Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch

I'd make them just about favourites for 4th now, which you have to give Arteta some credit for as I don't think they have a great team and I'd have out them as mid table if anything. He's used the younger players well without drowning them, at least made a decisive move with offloading the problem causer, and has them looking more solid than they have in any other recent season.

At the same time it just as much reflects badly on United and Spurs as I don't think Arsenal have particularly overachieved or played spectacularly well either. In fact they've been shite in quite a lot of games and resort to reducer/time wasting tactics sometimes with literally half the game to go.

Also slight favourites is on the basis they're Arsenal and I actually still expect them to feck it up. It's just that I also expect United to feck it up and Spurs to stay in some kind of weird semi freefall where they put everything on Kane despite him only showing up half the time. West Ham just aren't quite good enough and Wolves don't score enough goals.
 
Suedesi said:
Arsenal are the most annoying fanbase ever
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Spurs fans are extremely irritating although it might just be the ones I know. At least Arsenal fans arrogance is based on them actually being relevant at some point over the last 30 years.
 
TwoSheds said:
Do you really think the likes of Ramsdale and White are good enough for you to kick on and win things? I think most of your first XI are squad player material tbh. I like Smith-Rowe, Saka and Martinelli and Odegaard is starting to look pretty decent but I don't think there's anyone who looks likely to go on to be world class really.
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If we're talking about winning the league, then its always going to be a huge long shot for a team in Arsenal's financial position. We would realistically need a bunch of these players to all kick up a level together. In the 17 years since Roman arrived at Chelsea, the three wealthiest clubs have won 15 titles. And soon we'll have Newcastle in the mix. For a club like Arsenal you basically need the perfect storm of absolutely everything going right to even think about challenging a side on City's current level.

But I think squad player material is far too harsh. All the guys you mention have been good this season and are in the part of their careers where you expect them to improve over the next couple years. If we get the recruitment right this summer at the very least Arsenal should have a team for a 4-5 year period that is very competitive for top four, competitive for the domestic cups, and sometimes crazy things happen in the European competitions too.
 
Powderfinger said:
If we're talking about winning the league, then its always going to be a huge long shot for a team in Arsenal's financial position. We would realistically need a bunch of these players to all kick up a level together. In the 17 years since Roman arrived at Chelsea, the three wealthiest clubs have won 15 titles. And soon we'll have Newcastle in the mix. For a club like Arsenal you basically need the perfect storm of absolutely everything going right to even think about challenging a side on City's current level.

But I think squad player material is far too harsh. All the guys you mention have been good this season and are in the part of their careers where you expect them to improve over the next couple years. If we get the recruitment right this summer at the very least Arsenal should have a team for a 4-5 year period that is very competitive for top four, competitive for the domestic cups, and sometimes crazy things happen in the European competitions too.
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But you've had money. If you used these young lads as a base and added 2 or 3 top players around them then I don't see why you couldn't challenge. The problem is so far Arteta has fallen out with, benched or ruined most of your big name signings so he needs to find some superstars he can work with or eventually I think your young lads will get fed up and move on like Fabregas, Van Persie etc did.
 
TwoSheds said:
But you've had money. If you used these young lads as a base and added 2 or 3 top players around them then I don't see why you couldn't challenge. The problem is so far Arteta has fallen out with, benched or ruined most of your big name signings so he needs to find some superstars he can work with or eventually I think your young lads will get fed up and move on like Fabregas, Van Persie etc did.
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Arteta inherited a dumpster fire of a roster with almost no young talent, a broken internal culture featuring far too much player power, and the most talented players over 30 and declining, and he has spent like 200m to remake the roster pretty significantly. Pep has spent nearly a billion to build on top of a foundation that already included guys like KDB and Sterling, the situations are not remotely comparable.

To have any chance of hitting the highest levels, I agree Arteta does need to figure out either how to turn 1-2 of our young widemen into superstars, sign a world class striker who can play in his system, or both. Unfortunately there aren't many sure thing strikers out there right now, especially with Vlahovic gone.
 
gajender said:
I don't rate Arteta or the work he is doing with Arsenal it's eerily similar to what was Sold to United fans Under Solskjaer ,but if they get top 4 and also hit 70 points marks this season he would have done done fantastic job for this season without reading too much into it for their future prospects .

Ps I don't think they will make top 4 or hit 70 points and Arteta would be sacked around 12-15 games into next season.
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In what way is it similar to what United fans were sold under Ole?

I don't think we will make top four, and am not the biggest Arteta fan, but I don't see how the situations are similar.
 
Powderfinger said:
Arteta inherited a dumpster fire of a roster with almost no young talent, a broken internal culture featuring far too much player power, and the most talented players over 30 and declining, and he has spent like 200m to remake the roster pretty significantly. Pep has spent nearly a billion to build on top of a foundation that already included guys like KDB and Sterling, the situations are not remotely comparable.

To have any chance of hitting the highest levels, I agree Arteta does need to figure out either how to turn 1-2 of our young widemen into superstars, sign a world class striker who can play in his system, or both. Unfortunately there aren't many sure thing strikers out there right now, especially with Vlahovic gone.
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Our quality young players like Saka, ESR, Martinelli, Guendouzi, Saliba and KT were already at the club when Arteta took over. Emery had already brought Saka into the senior side by the time he was sacked.

Saka, ESR and Martinelli have all been able to develop into quality players. But he has shipped out Guendouzi, and we may now lose Saliba too.

He and Edu have brought in Ramsdale, Gabriel, Ødegaard, Tomiyasu and White - none of which were "youngsters" as such, though their best years are certainly ahead of them.

Arteta has had a stronger squad and achieved worse results than Emery did, to date. It looks like that's slowly turning around though.

Arteta and Edu can have some credit for easing the wage pressure we were under, and they deserve credit for signing quality players like - Gabriel, Ramsdale, White and Ødegaard.

But conversely Arteta pursued and signed Willian, Mari and Soares. All three were absolutely not good enough, and who didn't see that coming at the time? We were the only club to offer Willian three years on big money. Only club to offer Soares a four year deal on good money. Only club to sign a 26 year old CB who had toiled away in Holland, Segunda Division and Brazil.

It's certainly been a mixed bag.
 
cesc's_mullet said:
Our quality young players like Saka, ESR, Martinelli, Guendouzi, Saliba and KT were already at the club when Arteta took over. Emery had already brought Saka into the senior side by the time he was sacked.
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That is true but needs a bit of qualification. Saliba was on loan, Saka had started three league matches as a wingback, Martinelli was an 18 year old who had just got his first league start, and ESR was barely on the fringe of the first team. Those guys were in the Arsenal organization but were hardly major parts of the squad, not much different than say Patino and Balogun right now.

Guendouzi and Tierney were really the only young established first team players. This is only my opinion but I think Guendouzi was never going to work out with a manager like Arteta because he is a tactically undisciplined player who wants the freedom to wander around the pitch and that is never going to work in any kind of disciplined tactical system.

Largely the roster was a dumpster fire. Mustafi, Kola, Luiz, Sokratis, Chambers, and Bellerin were our defenders who played the most minutes that year. Guendouzi, Xhaka, Torreira, Ceballos were our central midfielders. Honestly, Xhaka is the best player of those 10 which really says a lot because he is somebody we still need to improve on. Attack had more talent but also huge headaches. We had just spent 200m on three forwards who couldn't play together but also couldn't be moved on due to age/wages/Covid, only one of whom (Auba) was even good enough and he was 30.

Arteta has had a stronger squad and achieved worse results than Emery did, to date. It looks like that's slowly turning around though.
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Arteta has gotten 1.72 points per match in the PL while Emery has gotten 1.73, so I wouldn't say his results have been worse, especially given that he won a domestic cup too. More importantly, Arteta has a plan for building a team around a modern philosophy whereas Emery never demonstrated any semblance of a plan for how to build a team.

Arteta is arguably lucky to still have his job after the disaster of fall 2020 but the club stuck with him and we appear to be reaping the benefits of that decision.

Arteta and Edu can have some credit for easing the wage pressure we were under, and they deserve credit for signing quality players like - Gabriel, Ramsdale, White and Ødegaard.

But conversely Arteta pursued and signed Willian, Mari and Soares. All three were absolutely not good enough, and who didn't see that coming at the time? We were the only club to offer Willian three years on big money. Only club to offer Soares a four year deal on good money. Only club to sign a 26 year old CB who had toiled away in Holland, Segunda Division and Brazil.

It's certainly been a mixed bag.
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I agree that recruitment has been a mixed bag but most of Arteta/Edu's mistakes in the market have been when they tried to go cheap (Willian, Mari, Cedric). When they have spent significant money on fees, their record has actually been pretty good. White, Partey, Odegaard, Ramsdale, Gabriel, Tomiyasu all look like successful transfers. Going six for six on your biggest purchases doesn't happen that often. The jury is still out on Lokonga but at worst we'll probably get our money back or close given that he is young and on cheap wages.
 
TwoSheds said:
But you've had money. If you used these young lads as a base and added 2 or 3 top players around them then I don't see why you couldn't challenge. The problem is so far Arteta has fallen out with, benched or ruined most of your big name signings so he needs to find some superstars he can work with or eventually I think your young lads will get fed up and move on like Fabregas, Van Persie etc did.
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For any team to even remotely thinking about challenging, they need to hope that the current 2 best managers in the world in Klopp and Pep leave their teams in the next year or 2

It's fairly obvious we are nowhere near their level. Do I think we can improve, yeah, there's glaring areas of improvement in the striker and centre midfield areas that can help us be more competitive and win more games. But like Powderfinger says, you need the perfect storm to reach close to 90 points, & thats a level the Invincibles didn't even achieve, so I don't think there's any realistic chance of us reaching anywhere near those levels.

Let's not run before we can walk though, we need to get back to a 70 point season first before even thinking about anything else.
 
Congrats on top 4. Least worst of a really bad bunch.
 
ThierryHenry said:
The opposition has obviously been poor but we’ve genuinely turned a corner over the past month. For the first time in Arteta’s reign we have a team that has a balanced attack with clear attacking patterns that can consistently create chances.

Obviously we won’t keep scoring this many goals, but compared to the tumescent slog we’ve seen for most of the last eighteen months, it’s hugely encouraging.

I didn’t think he was up to the job, but he’s proved to be; 1) An excellent talent spotter, 2) A good defensive manager. If this attack can continue to develop, then I think he’s had a great season and will deserve another year, hopefully with another big investment up front.
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Said this at the end of December. The signs that he had (finally) built an attack that can consistently create chances turned out to be accurate, and means that Arteta has built a very strong side. There have been spells of mediocrity, but he’s done a great job in two and a half years.
 
Look really good today, I don’t know how far he can take them but he’s at least got them entertaining with great young forwards.
 
Solid, well balanced team that can be improved in the summer with specific signings like a CF.
 
At least the universe did the right thing and put DT in prison before Arsenal were at any risk of possibly being half decent again.
 
I like the shithouse mentality he's instilled in the team.

Before, we use to crumble whenever a team started making comeback. Now, I generally feel a lot more comfortable that we'll see out the game when we're up by 1 goal in the last 5-10 mins.
 



ffs :lol:
 
Second game they "lose" on xG since their season turned around after Arteta kicked Auba out(everton game)

It's really interesting how they went from a run of the mill upper middle table side to a genuine top 4 contender pretty much overnight, and all it took was binning their highest paid player, who'd been their star until the end of the previous season :lol: :eek::wenger:
 
I have been a huge critic and I'm not sold on him yet.

But regardless of how we go from here I will always be thankful to him for helping convince Ødegaard to sign for us. He is just pure class and even puts in a shift defensively.
 
cesc's_mullet said:
I have been a huge critic and I'm not sold on him yet.

But regardless of how we go from here I will always be thankful to him for helping convince Ødegaard to sign for us. He is just pure class and even puts in a shift defensively.
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Mesut on speed, that man is.
 
Arteta's clearly a very smart manager and while I do still have doubts about us ever challenging under him, I think our progress has been good enough up until this point.

If we can just avoid dropping silly points here on I think 5th or 6th is a certainty.
 
Donaldo said:
Arteta's clearly a very smart manager and while I do still have doubts about us ever challenging under him, I think our progress has been good enough up until this point.

If we can just avoid dropping silly points here on I think 5th or 6th is a certainty.
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He basically kicked out everyone didn't "buy in" his leadership, management and tactics, and keep those that are willing to fight with him. The most important thing is he did a really good job sold the idea to the board about the importance of the culture of the dressing room and got the "buy in" from them. They backed him by releasing Ozil and Auba for free, kicked out everybody else either on loan or sold on the cheap, and spent the money completely overhaul the squad.
 
ThierryHenry14 said:
He basically kicked out everyone didn't "buy in" his leadership, management and tactics, and keep those that are willing to fight with him. The most important thing is he did a really good job sold the idea to the board about the importance of the culture of the dressing room and got the "buy in" from them. They backed him by releasing Ozil and Auba for free, kicked out everybody else either on loan or sold on the cheap, and spent the money completely overhaul the squad.
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Honestly the worst thing you could probably do now is stick with him too long.

I reckon this is a big summer for the Arsenal board where they need to decide if he's actually good enough to take you up a level. If the answer is no, they need to be a bit cut-throat even if they think he's done a great job so far. Because as we've seen at United, it all comes crumbling down rapidly if you don't move on at the right time.
 
Freak said:
Arsenal will get the 4th spot.
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They will start dropping points regularly from here on I’m willing to put my neck on the line for it. Whether we take advantage or not it’s another matter. I’m repeating myself from the other thread but I’m convinced they will drop 8-10 points in the next 6 games and then they have to deal with Chelsea, spurs, Man Utd, West Ham. Their inconsistent run starts now. Mark my words.
 
Devil’s Trident said:
They will start dropping points regularly from here on I’m willing to put my neck on the line for it. Whether we take advantage or not it’s another matter. I’m repeating myself from the other thread but I’m convinced they will drop 8-10 points in the next 6 games and then they have to deal with Chelsea, spurs, Man Utd, West Ham. Their inconsistent run starts now. Mark my words.
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We are actually pretty consistent losing the "big" games against the top 6.
 
Skills said:
Honestly the worst thing you could probably do now is stick with him too long.

I reckon this is a big summer for the Arsenal board where they need to decide if he's actually good enough to take you up a level. If the answer is no, they need to be a bit cut-throat even if they think he's done a great job so far. Because as we've seen at United, it all comes crumbling down rapidly if you don't move on at the right time.
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You think he's taken them as far as he can?

If so, fair enough, but what do you think their ceiling is with a better manager, short of performing miracles?
 
Devil’s Trident said:
They will start dropping points regularly from here on I’m willing to put my neck on the line for it. Whether we take advantage or not it’s another matter. I’m repeating myself from the other thread but I’m convinced they will drop 8-10 points in the next 6 games and then they have to deal with Chelsea, spurs, Man Utd, West Ham. Their inconsistent run starts now. Mark my words.
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I believe you. You've posted the same post some four times now.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
This is their Ole year
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A year with a manager with a decades experience whose biggest experience was with relegation fodder whom he managed to somehow worsen before arriving at a former club as part of some weird former legendary manager-led propaganda and then proceeding to bore the living shit out of all their supporters while chancing his way through some big games to keep his job, while everyone barring the club's supporters could see the woods for the trees and were begging for him not to be sacked?

Yeah, sounds like it could be.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
This is their Ole year
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i think Arteta has a clear idea how he wants his team to play, and also changed the culture of the dressing room. He is a young manager and his man/player management skill can be improved. To me he did a great job. I don't expect Arsenal can challenge the league any time soon given our wage budget.
 
Skills said:
Honestly the worst thing you could probably do now is stick with him too long.

I reckon this is a big summer for the Arsenal board where they need to decide if he's actually good enough to take you up a level. If the answer is no, they need to be a bit cut-throat even if they think he's done a great job so far. Because as we've seen at United, it all comes crumbling down rapidly if you don't move on at the right time.
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who said the board want Arteta to take the club up a level? may be the club just want any European competition or at best 4th place, or a FA cup if we get lucky? It will cost the club lots of money in player recruitment and wages to "up" a level, and there is no guarantee of success either.
 
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