Arsenal had such a great season…… until….. by Ibrahim
First, I would like to give credit to Arteta and the boys for overachieving and beating expectations. For a major part of the season, they played beautiful football that was a joy to watch, even for neutrals and opponents. However, the last six games have left us with a sour taste in our mouth, for what most of us consider a successful campaign. Here are a few reasons that contributed to the ugly ending of the season.
Lack of dynamism:
Throughout the season, Arteta used only one tactic regardless of the opposition, and while it was successful for the majority part of the season, you could easily see the limitation. We have no other tactics when the main tactic is not working. Even when changing the line up, he stuck with the same tactics of playing with the inverted left back. There are times that a different setup is needed depending on the situation or the opponent. For example, we might have had a different result if he had brought in Tierney for Zinchenko early in the 2nd half. Arteta needs to know that a different approach is needed especially when facing teams like Man City and Liverpool.
Limited options upfront:
Throughout the season, we have seen Jesus, Nketiah, and Trossard playing the role of a striker, and they were successful to some degree. However, with their lack of height and poor finishing, none of them can play as an out and out striker. While they are good with their footwork, none of them possess the ability to hold off the defenders or dominate the centre backs. For all his hustle and bustle, Jesus is not one to win headers or drag the centre backs around. Nketiah is a fox in the box and nothing more. We have seen throughout the season a need for a towering centre forward who can hold off the centre backs when the team is forced to play long balls. Moreover, having someone who is a threat in the air is needed when the opponents clog the box as we have seen in the Newcastle and Everton game.
Rinse and repeat:
Recently, Arteta has shown some habits that are closely associated with Arsene Wenger. The stubbornness and repetition of the same failed experiments are something we have experienced during Wenger’s reign. As smart as both men are, they tend to be their worst enemy by getting stuck in their ways. They are both bad with subbing, rotations, and they like playing their favourites. For example, there was no reason to give Jesus a starting role when he didn’t earn it. Trossard was doing well but was benched all of a sudden when Jesus returned from injury. Also, there is no reason to start Saka in recent matches when has been poor and clearly needed a rest.
Arteta needs to be like his former boss when it comes to rotation and player management by being RUTHLESS like Pep.
by Ibrahim
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So, is it Arteta out as far as you’re concerned? Asking for a friend, and yes I do have one, just the one though 😊
I agree with all of the points,especially the rotation one. Everyone could see clearly that the team has run out of steam. Only the gaffer who couldn’t. Some might say it’s the lack of squad depth. After we drew 2_2 with liverpool, I thought Arteta will play Nelson and some fresh legs against Westham and Southampton. Best time to rest Saka, Partey and Zinny. Well, I hope he’s learned his lesson to do better next season. If you can’t trust your bench you will wear out first 11.
City have changed players to start 88 times apparently. We have changed 38 players, the lowest in the league. Pep left players out, if they didn’t perform. The way our players have been used this season is poor. Relying on the same chosen few and then expecting players that have sat and watched, to come straight in and perform. That is unrealistic!!!!!!!!!
Yip, this is the reason our players have slowly performed worse and worse. Those of us calling for rotation in the early part of the season were hounded for the idea of changing a winning team.
My guess most have never played long seasons of sport and don’t understand how is mentality and physically wears you down even if you are fit.
The reason we didn’t rotate? FEAR! MA knew he could successfully copy Man Citys tactics but he knew only our starting 11 could do it. Didn’t want to use reserves to much as they require actual coaching which would mean he’d need to be flexible and tweak things…..i honestly think he didn’t know how so it was fear driven.
Well done to the team though, still a good campaign but I do fear for next season.
@Reggie
RealTalk. Put in CAPS next time, for those in the cheap seats.
I think we could’ve done same if we had a rich bench like City
Or the manager chose too. Which he didn’t.
Then whose fault is it we don’t have rich bench like Mancity.
City spent what we got Viera for on two players in Akanji and Alvarez. Why did he buy a player he doesn’t have trust in.
Let add that, City’s recruitment in the recent past has been mostly on point and shrewd. Not necessarily spending huge on players and getting high value on them.
Why are you talking as if Arsenal got Arab money and as quality squad as Man City?
Mike, please dont tell me that. The squad has had massive investment in it these last few seasons. City have only spent stupid big on Grealish, every other player we could have matched. We spent a bought who we bought. How did spending arab money make us lose to Brighton and Forest?
Our problem is in a nutshell. Pep sold us Jesus and Zinchenko and then upgraded, without any “arab” money. Its about who you buy and how good they are. Please don’t use money as an excuse, we have splashed the cash, big style.
I think Joao Cancelo, addressing the rumors, would be fantastic piece of business.
Not only he’s one of the best fullbacks in the league but he can play efficiently LB and RB. He’s also certified winner with 3 different league titles and European champion with Portugal.
Heres the thing, Bayern refused to pay 60m for him – rightly so. Absolutely no one will pay that kind of money for him, not even oil clubs.
Man City now have a problem. They have an expensive player on a long term contract who’s fallen out with the manager, and no one willing to pay the money City is after. Remember Aubameyang? Their only option is to accept whatever they can for Cancelo because they have FFP to deal with and they can’t have fullback on 180k a week doing nothing.
Swap for Tierney? Fine with me.
Loan for modest fee? Sure why not.
Basic transfer? No more than 30m.
And if none of this happens, no big deal. Plenty of fish in the sea.
@DaJuhi
Real Madrid want Cancelo…Jus sayin
I agree with your points Ibrahim. There is no gain in being stubborn and bias. I hate hearing people say we don’t have depth. At week 32 when we were leading by 7 points, some coaches would have kill off the league. With the players at our disposal if managed and rotated well, we would have triumphed. Am afraid if Arteta will learn his lessons. He bottled our top four last season and again, he bottled our title this season due to the above mentioned reasons. Let me say it again. You can not win Premiership with only your fist eleven and one tactics. It’s not possible!
CORRECT!!!!!!!
But klop did it with Liverpool
Tyson, Klopp was not stubborn enough as not to know when any of his players needed rest or not giving Ultimum performance without replacing such a player. Even then, Klopp had trust on his bench.
Which exact coach with which team will kill off the league? What are you talking about? I’m pretty sure you sulked and called Arteta bottler last season and lost the right to criticise this season as Arsenal finished 2nd place. More than 10 points off the 3rd place.
Mike, “kill off the league” I mean win the league. That Arteta had his best season as the coach does not in any way imply that he should not be criticized when necessary. Arsenal with a better coach has a very good chance of winning the title. Like you said, we came second with more than 10 points off the 3rd place and behind the champions with a likely 10 points after leading the pack with 7 points after 32 games.
With this statistics, every one except Arteta’s foot soldiers knows that something was wrong with our coaching staff.
Have you asked yourself Mike, why are the majority of Arsenal fan base are not celebrating our 2nd position? So, to say Arteta bottled our title chances is magnanimous enough.
If Xhaka leaves, Vlahovic may be willing to come
Chelsea’s already started the bid for him
UTD too!!
It is not how you start it is how you finish!
Mikel does not rotate, does not play many players who should have been given a chance, and let those whose form fell of a cliff a bit of rest.
AFC has cratered the finish 6+ seasons in a row.
With Cups and CL we ain’t finishing top 4. Take that to the bank!
There has to be accountability, and I am not going to be watching much longer if $h*tTy looks like they will be winning 10 EPL titles on the trot.
Stupid analysis. Without the great start, Arsenal won’t be in that position in the first place. When Arteta rotated, the backup players didn’t perform and got criticised. Take that to the bank? Since you talk like the clown Gary Neville, let us know how much you lost bet this season, since Arsenal finished 2nd place, more than 10 points off 3rd place.
Am not a gambler like you Mike. It’s unfortunate that some fans on JA don’t see beyond their noses. That we had a great start and could not sustain it speaks volumes to what we are saying.
Even if we have the best of players and a rookie coach who is unable manage them well, we will still not win the title. You can take it to bank.
There’s a multitude of reasons, but for me, the injuries killed us just like last season.
Our most consistent player and best CB misses the final third of the season. We had to make do with Nketiah as our main striker for a large chunk of the season. ESR, and Nelson injuries also meant less of a chance to rotate as well.
Arteta and Edu have done a fantastic job strengthening the squad year-on-year, but one clearly see we are still not there yet in regards to squad depth.
City can have half their best players missing, and be fine, whereas the drop off in quality is too much when we rotate or have injuries.
Considering the injuries and lack of squad depth, and that we were up against arguably the greatest Premier League team we’ve ever seen, I would say Arteta did an amazing job to have us top for almost the whole season.
The end was disappointing, but it’s definitely been the most fun I’ve had as an Arsenal fan since 2004. I finally feel proud to be an Arsenal fan again. I had really lost interest under Wenger and Emery, but Arteta has reignited my love affair with our great club.
Well said, my friend. We finished second and more than 10 points off the third place. Together with the first eleven players, only Jorginho and Trossard can be trusted into the system. Other new and old players perhaps need more time or simply not good enough to maintain such team momentum. It’s about time we appreciate positive and realistic comments like yours instead of listening to TheClownGaryNevilleLites dressed up as Arsenal fans at this website.
It seems that this site is once more becoming an echo chamber of negativity. At one point it seemed that there was an attempt to achieve some kind of balance by at least providing different perspectives. It seems that now all we see are articles and comments finding fault everywhere and denigrating the manager.
We even have the disgraceful situation today where an author feels so bold as to state that they actually dislike the manager. This is the manager who has taken us back to the CL for the first team in years.
Comparing almost any club to MC and Guardiola is highly unreasonable and prejudiced. Guardiola has a bench today that is approaching nearly half a billion.
The drop off in performances are indeed a concern. However, the reasons given lack insight, are simply blame-seeking and provide no useful guide to solutions.
I honestly think we have some of the worst fans.
When you consider the complete mess Arteta inherited, to where we are now, yet some want him sacked!
With due respect get a realistic perspective. As an Arsenal fan, THIS IS A COMPLETE BOTTLE JOB. STOP DECEIVING YOURSELVES! Yes they have improved but could have won this title even with two losses to Man City. 8 points ahead now almost 10 behind now after 8 games. For goodness sake when will you lot open your eyes. Unfortunately, I am not confident things will improve for two reasons
1. We are not, I repeat will not sign the players we need to improve. We have been here before. Every season it is the same
2. Arteta. I am not saying there is nothing good about him but he is not adaptable. Against City you should be playing 4 2 3 1 not 4 3 3. He will keep doing the same thing. Again, he lacks the ability to motivate these players when it matters. Twice in a row his teams have capitulated.
I advise you all to keep your expectations in check for next season if you don’t want to end up with a heart break. Best shot will be to win Europa (if we fall out of champions league) FA or league cup. CALL ME NEGATIVE I DON’T CARE. I HAVE SPOKEN MY PIECE
👏 jay
Not sure why some fans on here care so much for other fans opinions ,I find it rather odd that they go to extreme lengths to justify the short comings of the team and manager while calling out so called negative fans , the world would be a weird place if we all followed like sheep ,respect for you comment and I wouldn’t take any notice from anyone calling you out for you views ,you pretty much summed up my own opinion and it’s water off a ducks back regarding the responses I get sometimes .
Jay, yes we did finish in a great second. BUT we have capitulated in a manner that is so bad, it should be said what caused it. Not the refs, not Gary Neville, Not the squad, not VAR, not the presss. It was the manager and the players, very worryingly making a right hash of something, two seasons on the trot. We have to prove to EVERYONE what we do isnt flakey and we are not just flat track bullies. The way we have stumbked is shocking in the extreme.
Thank you Reggie for speaking my mind. Dan forsaw this capitulation some weeks back when he stated that our team lacked mental strength to overcome the pressure. Hell was let looses. Some hired “Mercenaries” on this site called him unprintable names. Here we are, they are still defending mediocrity. It makes no difference. Am one of the fans that believed so much that our present team could have won the title if Arteta had listen to those”TheClownGaryNevilleLites” as some of them would call the Realist on this site. With the arsenal team I know, we shall gather here by this time next season to sing our own songs except the needful is done.
If we’re talking perspective, those fans that called the team bottle jobs last season, Arteta needs to go, the players are useless, Odegaard rubbish etc, got it completely wrong when you look at what they did this season.
We went up another level, with lots of injuries as well.
There’s nothing to suggest we can’t go up another level next season.
Lastly, I find it ridiculous you can label them bottle jobs when there were so many games left to play, and we were up against a City team that clawed back a 15pt deficit from Liverpool let’s not forget!
I am realistic, and knowledgeable enough about our squad to know that it would only take a couple of key injuries to derail us, and it did. Just look at how our defence collapsed after the Saliba injury.
Know one knows what next season holds, but those negative fans wanting changes after last season, got it badly wrong after what we witnessed this season. Hopefully the same next season as well, and we achieve something great!
@ Jay, Thanks so very much, I can read this comment again and again
Hear, Hear (Here Here ?)
David, Absolutely right. I’ve been a Gunner for over fifty years and although we’ve had great times (better than what we’ve seen this season) I can’t remember being as excited as I’ve been this term. That may seem like a strange thing to say. It may be because it’s been so long since we had such a promising season, not sure why really. Everyone has a different take on things that’s the human condition, but I agree with you that sometimes it’s difficult to fathom out what’s going on in the minds of some people. (Sometimes ? all the time !). I’m optimistic about next season and Arteta should be heralded for giving us as much fun and hope that certainly I had this season.
EG I do have a reason , one that holds water. WHY some on this site are relentlessly negative but oithers are more sanguine and remain cheerful.
Its called “THE GENERATION GAP”!
If you look – as I have done and always do – at how varous folk write their posts and articles, it is plain enough that the negative ones are nearly all younger than most of the more sanguine ones who maintain a sense of perspective.
As a language lover, I can tell someones generation very easily and accurately by how they write, what phrases or words they use, or do not use.
How they spell is also an excellent guide to age, as we older ones can mostly spell, not having text speak around when we were young.
Generally speaking , younger folk are far more more DEMANDING of quick success than are older folk.
How they spell or punctuate. How they address other fans, if thy use emojis – they are ALMOST always more used by kids , save ONE older fan in particular who wants to be “down with the kids” , though rarely by older fans, in my experience.
And that generation gap ,in general, reflects life values and whether or not a fan has patience, fortitude OR has a pronounced sense of self entitlement. Not by any means the whole situation, but a reliable “it MOSTLY applies” sort of picture. Your own last sentence supports my point I suggest, and I AGREE WITH YOU AND I am even older than METHUSALAH.
Only a month older though , as we used to play together when kids. Then he left me for BOADICEA.
OH, I DO MISS HIM!
I feel I have found afriend at last! All my life with no one loving me and now a proper friend. Oh I forgot “her indoors” though!
To be serious for a moment – and” serious” is not my natural default position,when away from social media that is,. there is yet another link, this time to NOAH.
I spend some time, many weeks in the year , in entertaining old folk, in social clubs, care homes and such like.
I mainly sing old songs, tell daft jokes and silly badinage, but ALSO perform monologues.
Three happence a foot” is set in Bury when the Great Flood is due and NOAH goes into Sam Oglethwaite’s joiners shop for some birds eye maple to panel the side of his boat(the Ark).
They argue over the price. NOAH offers Sam just a penny a foot and a free ride when “rain comes” but Sam wants “three happence a foot”.
Its written by Edgar Marriott and made well known by Stanley Holloway, who played the dustman”Alfie Doolittle” in MY FAIR LADY.
I have also played Doolittle, a lovable rogue who drinks a great deal and I have also twice more directed My Fair Lady on stage. Aint life strange!
Great play too, by an even greater writer in G B SHAW.
And PAT, we really did have a SHAW who used play for us. I know you will remember him. He used to write plays at half time! Such talent!
OK you two. Its time to get a room. Swap emails please and talk in private ease.
Put them both in the Love Shack❤❤❤
“For all his hustle and bustle, Jesus is not one to win headers or drag the centre backs around”
He was doing that earlier in the season (maybe not winning headers, but backing into defenders to take down high balls). It seems to me that he showed he can do it, but on his return from injury, for whatever reason, stopped (and started running back to help the defence for some reason).
I’m not against the idea of a more orthodox centre forward coming in, I just don’t agree with this framing as everyone seems to have forgotten what jesus was doing before he got injured – or am I going crazy?
I think he went on a run of 8 or 9 games without a goal before he got injured. After the adrenalin rush of the first few games, he has been poor. Nketiah came in and before he got injured, he scored more goals at a higher rate than Jesus. I will say this, if we had signed Haarland we would have been a better team and probably won the league, taking advantage of city faltering before we allowed them to cruise past us. Jesus for me, since his return has taken away more than he has given this team. We need and needed an authodoxed Striker and he needed to be able to bully CBs. For me, a big mustake signing Jesus to be our no9.
For me Jesus is a winger but i dont see him as a winger for us.
Haaland would have improved just about any team – he’s more or less the top striker in the world atm. Vlahovic is a more realistic comparison imo, as someone we conceivably could have signed, or en nesyri. I’m honestly not sure if either would have been enough if they’d be signed instead of jesus – maybe they would have, but neither are big goalscorers.
I don’t judge strikers only on the numbers of goals they score. It’s definitely a factor, but if they play well and the team wins, I don’t care who scores the goals. Drogba often didn’t score a huge amount, but was always good for Chelsea. The big problem was Jesus’s loss of form (and arteta continuing to play him), not his playing style or the numbers of goals he scored. He was good enough before his injury. I hope we sign a very good cf this summer to compete. If jesus can’t regain his form, he needs to be moved on, but it’s too early for that just now.
“Jesus for me, since his return has taken away more than he has given this team. ”
I do agree with you here, btw – arteta should have taken him out of the team
DAVI you cannot be the only one who has noticed this apparent change in how he NOW plays, compared to before his injury.
He seems to be a player who fits NO traditional role at all.
He is , to my mind, not a true winger , not a centre forward, nor a creative Odegaard type.
But he is good or rather WAS,prior to injury!
Thank you Jon – I was wondering if I was losing my marbles
The way to beat city is to constantly press them, Chelsea have been sporadically doing it, and city get spooked almost every time, although they do it effectively to others, they really don’t like it done to them.
City put out a B team and still beat Chelsea.
@Reggie,this weekend big Sam was asked if City had the best team in the PL history?.he answered”actually,i believe that they have the best 2 teams in the PL history “.
Hello.
Has anyone gone back to season predictions?
https://www.justarsenal.com/my-prediction-of-the-epl-finishing-positions-this-season-whats-yours/315929
On average, people went with 4th place, if my calculations are right.
Why are people now so negative?
Yes you’re right
Because too much ears on AFTV and Sky Sports. These Arsenal fans had become zombies full of brains from AFTV and other media pundits like The Clown Gary Neville.
We lost the title more than City won to me. If we didn’t collapse City’s amazing run would have amounted to Liverpool’s second place finish.
Our bottling opened the door for City and they walked through.
Until Arteta and these players can perform under pressure nothing will change. Another 150 million Summer spending won’t cure the weak mentality we have.
Open up competition, no more favorites starting every week. Would ESR have been worse than Odegaard’s embarrassing show yesterday?
Vieira showed again how poor he is and should be loaned or sold. Nothing to play for, so play Tierney, ESR, Trossard, Nelson, Nketiah and at least we’ll see some fight.
The usual lot have been embarrassing the last 2 matches and deserve to be benched and taught a lesson.
Perfect and well said!
Agree 100% Durand. Arteta continued to play Jesus , Saka and Party even after it became apparent that they had lost form. Odegaard and Xhaka also had periods where they were not great. OK we dont have replacements like Man City but he certainly did not have to play the same team every week. Dont know how he would have coped if we had played Europa League and FA cup right up to the end. We need to offload the deadwood and buy at least five new players who are capable of playing at this level.
The season ended on a sour note for one…and one only: Arteta couldn’t figure out how to use the players.
The squad indeed was good enough to win the league especially Trossard and Kiwior was added in January. But the big question at the time was whether it was fair to expect Arteta to make the right decisions at the right time.
Sorry to say the answer, again this season, was a resounding NO.
It’s the same old Arteta, I regret to say:
– poor team selections
– playing players out of position
– poor substitutions
– poor timing of substitutions
– giving preferential treatment to some players
– ignoring other in-form players for no reason
– not knowing how to rotate the squad
– spending money on the wrong type of players
Still hasn’t changed or learned anything!!
You are giving the reasons for the same methods that allowed Arsenal to be the only team to compete with Man City this season at the first place? Let’s listen to you and finish 4th next season.
This opportunity may not come again soon given the kind of coach we have except he leans fast. We shall celebrate 4th position next season if we got it because Manu, lpool, Chelsea and Newcastle would have woken up from their slumber.
Nice attempt Ibraham , but while lack of dynamism and limited options up front maybe partially responsible for how the big one got away , its certainly can’t be why the season ended on a sour note.
The single biggest reason in my opinion why the season ended on a sour note, is the lack of an old season campaigner that commanded respect from the gaffer along side him in the dugout a proven and tested hand.
Someone who could tell the gaffer in a game like this, playing for nothing let’s see what’s Smith Rowe got under his bonnet, only makes changes straight from out of the academy, don’t even take our only world class player on the trip.
Had we even done that and result in a stalemate, the discussion today would have been totally different
The ridiculousness of it is that the club seemed to accrue players who could fill in anywhere across the pitch but Arteta failed to utilise them to proper effect. Bukayo Saka has been, and will almost certainly continue to be, our best player. But even the best players lose form and that is why you have a squad. ESR could have played on the right. Jesus could’ve played there, he has enough experience and it might even have done him a favour.
Regardless of who could or should have played where and who should have been left out the fact is the manager either didn’t trust the players he had at his disposal or there is some other reason behind it. And it’s worrying. How must Kieran Tierney feel having been left out in favour of playing Kiwior in some Nathan Ake-type full-back hybrid, while our rightback for the entire season gets moved to CB and our FIRST CHOICE holding midfielder fills in at RB. I would be fuming if it were me.
And how must the other players feel to know that it doesn’t matter how hard you train or how poorly your teammate plays, he will always get picked ahead of you.
Well said Ibrahim. Arsenal bottled the league title…that’s the harsh truth. Arteta failed miserably again at the business end of the season, it makes me doubt his longevity at Arsenal.
It’s quite embarrassing to criticise the very method that brought Arsenal to be the only club to challenge Man City this season. Arteta don’t have the players and didn’t have the time for another successful tactic. Stubbornness? Successful managers called that as perseverance and patience. Stop having loser mentality like Neville and Carragher where you see everything negatively. The Forest game showed Partey can play inverted right back and Kiwior play all 3 CB variations. The 82% possession showed. We need more different types of attacking players to break down low block defence.
Why is it, Mike? The harsh reality is that we were fortunate that City started slowly and Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd sucked so hard it made us look good. Added to the fact that early on we got away with some mistakes we didn’t get away with later.
I do not want to diminish every good aspect to come out of the season. We played some great football at times and came 2nd to one of the most dominant teams in Europe. But there are other factors you can’t just ignore because we had a good season.
If Pochettino arrives at Chelsea you can be sure he is going to bring players with him and probably get the best out of the ones already there. Man Utd, Liverpool, Newcastle will all recruit and next season will give us a truer perspective of exactly where we are.
Today Jon has aptly nailed it. It’s the generational gap that brings the sharp contrast with the older generation more composed and patient while the young want it now or never. Perhaps the young need to call on the wisdom of the elders for once. The elders know that Rome was not built in a day and that patience is a virtue.
Let us look at the argument of bottling it up. How did it come about? I believe the team was performing so superbly that the vibrant ones could not imagine it would fall of the rails. However the cautious ones knew that for every steep ascent there is also a steep descent. In life there are ups and downs. They also knew that empires rise and fall. Thus they were always cautiously optimistic. The realists know that the Man City which is being praised today will be history tomorrow. Such was the situation with the Invincibles, Chelsea and Man U of the previous years. Leicester city of 2015-16 which was crushing everything in its way is now on the brink of relegation. Such is life.
Back to the possible causes of Arsenal’s capitulation this year. I believe top on the list is injuries to key players at different times: Takehiro, Saliba, Jesus, Martinelli, Elneny, Emile Smith Rowe, Zinchenko and Tierney while some others managed to shake off injuries but were playing below their level. This led to fatigue and burn out.
There is also the issue of some players such as Fabio Vieira and others who failed to make the grade and were always a liability whenever they were brought on the pitch.
Furthermore, the failure to rest some players who looked tired coupled with late substitutions during games might also have affected some games.
A lot more reasons might be advanced but all in all the team performed far above expectations. What needs to be done now is to build on this season’s performance and do even better next season. This is very possible provided we strengthen some vulnerable positions.
For me, we should note the following:
– Arteta has tried this season compared to last season.
– there is slight progress in the team performance compared to last season
– For further progress, we need to buy quality players, the scouts need to do a thorough job identifying quality players. Sometimes we buy players just for the sake of buying and ended up being a waste
– Enough money should be made available. Most successful teams are backed financially.
– We should note that Arteta first managerial job is about 3 yrs now, he is not yet a finished product, so he will make mistakes and continue to learn on the job.
– the owners and the management main objective is to achieve ‘SUCCESS’ so they should back the Manager with substantial funds to achieve this.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with some points here. There is no doubt that the season has ended somewhat flat given where we were a few weeks ago. However, there is a massive difference between last season and now. Saying Areta has “tried” really does not adequately reflect the changes that have been made.
Where I agree with you is that to get to the next level we need an excellent recruitment strategy. I also agree that we will require substantial funds to support this.
There are a lot of people talking about Arteta as if he is just bumbling along in the job. The number of years he has been in the job has been used as a reason to denigrate his effectiveness as a manager. I would argue however that there are no more than a handful of managers who could have progressed the team the way he has over the last few years.
Can you compare our bench with Man city? If Man City remove Grealish and Haaland, they will put Foden and Alvarez which will deliver same thing previous players. If Arteta remove Saka and Odegard, who will replace them and give the same or a close performance.