairly midtable. If he's backed a bit this summer, I think they can get back to the top four, but it seems unlikely given their financial problems.
The squad itself is nothing to write home about. Saka, Auba, Tierney are good, but other starters like Smith Rowe, Xhaka, Cedric, D. Luiz, Holding, Eleny are all fairly midtable. If he's backed a bit this summer, I think they can get back to the top four, but it seems unlikely given their financial problems.
You do realize we won 5 titles in 7 seasons under Sir Alex after Chelsea came along ?