Will Arsenal fans trust Mikel Arteta’s ‘process’ at Arsenal? by Yash
Although everybody talks about the ‘short-term’ and ‘long-term’ project of a football club, the majority of fans just care about that result on a Saturday evening.
They just care about getting the result in the very next game week, ignoring all the other aspects that revolve around the matchdays.
Even though winning is all that matters, winning is not all that matters. When Arsenal appointed Mikel Arteta as a head coach in December 2019, even the most optimistic fans would have admitted that there were going to be bumps on the road.
Arteta is not a clueless manager, he just has a team which has no balance. A minority of the Arsenal faithful have a habit of bringing up West Ham United and Leicester City’s model.
Both teams, with shrewd recruitment, have balanced squads, which has lifted them at the top half of the table. They have individual players whose quality complements that of their teammates.
Johan Cruyff once said, “Choose the best player for every position, and you’ll not end up with a strong 11, but with 11 strong 1s.” Although Arsenal have not the best players in the league for every position, but they do boast better individual players than the likes of Everton, Leicester and West ham.
My point: They have better individual players but not a good 11. Arsenal’s decline in the past decade has coincided with bad recruitment. Is it a coincidence? No.
Have they been unlucky on the pitch? Certainly not.
What they have sorely missed is a good, in-depth recruitment of every signing. They have not taken into consideration whether that player would improve the other 10 players in the squad.
But there is a silver lining. The Gunners, after a ridiculous shake-up behind the scenes in the past few years, are looking ready to make clever decisions in the market.
Nobody could have imagined the decline of Willian. He went from being Chelsea’s best player last season to Arsenal’s worst in a matter of few months.
Had that worked out, Edu would have been certainly considered a genius. But football is not simple. Sometimes you bump into problems that you don’t foresee.
Apart from the chaos in the boardroom level, it is worth pointing out that Edu has had more burden in his job. After Huss Fahmy left his position at the end of last year, the Brazilian had to take more responsibility in sorting out the contracts of many players.
Apart from not loaning out the likes of Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson. And not bringing in a back-up on the left to Kieran Tierney, the former Invincible did a fantastic job in his first transfer window.
Patience among fans always runs thinner than the people who are the employers and the employees at the club, because they don’t oversee things up close.
There is a reason why Arteta has not fallen out inside the dressing room despite the results been worse than it was under Emery and the latter years under Arsene Wenger.
It is because his ideas are considered ‘clear.’ Don’t forget how badly Pep Guardiola performed in his first full season at Manchester City. They only managed to secure a fourth spot on the very last day of the 2016/17 Premier League campaign.
With a full-preseason and a squad overhaul, Arsenal fans can expect something special next season.
Give the manager at least until the end of the year, and if results remain the same, I would be the first to join the #ArtetaOut army.
But till then let’s take the results on the chin, because that is all we can do at the moment.