Mikel Arteta is preparing for today’s massive North London Derby and he obviously faced questions about the fact that Tottenham are now consistently above Arsenal in the League, and how the Spaniard is going to close the gap and get back above our noisy neighbours.
He says there is no big secret to success, but it will take some time and planning to emulate the success of the top teams. “You know the successful teams in this country in the last five to 10 years, what they’ve done to become successful. It’s no secret.” Arteta told the Mirror.
“There is not someone who has done something unprecedented, apart from what happened with Leicester a particular year.
“But we have to find a way to do it. If it’s not that way, we have to find another way.
“This isn’t the time to find excuses.
“The way we are going to evolve this squad is not being done in this window.
“It’s going to be a constant thing and it has to be a constant thing.
“It’s not going to stop, so that we’re in the position that after you have to do a massive rebuild, like what we had to do in the last two transfer windows.
“Hopefully, when you are able to do the opposite thing and adjust little things you are going to bring the biggest ability and then just add good quality, any player that comes here has big quality, because that is what the squad demands.”
That sounds like Arteta is fully expecting Stan Kroenke to back him in the transfer market, because we all know that “big quality” players don’t come cheap, but he also expects it to take time.
Some may point out that he has already had 15 months of rebuilding, but considering the extraordinary circumstances of his first year in charge, his plans have been very hard to implement. He said: “In the time I’ve been in the job, the conditions we had of two-and-a-half months in normal circumstances and then a period when you are completely away from the team and then you have very difficult circumstances, it’s not the same as having a year, the same period, in normal circumstances.
“When you talk about the transfer windows, it’s very difficult to explain as well about these transfer windows and how they were dealt with.
“The progression of the team and when we are able to do that?
“I don’t know. If I would know, I would give you a date.
“What I know is that tomorrow it has to be a better team than today.”
“My whole focus is towards that.
“So, looking at that, make the right decision for the next day to be better.
“And then, how we can be as competitive as we have to be in the shortest possible time, making the right decisions?”
So, many fans on here think that he should not be given much more time to bring the club success, but from Arteta’s words, it sounds like he is looking at a much longer project than most of us would like.
The only way we can judge if there is improvement is if he does persuade the management to only buy the “big quality” players that he needs to do his job.
Only time will tell…
Has he not been backed.? He was given Partey, Gabriel, Soares, Mari, Willian and Luis, Cebellos and Ordeegaard on short. He asked for every of these players and we get much more in the future. It is left for him to do his job to identify the players that will be effective in the way he wants to play.
1. The players we have are better than 11th. They can easily finish in the top 4 while challenging for the title with a good tactician. The often said that we have a bad squad is a MYTH and an URBAN LEGEND.
FAKE NEWS!!
2. “But we have to find a way to do it. If it’s not that way, we have to find another way.
Am I wrong in understanding this that he doesn’t know the way yet?
3. The way we are going to evolve this squad is not being done in this window.
They can have 100 windows and results will not change if they don’t spend on right players. Spending big is not necessary. Spending right is the way. You don’t go and sign a 33 years old on 120k a week on a 3 years contract. Such big salary should’ve been invested in a better younger player.
If he is given more time then he should invest in younger players and grow together with them, like Alex Ferguson did.
H
I agree with a lot of what you say but what you got to realise is we have been settling for 2nd 3rd 4th 6th and 8th best for a very very very long time now
We have always been blessed to have a player or two peppered within our squad who has exceptional ability.
Problem is the top brass over the last 10 to 15 years have seen them as a gem and sell them off
Is MA the new ferguson.
Who knows and only time will tell but again the board went cheap and got a good coach who is still finding his way as a manager.
In my opinion he has been the best of a bad bunch recently
When we play well which has been in small patches we could give any team a run for there money. What he needs to do is stop the errors, build confidence, find a lot more consistency and thelat will take time and he will need to clear out the dead wood which have hung around for many a season now
Ps
Alex might have got it right in the end but at the beginning he certainly came close to getting the sack as even he couldn’t get it right for a few seasons and this is the man who had a hsd come from Scotland, broken the big two dominance and had a wealth of experience as a manager.
today is the day we start that process and go and smash the spuds
3-1 to us today my friend
Keep the faith
Onwards and upwards
I appreciate your thoughts and positive attitude Alan and you are correct that Ferguson took long time to get there. My fear is that in modern football when you are left behind it is very difficult to catch up.
While I have lost appetite for the league I am rooting for him to win the EL or at least reach the letter stages. Going into the next season with something to build on is better.
Hope your prediction is spot on. Cheers!
Arsenal have reported a loss of £ 47.8 million for the financial year from 2019 – 2020, so we can’t expect big signings in the summer. Unless we sell some of our stars first or qualify for Champions League through EL
To be in the position we are today with the squad we have today is tantamount to failure. There isn’t one excuse that can be made to justify the way we are playing and the inconsistent style of football we are spewing out. Starting with Martinez being sold and Leno being kept was and is a blueprint to failure, if that is a microcosm of what Arteta calls improving, we are in trouble. The only way that Arteta can get support is to do far better than he is at this moment and because of our poor season the only thing left is the EL. IF we win it then i will buy into his philosophy and give him time to go into next season and start immediately improving our form and football but at the moment i am far from convinced with a lot of his decisions and what he is doing.
Given the state Arsenal were in when Arteta took over, then two trophies in his first 7/8 months, plus all the deadwood he has managed to move on, I wouldn’t call that failure. What were you expecting with one main transfer window?
If you want a definition of failure: 9 years straight without a trophy, 14 years straight of not being competitive in the league, is a better example. Every player was Wenger’s at that time as well, he didn’t inherit a mess, which could have been used an excuse for a long period failure.
Plus if you have been watching Arsenal, you should have noticed a distinct improvement since X-mas in our style of play, and attacking football.
TMJW, Some of the “deadwood” helped win the FA cup and we were higher in the league as well. Yes i have been watching thank you very much for asking and i have seen us treading water in the league. This squad is never and has never been a 11th placed squad. We are under achieving by a massive amount and we cant carry on playing the way we are and getting inconsistent results. Arteta is responsible for our league position and it has to improve or he isnt good enough for this club. We are massively under achieving on what we have.
Those deadwoods brought him an FA cup which gave him the power he is enjoying today starting from head coach to manager and many questionable decisions….
Until the world beaters he brought in does something better than the 8 place finish and fa cup won by so called Deadwoods then they are no better than the deadwoods…
Arteta shipped many of the Deadwoods
When does taminating players contract, moving a few out on loan becomes a big deal in football
I understand when you want someone to succeed you always seems to hype every little thing he does
To me arteta has been below average as a manager
Not a great tactician, not good at player management and error prone just like few of his players…
Yes i want him to be successful, he is our manager so i pray he improved but so far he has done nothing fantastic or something that shows he is a football genius we all thought he was….
If it’s all about getting world class players to compete then how is he special….
Most coaches out there can be successful with world class players in their team…
Thirdman, when is releasing players for free become an achievement for any coach. And if it is in anyway why didn’t we celebrated Emery for moving on Welbeck, Wilshere Ramsey and for £35m he got for Iwobi. Arteta deserves praise for the fa cup and the CS he won nothing less and nothing more.
“many fans on here think that he should not be given much more time to bring the club success, but from Arteta’s words, it sounds like he is looking at a much longer project than most of us would like.”
Aha, inject it into the left side cheek of my butt, inject it in my veins, inject it everywhere and let the trophy entitled fans choke while staring. Some of us know he ain’t getting sacked anytime soon, even if he loses the Europa this season, my manager ain’t going no where.. Hehehehe Life’s Good.
I plan to start judging him from day 1 of next season after getting another window, and so will it be. All the moanings about getting rid of him are music to my ears for now. Music that deserves the Grammy today.
Anyway, we have no single first team squad injured. Everyone is fully fit, no sidelines, no cramps, no injury despite the tight schedule. All credits to the medical team. Since we took that Liverpool Dr, it seems they took our injury curse in return
You will take that to the bank then Eddie ,that he won’t get sacked if we don’t win EL ?
If he gets us to the final and we get embarrassed like we did with Emery in charge then I would say his job will definitely be on the line .
This squad should be challenging for top 4 easy , but we sit 10th, if he can’t get a tune out of these players for the rest of this season then we could be on for embarrassing finishing position in the league .
I suggest he lets the handbrake off and let the players play instead of micro managing every little detail ,football is a simple game it does not need to be made more difficult from a manager barking orders every 2 secs .
Dan I’m gonna bet $50 worth of bitcoins he won’t get sacked If we lose the Europa League. His ass would only be on the line from next season.
I agree the squad should be challenging for top four but that doesn’t mean I don’t see improvements since Dec either WMD I’m sure you do too.
He seems to have find his gameplay, now cut away the individual errors we keep making and add consistency to our game and we’ll be challenging top four easily. It’s not as if any of the top teams bully us or we are walkovers when it comes to the big teams. What he needs to find is consistency and help the players maintain focus on the pitch to cut errors.
Would I sack a manager whose biggest challenge is players having brainfarts and consistency? Hell no, give home time to either see the players fully focused or get rid of the error prone players, find consistency and then you’ll see we don’t play bad football like people on here keep exaggerating
problem with that theory Eddie is that the players who are most prone to these so-called brainfarts, Luiz, Xhaka and Leno seem to be among his favourites and appear to be going nowhere fast…I would have been onboard with the whole long-term gig if he hadn’t wasted considerable wage bill funds on Willian, then made not a single penny on the deadwood cull…he appears to want his cake and eat it too…the way in which he’s constantly tweaking the narrative so that it best suits his immediate needs is very disconcerting, considering he wants us to have faith in his long-term “vision” for the club, whatever that might be…
Agree Dan.
Completely agree Eddie, whether fans want Arteta out or not, doubt he is going anywhere soon. I will however be worried after the 1st 10 games next season if there is no improvement by December if we are struggling there will be no argument that can save his job. For now support Arsenal FC people.
Arteta seems to be saying that until he has a squad like Chelsea Liverpool and City he can not compete.
So why did he take the job when he knew full well the shortcomings of the squad?
Like Frank Lampard the chance to manage at one of his old clubs was too hard to resist.
He then goes on to say we will have to achieve success another way but does not say what this other way is although quality is mentioned several times.
And as usual like all struggling managers says it will “take time”.🙂
istoppedanysupportihadforhimwhenhesoldMartinez.We haven’t amd may not win anything with Leno between the sticks. We all know that we need to shift some players in order to compete but i judge every decisions hes made so far. We are five players short of being world beaters but we have a squad capable of at least fifth position a
Ful of words but explaining nothing. Still no concrete answer; the only thing I got was implying buy big players.
He sent young players on loan for other managers to develop when he should be during that himself.
In this financial environment he should be focused on developing our youth, not compiling his wish list for Edu and Kronke.
Must be nice not having any goals set to determine your success or failure. Then you can claim patience and long term project so you shield yourself from failing to meet expectations.
If we are not top 8 in December of next season then Arteta should be sacked.
It’s his job to rise to the Arsenal standard, not lower the club to his.