Arteta makes ‘Unprecedented’ Comment! By Dan Smith
Over the year there has been a debate about Mikel Arteta which often divides our fan base. There’s those who got carried away in the summer predicting a title challenge and claiming he was better than Pep Guardiola. Alternatively there were Gooners who wanted Arteta sacked before Christmas (and still do).
My own stance was I always have wanted the Spaniard to succeed but can’t put my finger on why.
I haven’t enjoyed our style of football and refuse to offer any excuses for our season. If the previous regime never finished 8th how can I blame them now? Plus very few new managers walk into a job where everything is perfect. If there were no issues to fix there wouldn’t be a reason for a managerial change.
Yet I find myself having more patience with our current boss then I ever did Unai Emery.
It’s not like I’m scared to point out mistakes when I see them. For example I was critical, not that he dropped Ozil, but his failure to bring in anyone more creative.
Yet I never wanted him gone which on the surface is strange.
Our worst League finish in 25 years, our worst start in longer and 10th at the beginning of March and the most boring style of play in my lifetime. So why haven’t I given up on the Spaniard?
This week he reminded me why when he spoke openly and honestly about our transfer policy.
It’s the same reason he won me over when he had his first ever press conference. After years of getting used to our best players wanting to leave, the likes of AFTV calling the remaining of the squad the C word, it was nice to hear someone speak so proudly about the badge.
Call me naïve, but the whole ‘When Arsenal knock, it’s a different knock ….’ I believed were genuine and can imagine that’s infectious to be around.
When we beat City and Liverpool last season, Arteta was quick to remind anyone getting carried away just how big that gap is.
Patrick Vieira once said that Jose Mourinho taught him that the opposition can be better than you but that doesn’t mean they will win. You simply have to find another way to beat them. Maybe you train harder, work more on set pieces. Etc.
I believe we have a young coach who believes that he can make talent better, and if they share his ethos and work ethic, he can teach them to how to improve. Yes, he’s a rookie but he has self-belief and ambition. My long term worry his is employers won’t match that ambition.
At his Burnley pre match press conference he reminded me of why I have kept the faith even though I can’t argue the results haven’t been good enough.
Previewing the next transfer window Arteta told Arsenal.com: “We will see. We are planning what’s going to happen in the summer. It will depend on where we finish, how we finish. I think what we had to in December is unprecedented for a club of this stature. To do the amount of transactions that we had to make it tells you as well where we are.”
That’s music to my ears because in life you should be the best version of yourself and here was our manager publicly admitting our position isn’t good enough.
To find any solution you have to admit there’s a problem and I needed to be reassured that we as a club were not settling, that they recognise this season is unacceptable and a plan is in motion to fix it.
Of course during a pandemic, us being in Europe or not will affect budgets, but I still expect Edu to have a list of targets ready. That’s his job.
Arteta could easily have hidden behind our youngsters, made the excuses about VAR, gone on about conspiracy theories, blamed the previous regime or claimed we are only …. points behind whoever.
That’s what some gooners have done this season. They tried to justify 10th in March and almost accepted it. You can say it’s not good enough without being against the manager.
Don’t get me wrong we have been promised funding before (usually before a kit launch) but this feels different.
Arteta is smart enough to not say this if it wasn’t true, because he would be in effect going above the owners head and giving supporters false hope. Unless he’s calling Me Kroenke’s bluff?
Either way the current manager of Arsenal isn’t accepting our current position. It could just be a very smart man telling me what I want to hear by offering some romantic sound bites.
We will find out this summer if this really is an ‘unprecedented’ time or the same as uaual
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Dan