Arsenal finally got a much-needed win against Norwich, although it was hardly the awe-inspiring victory we were all hoping for.
But the Gunners did dominate the match with 30 attempts on target, although our only goal was a very scrappy affair they did deserve to take all three points.
Mikel Arteta was immensely relieved, and he has admitted that the period after our 5-0 thrashing by Manchester City he was “at the lowest” and needed the support of his family and friends after hearing all the criticisms aimed at him in the media. The boss told the Independent: “What I did probably was against myself because you are upset with yourself, you are angry, you are tired.
“You just want to hit yourself because you are not doing things right and you are not getting the outcome you think you deserve. You have to understand why you do it. So after the loss against City, probably I was at the lowest. Then you start to try to analyse things. You hear different opinions – media, criticism – and then probably you go even further.
“Then starts the importance of having the family I have, the wife and kids I have, the parents and the friends I have. In difficult moments they show their commitment in your relationship with them. After that it is every person that works in this club, from top to bottom, and the energy they try to provide.”
“That negativity has to come away,” he said. “You have to bear in mind that first of all you are doing everything you can to your best capacity, and don’t kid yourself or look for excuses. Normally the easiest thing to do is blame the players, [to say] ‘They are not good enough, I have this, I have that’ and then you try to over-coach them. I was not willing to do that because first of all they don’t deserve that.”
Now we have all seen how Arteta and Edu have tried to be more open and transparent about how the club operates, not to mention letting the Amazon cameras in to record it all in gory detail, but I’m not sure that Arteta should be revealing his inner feelings like this, or even letting the media get to him in such a way that he got even more depressed.
Having heard some players say that he told them not to let their heads down and to stay positive, it seems weird that he is admitting that he was struggling himself while thinking of blaming the players….Balogun admits “it was tough” but tries to find positives after Arsenal start
He can not use the blame game as he as used it time after time since here’s been here maybe he’s just realised that he’s the problem .
He should do the honourable thing and resign ,it’s obviously effecting him and anyone with a brain can see he is way out of his depth and things have not improved in his 18 months here .
Shame the club didn’t have the balls to replace him with atleast a manager with abit more experience.
What? Do you watch post match interviews? Almost every loss is followed by “I take full responsibility” I’d hardly say he places blame on players “time after time”. I’m not his biggest fan but yoh don’t need to make up fake scenarios just to blindly rant
i dont think its a surprise to anyone that he was strugling to stay positive. so its not really insight.
even to the players. it shows them that the entire team is suffering not just a single player feeling down. some pros and cons to this management position.
1 x FA cup, 2nd best points total after xmas last yr, 30 shots with domination and a win this weekend…. the man cant win. get over yourself.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Hqhahahaha, always excuses to be found
That 2nd most points after Xmas means nothing! A manager is judged by the whole season not half a season!
So negative, pathetic non sense…
He is getting paid to provide a confortable
lifestyle for family & himself…
Unfortunatly it cost way more to AFC going on 3rd season with a total scam; duo Arteta Edu!
If h
Area did not “Open up”
He said nothing.
If Arteta really “opened up” he would say.
1 It took me two seasons to realize I was no longer at Man City.
2. Half my squad is over the hill, average or in the case of many of the English quota players close to useless.
3. If I could I would have bought a dozen new guys not just six this summer but we could not move enough deadwood.
4. We expected to beat Brentford draw with Chelsea and lose to City.
5. We expected to beat Norwich, we expect to beat Burnley and a point would be ok with Spurs.
We expect to beat Brighton Palace and Villa while we hope for a point at Leicester.
We need to beat Watford and Newcastle cause we ain’t getting anything at Anfield or Old Trafford.
6. Edu and I expect 7th by Xmas.
7. We’d love to offload Lacazette Elneny Mari Kolasinac and Nketiah in January and buy another AM and striker.
I’d rather we sold Saliba
Next summer we hope to sell Niles, Nelson, Guendouzie and Saliba and bring in 5 more young profile players.
6. I know my job is on the line and will go ack to Spain and coach when I finish here.
Our recent result has surely fixed the problem a little bit. The players and him had better quit social media
You’ll always be the biggest supporter of Arteta. Struggling against Norwich and scoring by offside has “fixed the problem a little bit”. Things are bad for Arsenal, so its better to support the team than an individual.
Thirty shots and ten of them on goal isn’t a struggle
Pepe was unlucky when he hit the bar. The ball bounced off him, so it wasn’t an offside
And no Gunner is bigger than Arsenal. If I supported a particular player, I wouldn’t be around here after Sanchez left
What recent results? Against a championship second string team and relegation favourites Norwich? Come on man
What is your minimum requirement from our next 6 EPL games? How many wins, draws and losses? Keep in mins we have 3 points from a possible 12 only
Burnely
Spurs
Brighton
Crystal Palace
Villa
Leicester
One step at a time to rebuild the players’ confidence. Norwich won Championship last season and we made thirty shots against them, so it was a positive result
The game in Brentford was disappointing, but our senior CFs were suddenly unavailable and we were left with a very young one. Then we had to play against the UCL and EPL champions, hence we could only get three points
About my expectation of the games you mentioned:
Burnley: Win
Spurs: Draw
Brighton: Win
Crystal Palace: Win
Villa: Win
Leicester: Draw
Arteta talks too much. He is better suited as a pundit rather than a team manager.
Arsenal is obviously too big for the apprentice.
He also contributed to his own problem by rewarding a player like xhaka with extended contract and more playing time instead of selling him to Roma.
Xhaka paid him back with a reckless tackle leading to a red card against man City.
I fear the likes of lokonga will suffer playing time when the almighty xhaka returns.
The real test will come when we play spurs with our full team.
Fingers crossed.
Arteta is a very good manager. He deserves respect for taking on what is a huge job.
He has to almost completely rebuild the squad. The early signs look promising.
In the history of football it is blame the manager and it should be blame the manager. Particularly in the context of a big club, results prove top managers win trophies. Blame players………. bloody codswallop!
Arteta has won an FA cup.
Di Matteo won the champions league and got sacked.. So whats your point exactly?
The table never lies,
Empty words don’t win trophies,
Sorry excuses don’t give 3 points.
Fans positivity and support,
A good and capable manager they don’t make.
He is good at talking the talk,
But still he can’t walk the walk.
The table never lies.
Not sure whether folks are upset at his interview or if they are just using the interview to further bash Arteta. I suspect it’s the latter as for the life of me I can’t see anything in his words above that are the least bit contentious. His honesty is refreshing and I’m glad he’s done some soul searching which is something that some (including me) have questioned if he is capable of.
The current squad is better than any other squad for the past decade, in terms of quality. Arteta is failing to utilize those individual qualities. He should blame himself instead of shifting the blame to players
Can you point out in the article where Arteta was shifting the blame to the players?
“Normally the easiest thing to do is to blame the players … I was not willing to do that because first of all they don’t deserve that”
All he needs to do is solve the selection mistake that is costing us goals…
1. Lacazette is the glue to the attack…though he is less prolific than auba ,his holdup and hassling of opposition’s defenders is key to our play….this means that our wingers have to score more like the salahs,manes…
2. Playing saka on the left and Pepe on the right is not utilizing their strength s………on the right Pepe runs to the byline,cut back and try unsuccessful curlers or pass back to midfield…….on the left SAKA would run to the byline line to cross in for an overwhelmed CF or pass back to a midfielder who in turn passes back to the defenders….
Without European football, he has the time in training to adjust things properly..
(a).Saka moves to the right thereby driving in more often , winning PKs and laying short passes for easy tap-ins as he has done time and time again for club/country…..Play ur best player in his best position, others can be shuffled around not SAKA…
(b) Pepe moves to the left which also stops the need to cut-back but drive in directly with pace to shoot at goal ( like greenwood does) or lay up chances for our CF or Saka at far post….this also relieves Tierney of the tedious work of overlapping runs to put in same crosses over and over again..
Or use all the midfielders (ODE, Sambi, Partey,ESR) with our two strikers(Auba,Laca) up front…as a lone out of form striker is not really working
I hope he has finally realized that all the new signings have brought some freshness and energy to the team and should be incorporated into the first team ASAP …..Sambi for xhaka, ramsdale for Leno, Tomiyasu for Chambers, White for Holding and Tavares (our own Marcelo) for Tierney
In colusion
1. Arteta is not the right man for the job
2. The owners have no love for football
3. The fans are devided, some want progress while other are happy with the status co
4. Arsenal is no longer able to compete with the big guns
5. If things persist, the club will soon be a mid table team
6. This is not how to build a project
7. The club and fans plus players all need a reality check
Ben:
1. up for debate, but quite possibly true
2. They don’t need to love football. They need to be better investors and put the right people in charge. A David Dein in charge would have seen their investment better protected. I don’t believe for 1 minute that the owners of Liverpool love football more but they are smarter investors.
3. The fans are divided but all fans want to progress. They just don’t agree on how to get progress.
4. Spot on but has been the case for many years and long before Arteta rode into town.
5. We are already a midtable team and might be lucky if we still are a midtable team come mid-season.
6. Time will tell. We might have made some good investments this summer.
7. I think the reality check has been loud and clear.
It would be stupid IMO to fire Arteta now. He should have been fired at the end of last season. But since he was not fired it would be rather puzzling to fire him because he lost to City and Chelsea whilst not having had a run of games with his new squad. It will take many games for the new players to blend. We should now give Arteta till December (unless he loses the next 3-4 games), and only replace him with a high-caliber manager like Conte or Brendan Rogers.