Arsene Wenger left Arsenal after 22 years at the helm as their manager in 2018.
The club has had two managers since he left who have been trying to rebuild the team, yet his footprints are still all over the squad.
After Unai Emery failed to get the club back up to speed, he was fired and replaced with Mikel Arteta after 18 months.
The Spaniard has been at the helm since the end of 2019 and has overseen the signing of a good number of players.
However, there is still not much progress to see at the club.
They have made a terrible start to this campaign with three losses and no goals scored from their opening three league games of the season.
Their latest mauling came at the hands of Manchester City who beat them 5-0 at the Etihad.
Arteta has been blamed for the team’s poor performances, especially after the club has backed him in this transfer market, but Sun Sports reveals that ten of the fourteen players who faced City joined the club under Wenger.
The shocking revelation shows that only Bernd Leno, Kieran Tierney, Cedric Soares and Martin Odegaard joined the club after Wenger left.
This shows that although Arteta has signed players, this bad start to the season has largely been down to him playing the players who underachieved under Wenger and Emery.
But even under Wenger and Emery they weren’t this bad!!!!!!! Plus not strickly accurate Odergaard, Tierney, Cedric, Esr and Saka were not regulars under either manager.
Exactly! As bad as things became under UE this tops that!
Apart from Thomas Partey, i struggle to see which player bought by Arteta regime is better than Wengers. Please stop defending mediocrity..
Partey has been a flop to date nearly tlveonths since he came and he’s not proved himself A lot of the blame has to go to Wenger who hardly ever signed a decent defender apart from Campbell Toure and Lauren Every defender since 2004 onwards signed by the club has been at best only average and that includes the injury prone Koscielny and Vermaelen
kos and vermalean average?
do you even watch the games??
go look at past archives
Vermaelen was awful – good footballer but never a CB for me.
Sagna was an excellent RB signed by Wenger. I was unhappy when we got him because I believe Eboue had the potential to become even better with a little more experience (ultimately the Sagna signing “killed” him imo), but no one can argue sagna wasn’t a top quality fullback, and even a decent CB.
Absolute nonsense. Leave AW out of it. This disgraceful nose dive in performances and results is down solely to MA. In all my, 50 plus, years of following the club I have never seen such a nonchalant attitude of players and manager.
But wait.
Under Lampard Chelsea bought Werner, Ziyech, Mendy, Havertz and Chilwell. When Lampard was fired, they were 8th.
Tuchel came in, signed NO ONE, finished top 4 and won CL.
How come? Is it only Arteta who cannot any player except ones he bought? What about Runarsson? Or Willian? Cedric? They’re world beaters right?
who cannot manage*
There are too many who idolise Arteta so much so the finger pointing will come back to Wenger when he is long gone.
There is a massive difference between what Chelsea were able to afford and Arsenal.
It is unclear what point you are trying to make.
Do you think that Tuchel or any other manager would have won the Champions league with Arsenal’s squad?
We’ll never know that now.
And where did they end on the log under Wenger?
Arteta has many alternatives, some that are ousted and/or on loan. Sounds like more excuses being lined up. The support for mediocrity is really concerning.
We incentivize failure, like no other club in the EPL!
While did Arteta has to start kolasinac in a back 3 ahead of Mari?
Arteta can’t win people run down Mari and others and then when those players don’t play people say why not Give, Arteta a break I’ve supported Arsenal since, 1970 and this team is no means the worse in that time The last two years of Bertie Mee the team was poor and then for three years under Terry Neill and a further two years under Don Howe the team were dreadful Arsenal will come good again
Yes agree with your posts Stuart. Arteta cannot win at times, as Mari was slated after Chelsea. Whilst I cannot deny that the manner of the last defeat was bad, the knee jerk reaction of calling for the managers head every time we lose has to stop. We are in transition and that means it will take time to rebuild. You cannot take a snapshot of the season after three games which included the two Champions League finalisists from last season. We’ve arguably had the toughest start to the season anywhere in Europe. We need to review the situation after 12/13 games when we’ve played teams of all levels in the league. By that time some of the new recruits will have had some game time. If we’re in the same position, then something may have to change.
It was his decision to send Salliba on loan and keep the likes of Holding and Mari. Even Kostas Mavraponas I feel is better than the above 2.
Any one thinking a back 3 of Saliba, Holing and Mavraponsa is not better than the 3 Arteta played against City. ?
Its another thing that coach like Conte may not like to join sinking project at Arsenal, but that does not mean if Arsenal can get people like him, Arsenal will be a better team. See the example of Chelsea. Had same situation with same set of players happened to be at Arsenal, Arsenal would not have sacked Lampard to bring Tuschel and instead of winning the CL, would have settled for 6th place finish
That is tenuous at best.
For G’s sake. It is our present manager who cannot manage. Who chose the team…..ARTETA. We are bottom of the EPL, look like we are doing a groundhog day from last season. Poverty struck football……and you want to blame Wenger, Unai Emery. Jesus! Concentrate.
Please stop defending Arteta, stop looking for someone else to blame. The earlier you realize that Arsenal is too big for Arteta, the better for Arsenal football club. The earlier you bring in Antonio Conte the better for us all. Why don’t we always like to make the hast while the sun shines ?????
AdMart you could have convinced me if-
1. It was still Aug 2018
2. LeProf was unemployed and not Chief of Global football development FIFA
3. MA had not worked at both clubs.
Now my rationale is-
1. It is more than 3 years that Le Prof left AFC. Any kind of culture an individual has fostered in an individual(if by any chance we argue that AW fostered a losing culture) does not stay after him/her after the numerous restructurings and influx of fresh ideas. In fact, I think during Unai Emery’s time the culture would have started to shift, and the many different ideas that he brought to the club in terms of gameplay, would have completely erased AW’s gameplay ideas. Regarding the mentality, it is also something we saw a shift of during MA’s reign, so much so that we were praising players like AMN and Mo for showing renewed belief even during dying seconds.
2. This might be a controversial topic. Let’s say that AW was unemployed and still significantly influencing Arsenal in some way. Then your statement about 10 AW era players would have strong backing. But he is busy with introducing new rules and generally developing the game by FIFA, so I dont think he has time to still exert his dominating influence on Arsenal.
3. This is the most important point in my opinion, also referenced in some articles after the match. MA is someone who has an advantage of being able to witness the systems enforced at both Arsenal and Man City. If he had a large hand in Fraudiola’s tactics he must know that possession is his opposite number’s priority. Also after working as head coach and later manager at Arsenal, he knows the strength and weaknesses of each player. The players also support him and don’t at least look overly confused as they did under UE (maybe problem due to incoherent instructions, but most likely they wanted to out him as he introduced too many changes which affected their rhythm. ) So MA is someone who can easily bypass this supposed limitations of AW’s players and at least put up a plan for a respectable performance against City.
So IMO you are clutching at straws here, but based on your previous stance on MA, I think either you did this post just as it got reported in the Sun Sports, or you wanna tilt public consensus more towards a severance decision with reverse psychology. It may also be an article to show your unfavourable opinion on AW, 😉😉
I truly believe that Admin Martin simply posted someone else’s article and failed to mention the real author’s name, Sid.
I thought the same, might be the AI at work😂😂😂. But Nah, this short, matter-of-fact reporting style is AdMart’s. This I am sure of, after reading many of his articles. He also did great opinion pieces but doesn’t do them now..
A very meaningless article, if you ask me
Mate, there were more thank 60mm in artetas signings Vs city…so he has spent 60mm in signings who, in own artetas thinking, cant do the first team over Wenger players…who Is at fault there since Is the own arteta who ask for that players?
It’s a joke Man. ..now Liverpool could get bissouma and if that happen and see bissouma make the impact, then our wails Will start
I wouldn’t say ‘Wenger players’ as you put it, because this seems to undermine the contribution of the great Wenger,
However, I’ll rather say it’s same mentality, lack of fight, lack of leadership that had existed since Wenger era.
Frail mentality.
Looking at some of the goals conceded, they are not as a result of wrong tactics but lack of understanding and communication between defence, gk and defence and so on.
The great defenders don’t face attackers alone most time, the cordinate with midfield so as not to get exposed, same with gk but in arsenal players play like they don’t know each other, no communication and most time this affects the coordination
Am not defending any coach, but our players have lots to work on, else, we might sack Arteta get new coach win one cup get excited and some transfer and in 2 yrs same results against city and Chelsea
I don’t agree with you.
Chelsea player play the same way under Lampard.
We have the same point before Lampard got the sack but when Tuchel got the job, he moved gradually above us till he made the top 4 and won the CL.
If Lampard was coaching at Arsenal same will be said about the players not having fight in them not knowing the problem was the coach.
When Emery first came, I saw the fight in this players even when we lose against Chelsea in our 2nd match when we played 3-2, you know in the match that Emery has instill fight in the team before he lost the dressing room.
We came back from behind to win so many games lost in 1st half during Emery tenure and the only problem Emery has was losing the dressing room.
Tell me how many games has Arteta won from behind in 1st half during his 20months at the club? None. He win none and lost everything.
The moment we conceed a goal in 1st half, we already know we’re not winning.
Why is it that we can do this under Wenger and Emery but can’t do this under Arteta?
Even Freddie L did it against Westham
All this is with the coach and not the player, the tactics are totally wrong.
Why do people blame Pep against Chelsea and not the players? Cos he plans and give our the stupid tactics.
Arteta gave the players instructions and any player not playing to his instruction is benched, so what do you think the player will do?
I believe Xhaka his playing all games because he always play to players instructions.
Even we people blaming Xhaka against City are just blaming him because it was Xhaka. How can a coach play only Xhaka as DM against Man City with Kola and Chambers playing behind him?
His like wanting Xhaka to dry.
Say anything you want against Xhaka but he was the only one together with Holding marking from the right and left against City without any help from other players. His marking was limited and even me saw the red coming.
When was the last time he was redcarded for a sliding tackles with Partey and Lokonga besides him? None.
That is to show you how limited Arteta coaching ability is.
Absolutely correct man but everyone cannot just understand or see things the same way.
I think we give too much praise to Tuchel, Chelsea had new players settling down to new country, big price tags and new league, and even at that Lampard didn’t perform too badly I remember Chelsea were in top 6 when Lampard got sacked, he got the sack because the expectation due to the money spent were higher than the performance.
Besides an talking about team culture, grit, coordination and leadership, while the writer talk about Wenger team, let’s remember that Chelsea team still retain players from Conte title winning squad,
Comparing both team culture and mentality, Chelsea tick all the right boxes and can’t be compare to our spineless players
And what fight did we have under Emery and Wenger last years?,
How many big teams did we compete against fair and square under both managers (Wenger final years)
Adajim, try and remember AW’s last cup win and who we beat in the semi final and the final…. City and Chelsea with the players that AdninMartin are now the reason why MA is failing!!!
Also, these players, under Wenger and UE, never finished below 6th and were never bottom of the PL…. so the only conclusion must be then that the “dross” players Wenger signed have become even “drossier” under Arteta…. so no matter how one tries to defend the indefensible, clear logical thinking and not complete BS shows MA is the culprit.
I have to disagree with this post. The only people largely responsible for the current disaster are Arteta, Edu and Kroenke. The latter years of Wenger were a shambles but we were never this low on the table, or this horrible to watch. Watching Arsenal used to be a joy during the glory years, then became a chore during Wenger’s later years. Now it is a downright miserable experience, every minute I am looking for a new low or a new depth of embarrassment that this club sinks into.. Arteta doesn’t have a steady line up, and I’m still at a loss to understand why he thinks Saliba and Mavropanos can’t play and that Mari/Holding/Chambers are better than them..
Their transfer strategy- leaves everyone baffled. I’m not even going to get into Willian or the re-signing of Xhaka- for which he rewarded the club with a wonderful red card…He was a loose cannon, and yes AW signed him, but the current geniuses extended his contract, after whining about needing a CM all off-season long and (as expected) failing to land one.. Bissouma and Koopmeiners were some of the names thrown around, but we ended up back with Xhaka, and got rightly rewarded for it..
Blaming AW for this is reaching for straws at this point. The blame needs to be laid at the feet of the current Arsenal management- frankly they’re a bunch of circus clowns who should have absolutely nothing to do with top level football..
Arteta fan with different excuses.
Mari was rubbish against Chelsea
White wasn’t anything special against Brentford
Cedric was absolutely trash against Man City
Xhaka contract would have expired if not renewed by Emery and Xhaka would have been playing in German league if Arteta never stop him from leaving.
Wenger’s signings was the reason Arteta still has his job cos without Martinez and Auba magnificent throughout the FA Cup, I know he won’t be on this job by now.
None of our CB has been playing well than Saliba, none of our midfielder has a goal in them than Joe Willock(even Joe Willock goals in Arsenal shirt has not been matched), but guess what, same Arteta chased them out.
Let blame Wenger’s signing for Arteta’s failure and never ask why Arteta never upgrade on those signings.
He has spend more than 200M on signings yet he still uses Wenger’s signings, what does that tell you?
Lampard spent more than 200M on signing also but never achieve anything, Tuchel spent nothing and still achieve but guess what Tuchel only use 4 of Lampard signings and bench the rest. He only use player of the past and get the best out of them.
You know what Tuchel said?
Thomas Tuchel: “Here we don’t just sign player for attention or to entertain the puplic. We sign players to win us finals of important trophies. I have worked with superstars that failed to win big trophies. I have a happy balanced squad and above all they are European champions. So why should I look out for superstar while they’re around me.”
Which means Superstars doesn’t guarantee you anything, what you need is a group of player you can motivate and made hungry.
Arteta can’t motivate and he doesn’t seem hungry to me, he’s just a coach who keep grudges with players and never forgives.
Even if we have Messi and Ronaldo in our squad, we won’t do more than this.
But let keep faith in the process anyway.
Bobs, you are back! 👍👏
Agree with ajim.Remember the days when Arsenal beat
Boro and spurs both by5-4.Then everyone was happy but after 2004,the gunners have failed to win the epl.Wenger failed to give the defence the priority yas he did to the attack.
Since then the gunners always get hammered when they meet the big teams
The climax was the 8-2.
As for MA his attack is too slow to trouble even
Brentford.He shd be humble to learn how others score and win.
Failure to beat Norwich will hard to digest and could result in the axe
n
Always hammered? I would request you to check the archives to see Ken’s article about such hammerings, lol. And they are not opinions but facts taken from the club site, PL site, and Wikipedia. You might say that we were dominated, but that also happened in a small sample size of games, and performances like Saturday’s were very few and far between.
We’ve been hammered far more than we should have been (how many times is acceptable really?) and we all know we’ve lost plenty of games by only 1 or 2 when our opponents were just in cruise control. Remember that happening plenty of times, against Utd for example, when their team wasn’t great but they’d just sit back and let us beat ourselves. Those were just as pathetic as losing 5-0
Davi, so you think Ferguson would allow his team to relax?
Come on man, we all accept Wenger made mistakes (he’s only human) but scoreline don’t equate all humiliations do they?
Can you HONESTLY say that you watched any Wenger team that performed in the way MA’s teams have performed this season?
I have NEVER seen such a lack of the basics of a football team in my life.
Arteta picked these players for the game, and if they aren’t good enough he’s had enough time now to have replaced them. Some of these players he’s presided over them receiving new new, notably Xhaka and Auba. He couldn’t use the excuse that the players aren’t good enough, because he’s had the time now to have changed that. Maybe instead of pushing so hard for a 50m centre back, we could have focused on getting replacements for the ones that needed replacing.
Agree with most comments above. And just to remind everyone, Arteta had the preseason he always wanted to gel the team ahead of the season. The result?
Poor performance from the friendlies till today. Losing is part of football but looking like headless chickens on the pitch all the time? That should have been the final straw.
He picked the players, he impose the tactics. He knows the dressing room. He knows where the players came from. Hence, the first three games show that he is a complete idiot at the job.
10 AW signings? One of them happens to be our last golden boot winner. Most of them won the two trophies under MA’s spell. Now we are scoring none. Go ahead and blame AW on that one.
Now this is the kind of title I normally could rally around, but in this circumstance, and this alone, Arteta doesn’t deserve the easy out…as for those who still can’t see how both the total mismanaging of the Wenger dismissal and subsequent transitional phase continue to haunt our club, give your heads a good shake…make sure you shake vigorously enough that those blinders finally fall off in the process
Totally agree with this article. Let’s give Arteta 5 more years and upgrade his contract, give him 200 millions more to upgrade players if we truly want to win the championship next year and come back to PL! 🙂
btw: You can’t expect a 10 year old kid to thrive in college, even if you consider the kid as a “genius”.
Wenger consistently made top 4 with below average players. mainly because they had a specific game plan that everyone fit into. Now the recruitment is cherry picking random decent players that play well in a variety of different game plans. you cannot expect all these players to get together and play well if a strict game plan isnt implemented. Unai didnt have a primary game plan, his idea was to try and counter the other teams plan, often leaving them toothless. Mikel doesnt have a clue what he is doing, he is trying to play a Man City style with the wrong players, leaving him with no clue what to do… change the style until you can get a full team that plays the way you want to play
Wenger would have done better with those 10 players………!
A pathetic poor article, the blind school are just growing, almost all the players that starting for Arsenal was signed or given a contract extension after Wenger, a total blind moment by writer
Arsenal is doomed as long as Kroenkes are around. Need investors with a different perception of the Arsenal brand. With Kroenkes around, it won’t be surprising to see Arsenal relegated in the next few seasons. So called rebuilding, from the Championship.