It’s been 5 years since Arsenal gave Mikel Arteta his first job as a manager. In his first ever season as a boss he led us to our 14th FA Cup and as he reminded us of last week, two Community Shields.
At our worst he took us to our lowest league finish in 25 years and zero European Football for the first time In Quarter of a Century.
He has though fulfilled his promise of returning the Gunners back to competing at the highest level.
Here are 5 downs and ups from his reign …
5 Downs ….
Washes his hands of talent.
This continues to divide the fanbase.
From day one Mikel Arteta was adamant he would not tolerate anyone not willing to meet his standards. At first that seemed noble.
Yet you can name an entire team who in the last 5 years were paid to either sit at home, had their contracts ripped up, or loaned out while their deals expired. Too many to all be the player’s fault.
The owners should have ordered that part of a manager’s role was to get the best out of the resource he inherited. Our boss has been allowed to think it’s standard practice to just give up on talent, reducing the assets worth.
Unless of course he was helping the Kroenke Family reduce the wage bill?
Ozil never played for us again after refusing a pay cut during Covid. That’s while we finished 8th twice (our lowest finish in quarter of a century and the first time in that period zero European football) and bemoaned a lack of creativity.
We then simply gave Aubameyang to Barcelona and missed out on the top 4 due to a lack of a natural goal scorer.
Style of football
Let me stress there’s a lot of positive things that our manager has changed tactically.
Few teams lift trophies without a solid defence and keeper, so it makes sense that was a priority to fix. Yet as time progressed has our boss been too clever and over complicated decisions?
He had success in Zinchenko being a hybrid full back, but now wants Partey to do the same.
We play very slow, passing the ball sideways with players not taking responsibility.
There has been talk that his preference is youngsters who he can micromanage and not flair players who think for themselves.
Many feel that’s why Martinelli has regressed as he’s no longer playing to his strengths.
It can’t be denied that we are no longer an entertaining team to watch under the current regime.
Ideas
How much this concerns you will come down to the importance you put on motivation and team-building exercises.
Arteta either learnt ideas off Pep Guardiola or has a book of creative methods in how to lead a team.
Like his tactics, he may have been guilty of over thinking.
In preseason, instead of simply warning his squad to always be alert on the pitch he chose to take everyone out for a meal and pay for professionals to pick pocket his players.
Some of his most outrageous presentations have coincided with defeats. He brought a light bulb to work but that didn’t stop Brighton from defeating us.
While he tried to recreate Anfield by blasting Your Never Walk Alone out on speakers in training. He’s still yet to win there in the league
Mentality
While fulfilling his objective to have the Gunners competing again at the highest-level, Arteta now needs to prove he can get a team over the line when it really counts.
That dramatically improved in last season’s title run yet it was a coincidence we failed to beat Villa after watching Liverpool slip up putting pressure on our game.
The two campaigns before we went missing at squeaky bum time, costing us a place in the top 4 then the Prem.
It’s left the club with an image of being the near men, the assumption being the bigger the occasion the more we are crippled by a fear of failure with not enough experience to lead.
Some Gooners are questioning is Arteta the man to provide that?
European record
At times our manager has been compared to a Pep Guardiola or Arsene Wenger, yet this is yet to be translated in Europe.
In the Europa League over two legs, he was knocked out by Olympiacos, and Villarreal (made worse was that they were coached by Unai Emery).
In his one season in the Champions League so far, we went out to Bayern Munich with a whimper in Germany.
5 Ups. …….
Emirates Atmosphere
Mikel Arteta would eventually sit with Josh Kroenke, Edu and BFG and make an action plan regarding all aspects of the club.
One area he wanted to improve was the relationship between the team and fans.
Since the Emirates had been built it had become famous for its lack of atmosphere. It wouldn’t take a long time for the stadium to get apprehensive about something, as our ex-captain now-our manager had experienced.
The Spaniard was made aware of ‘Louis Dunford’s North London Forever’ and how some Gooners were pushing for it to be included pre match. As evidenced on the All or Nothing Documentary this is introduced to the squad and has remained ever since.
It’s contributed to the noisiest the venue has ever been, although that has been in danger of reverting back to type this season
Convincing Owners
Whether it was hitting rock bottom by not qualifying for Europe for the first time in quarter of a century or our owners going into damage control mode after the Super League debacle, the Kroenke Family sat down with Arteta and made an action plan together.
Along with Edu and BFG all departments of the club were reviewed.
For whatever reason our current manager was willing to get commitment from his employers that those before him were unable to do so, including transfer fees and wages to match others.
Hard to beat
As already mentioned very few teams win major honors without a great defence and that was the area that seemed to be Arteta’s priority to fix.
Only he knows if he intends to now improve our attack, as at the moment, we are no longer the most entertaining team in the country to watch.
Even in Arsene Wenger’s final years in charge you could always trust the Gunners to make chances. That’s no longer the case.
What Arsenal have been able to do in the last 12 months is go away from home and grind out results. We can now fight and dig deep and if needed we can see out narrow leads.
I would argue Arsenal have not been able to do that since the George Graham era
Contracts
While sitting down making an action plan for all departments of the club a conscious decision was made to tie down key talent to long-term deals.
As our skipper, Arteta had watched teammates run down their contracts. From a business point of view, serious assets had their value reduced by this business model. Players either left for nothing, for a cut price fee or could demand to be paid over the odds to stay.
Too many individuals are still allowed to become free agents, but they would be those their boss lost faith in.
Mostly those who our manager rate have committed their long-term future to the club.
That means as a worst-case scenario, if anybody wants to leave, we can demand a big price for them.
Trusting Legends
One of the biggest criticisms you could make of Mr. Wenger was it took him too long to trust his former players to come back and work at the club.
Mikel Arteta has never had that problem.
Already working with BFG and Edu (before he left) several legends have claimed that our manager has an open-door policy for ex Gunners.
He was instrumental in Mr. Wenger finally returning to visit the Emirates while David Seaman has been doing some coaching with the youth team.
One of the best things he did though was support Jack Wilshere in mentally accepting that his playing career was over.
Arteta firstly invited his former teammate to train with the squad and then after retirement put the 32-year-old in charge of our under 18 team.
Tell me your thoughts on Arteta’s highs and lows in the comments
DAN
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If Arteta really cared about the wage bill he wouldn’t have exiled stars like Özil on full pay l, while simultaneously promoting a villain like xhaka. He frogmarched Ljungberg but took credit for another manager’s squad winning the he FA Cup.
Arteta has never won the league in England as a player or manager. Ljungberg was an invincible!
Arteta should embrace Arsenal winners far more and humbly admit he was not as good as his midfield predecessors like Petit, Vieira, Gilbert, Rocastle, Hleb, Edu, Flamini… nor Wiltshire, Ramsey, Rosicky or Ramsey.
Arteta was not an Arsenal legend!
If he wins titles AND UCL then he might be.
I have echoed this sentiment myself. Arteta is not and has never been an Arsenal legend; Everton maybe but not Arsenal. He was nothing more than a Poundland Fabregas and as a manager he will have the Poundland Pep tag until he wins with his own ideas.
Certainly he seems to be able to organise a defence better than Pep at the moment but it is at the expense of any sort of attacking flair. Now, I am not advocating we play like Spurs, but in our first serious League challenge season we played some fabulous football. However, that has given way to extreme pragmatism. And that is fine providing you win.
Unfortunately, right now Liverpool and Chelsea are both playing much better football than Arsenal and have much better squad depth, particularly in attacking areas. Make no mistake, Arsenal are in contention but are third favourites at best.
@Ben @Dougal
Who said Arteta is an Arsenal legend? I have never heard of him referred to as such.
* or Özil (not Ramsey twice)
Most I agree with apart from “wash his hands of talent” should be the “ups” section, because it needed to be done.
If Arteta had not taken on the dressing-room with the poor attitude and mentality of a lot of our senior players, they would have thrown him under the bus within 2 years easily, just like they did to Emery.
It would have also infected our young prospects as well.
In the end, Arteta was proven correct. Bar Martinez, I am struggling to think of any other player we got rid of that went onto bigger and better things.
Neither did we though
We have achieved nothing that we didn’t achieve with Ozil
Better attitude for one Dan
@ Dan ,gets rid of egotistical players because of his own egotistical tendencies .
When you see him telling players how to take a throw in ,it shows us all that aren’t on his PA paper slip how much of ego this bloke possesses .
All mouth no action kind of creep (his fans included)
I for one cannot wait for him to do one if no trophy is taken this season ,hopefully his cringe fan club go with him.(the excuse makers )
You don’t have talk bollocks! That’s what they call details not about ego. You can not be an arsenal fan. Seriously are you 10years old.
Rather have the trophies
So you think we would have challenged City in back-to-back seasons with the likes of Mustafi, Ozil, Kolasinac, Auba, etc?
If he could win his only FA cup with them then why could not they challenge for the EPL? Emery missed top 4 by a single point and went on to a EL final (the English language was not his strength then)
And they beat City and Chelsea to win it lol!
But let’s not ruin the narration. It wasn’t them it was the expecto patronum from Arteta’s wand.
So you think they had the correct attitude and mentality? Do you think they would have been good role models for players like Saka?
Also, if the players were good enough, why did we consistently get spanked against big teams, especially away from home? How come there was no title challenge under Wenger and Emery with these players?
Wigan won an FA Cup and got relegated the same season. Leicester won an FA Cup and soon got relegated. Were they great teams or was that more a one off?
I think if we keep Ozil that season we dont finish 8th .
I think we keep Aumabeyang that season we finish top 4
Lucy78 because he lost the dressing room quicker than Emery did lol. He was fortunate the club chose to get rid of the problem instead of sacking another manager.
So the board should have done what Utd keep doing then.
Keep sacking managers, and keep all the problem players, with the poor attitude and mentality. Don’t make any big changes.
And can you explain how well that medthod has been working out for Man Utd?
We were in the same state Man U is when Arteta took over, if he had not done what he did, we would be changing Coaches with no result till now. I think he needed to get rid of the virus in the team in order to build a team, not just guys pocketing millions without any passion or respect for the badge.
Merry Christmas Gooners and Goonerettes…🎄
And you NY🎅
Or maybe we won’t? Maybe in an alternate timeline, MA was sacked after two abysmal full seasons in charged. We somehow appoint an unknown manager who hit the ground running like AW did and we miraculously win the League in 2023.
There’s no point speculating on what-ifs. Just brought up a rather bizarre example to point out that there’s no guarantee that “we would be changing Coaches with no result till now“, even if MA “had not done what he did”
This is a reply to Kay above
You are right sushi
In the same way that Dan alludes to rather having the trophies. Would we if Wenger remained, or Emery had stayed? All what ifs. However, her point about the similarities between Arsenal and ManU post SAF and AW do hold water. Neither club has managed to win the league since and like Arteta – or not – he has changed the prevailing culture for the better, whereas Utd have yet to do so after a much longer period. My point being, is that overall Arsenal is in a healthier place to achieve success (with or without MA) going forward and Utd have chopped and changed managers, with Amorim having a tough job in his hands
SueP, you missed the point – after SAF retired ManU went to win one FA under Van Gaal, Europa and FA under Jose and a league cup under Erik. The chop and churn for Man U is based on the fact that their ownership and fans value trophies, Arsenal owners and fans value sentiments and emotions over silverware. For me I value trophies and I don’t care who the manager or coach is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a critic of MA but want him to succeed as his success is our success, his failure is our failure.
Ooh, I’m not sure TSRS
Can’t disagree with the trophies won having value, but do you believe that the Utd supporters are happy with their current situation?
As many on JA put forward, the league is number 1 and everything else is secondary. No doubt Arteta needs to take winning a trophy seriously. I think his priority was the EPL and he fell short twice. The Carabao cup would be a start to encourage a winning mentality (although that didn’t kick start Utd to better things). I do value stability which Arteta has achieved. How ironic that the wheel has fallen off City after so much success. Just a pity it didn’t fall off last season instead of this.
I think Arteta has helped, with the owners to stabilise the proverbial sinking ship. We are a good solid unit, who are honest and top 4 standard. We really and truthfully do not look like being able to be clever enough to get over the line. If fans are happy with that, then there standards are lowered from previous Arsenal teams. Mine are still high. I think I will keep being disappointed. I hope we don’t look back and think this era was wasted, in respect of what it could have been, with a cleverer manager. 🤔
Great article Dan, doing both the positives and negatives of Arteta reign with a relative unbiased view.
In my opinion Arteta greatest weakness is overthinking which is the starting point for most of his bad habits. This could also contribute to our struggles in knockout competitions and high pressure games where he overstresses and that also reflects on the players. he is an intense person after all.
About the ripping up contracts and putting players aside i have always stressed that it was most likely a joint operation between Arteta, Edu and the Kroenkes. There is no way a newbie manager no matter how good he is would have been given carte blanche to perform an open heart surgery on the squad. Especially highly experienced and regarded managers before him were not given that luxury.
I disagree.
The article gives certain views which the author personally considers positive or negative and gives equal weighting to both sides. That does not necessarily mean it is in any way unbiased or balanced.
Suggesting that getting rid of underperforming or poorly committed players is a “down” is ridiculous and demonstrates the continued lack of insight of certain fans..
The type of football is described as a “down”. How many Arsenal fans would agree that overall our style of football would be described in such terms? The criticism of ideas and mentality is completely ridiculous.
The only criticism that makes some sense is our overall record in Europe. However, referencing both Pep and Wenger in this context makes no sense.
As usual the article’s author mainly caters for a certain negative minority of the fanbase whose schtick is their lack of respect for Arteta.
I wished this site had a block option or hidden feature so as not to have to see certain people comments.