Arteta ‘Doesn’t Know’ If We Have Money To Spend by Dan Smith
When Arteta was hired I called him a cheap option. Like Emery, someone so grateful to get such a high-profile job he was willing to tolerate working with owners with zero ambition. That’s why Allegri wouldn’t be interested in the post. He would want a realistic chance of eventually challenging for the title, something you would realise in 5 seconds talking to the Kroenke family is not possible. Luis Enrique has admitted that was his thought process.
I maintain the criteria of appointing a manager shouldn’t be based on who accepts mediocrity, which seems to be the action plan post-Wenger. So, after his Liverpool post-match interview I’m starting to have hope that at least we have a coach who is willing to challenge his owners.
We had just beaten the Champions, but our boss smartly was not going to let the result paper over any cracks or let any Gooner forget just how far we have fallen behind a team we used to often finish above.
Were his words deliberately timed?
This is a man who has been taught by Pep Guardiola who is demanding in the standards he expects at Man City. By pointing out there is only a certain amount of coaching you can do to close a 40-point gap, Stan Kroenke was being publicly put on the spot like never before.
Uni Emery was a yes man. Even Arsene Wenger was happy to take the brunt of any criticism, his employer exploiting the Frenchman’s love for the club.
Arteta is making it clear how far he wants to take the Gunners but is now asking those who pay his salary to put their money where their mouth is.
Of course, I’m not comforted hearing the Spaniard say he doesn’t know how much, or even if, any funds are available this summer. Yet it’s more clarity than we usually get.
From a selfish point of view, it’s a genius way to keep the fanbase onside. He’s saying he agrees with gooners, he shares their frustrations, he too believes the squad needs investment. If that doesn’t happen, he’s essentially pointed us into the direction of who we should be demanding answers from.
Of course, he might ‘not know’ the financial situation, based on a Pandemic that no one could have seen coming. As things stand, we don’t know how long there will be empty stadiums so it’s hard to calculate incomings and outgoings.
Yet Arteta must have asked for that heads up when he was originally interviewed? Did he say what the recruitment team wanted to hear to land the position? Has the hunger inside made him unwilling to see the side he captained in 9th position? Did he overestimate the limitations of what he was working with?
Or did he always plan to try and change Silent Stan’s mind?
A month ago, the answer to our defensive problems was to extend the contracts of those already there. I asked whether Arteta was tactically making that decision, or was it a reflection of the level of our ambition?
Don’t get me wrong I don’t have any faith we will do anything in the transfer market to ‘be excited about’.
Meanwhile Chelsea are making great signings, and you know Man United will throw money around again.
At least though I know we have a manager who cares and isn’t scared to question what is going on above him.
Dan Smith
Money is the answer he should just bring out the money So that we will be at the level of Liverpool and man city
Arteta strikes me as an intelligent, astute individual who plays the diplomatic role when appropriate but who can be blunt to get his message across.Realistically the next two seasons are likely to be difficult for Arsenal.On a positive note the end of next season will see the departure of a number of mediocre players in the shape of Mustafi, Sokratis, Luis and last, but not least, the highly overpaid Mesut Ozil.Bringing in upgrades for these guys should not be difficult, but it’s a question of blending them into a team which can once again challenge for honours.That is the difficult challenge for Arteta and his support team.I wish them all the best.
Perfect timing really,KO the biggest guy in the room and then ask for more power to KO him again when he wakes up
great post Dan,I for one am right behind Arteta,he has impressed me for a young and inexperienced manager I feel he has achieved a lot since his arrival despite what the doubters will say in reply,he needs support and good on him for demanding this,he has said what we have all been thinking and i strongly hope he gets at least a response of some sort from the silent one
Mikel Arteta should require a meeting with the Trump family…. eh, sorry, the Kroenke family and tell them straight up in their faces “either you support me or you force me to drastic action. To lead Asn’l is a dream project for me, have been ever since I start thinking of being a coach/ manager after the career as an active player. I couldn’t think of anything better/ higher. This is the Dream job. But I can’t do it without support from others, and among the supporters I need, You, Mister Samuel Kroenke, are the most important one. I must have You on my side, I must have You as an interested ally, You must be here with me on the carriage if this is gonna be a victorious trip at Via Triumphalis on the way to Rome. I can’t fight the battle alone, the opponents are far to good and powerful for that. Without You Asn’l will lose, game after game, and become something mediocre, a team in the middle section of the table, and that is something I can’t stand to watch. Even less be a part of. Support me the way only You can, with serious economic investment, so I can buy four or five players of a kind and quality that I think I need for the coming season, or it will be useless for me to even try to do the job at a level that I personally can accept as Manager for one of the biggest clubs in football. Support me or if You will not, You force me to resign. I’m sure I can find another job, not as inspiring as this, but a job where I feel satisfaction in what I do and slowly can work myself up to a new chance at the top. The inspiration of leading Asn’l Football Club is dependent on the owner, and very much so, on You, Mister Kroenke. Support my aspirations and I hopefully will pay you back in a few years from now.”
I wish Arteta was reading this. This is the exact message he needs to get across to Stan. Kroenke might not even see the post match interview but a direct face to face confrontation is what will not go past kroenke. I believe he’s first and foremost a business man before anything else and wouldn’t want his investment to waste or lose value.
Dan Smith, point of correction, Arsenal didn’t just accept mediocrity post-wenger era (I know this is a subtle jibe at emery despite giving us 22 games unbeaten and getting to europa final in his first season), The club has been accepting mediocrity for the last 10 years of wenger’s campaign and that included wenger too. Yes we made top 4 but how many epl teams were competitive in that era, funny how we’ve not won the league since 2005 when abrahamovich took over Chelsea and they’ve won 5 epl trophies since then to our zero. Wenger should have left with dein if he didn’t want to accept mediocrity, instead he kept enriching the kroenke by qualifying for top 4 to his own and the fans’ detriment. I’m glad to see Arteta speaking up which is something different than we are used to under other managers. I hope this yields results
I said mediocrity in terms of hiring managers
We don’t recruit the best , simply a cheap.option
I maintain in Wengers worse season , it was never this bad
Because the likes of wolves and Sheffield had not caught up to us by then doesn’t mean if wenger was still in charge till now, we wouldn’t be fighting relegation. We had the most dreadful away record in wenger’s worst season, managed only 1 away win.
well he did something right as he didnt finsih below 6th
also it was slightly more then the 1 away win
What MA has showed in spades is called GUTS ! I discount Emery as he could not speak English but Wenger OUGHT, and many years ago too, have challenged Scrooge Kroenke head on but he had become a company man and abandoned being a true fan years earlier.
A real fan. as we all are on here, would demand of his employer a fair playing field in which to compete with our rivals and even risk his job by so doing , IF he actually cared ENOUGH.
To my mind MA has proved he does care enough and I salute him for his brave public challenge to Scrooge. He is effectively telling all we fans that unless Scrooge repents and changes his ways- or better still sells up to somone who DOES give a damn- then we are stuffed for the long haul ahead.
Spot on Jon
Arteta he is a young and a brave coach he does not scared of taking the decision but Kronke has to give him the funds
Kstix, here we go again – whenever anyone wants to denigrate our greatest ever manager, out comes the same tired old message that there was only him and fergie in the first place and then “how many teans were competitive” in his second era?
What AW did, was to keep us competitive, while facing the same issues that Arteta is highlighting now…. the big difference being that Wenger had to deal with both the roubles and the oil money, as they first changed the face of the Premier league forever, Arteta has worked for one of those clubs, suddenly realises the gulf in our owners support, manages the coronavirus break, takes stock and expects kronkie to be the owner we all wanted him to be.
Now I admire Arteta for being so upfront about this, but he was a player at our club during the time that you dismiss as being mediocre – you know, top 4, fa cup wins CL football – so let’s see if he can produce better results than Wenger in what, I suspect, will be the same situation regarding kronkie.
I’m completely behind MA, but if the situation doesn’t change, the least we should expect is fa cup wins, top 4 and CL and that doesn’t sound like mediocrity under the same playing field AW had – if kronkie does turn up trumps, we should be looking at being champions again and winning further fa cups, let alone CL knockout stages.
What I would give for a top four position, CL run and fa cup glory once again, all achieved without the begging bowl and players wage cuts.
Ken, let me start by saying I was a great admirer of le prof and don’t dispute the fact that he was arguably our greatest manager in maybe his first 6 to 10 years. It’s only if you want to lie to yourself that you would say qualifying for top 4 was not an easy job for wenger who had a maximum of 3 teams to compete with at the time (man City, man utd and Chelsea). First and last because they pumped in money, man utd maintained a steady ship as Ferguson adapted to the modernity of football, something wenger struggled to do, although I admit Ferguson had better support from his owners than wenger did, this is where I expected wenger to have been a man of integrity and given the owners an ultimatum of spend or I leave which would have proven to us fans that he cared about our club as much as we do. But instead he covered up for the inadequacy of the owners and lost his pedigree at the same time not to talk of how he failed to adapt. There’s only so much we can blame kroenke for, but kroenke didn’t ask him to buy an attacking midfielder when what we needed was a DM. With Wenger, we were always buying players (mostly mediocre) we didn’t need. And then, the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham were still mid table teams. Our closest chance to win the league in that period was when Chelsea, man utd and man City were down, what did we do, let Leicester come and snatch it right out of our fingers. With the appointments of klopp and Poccettino, Liverpool and Tottenham started to climb up the table gradually till they displaced us because all the years we were in the top 4,we never really had any serious competition for that spot. So don’t celebrate being in the top 4 as an achievement. The same way winning the league for bayern, psg and juventus as been down the years. It gets to a point it doesn’t really feel competitive anymore. The thrill of competition is not there but when they lose that spot or are threatened to it, that’s when you know it is getting really competitive. And when the top 4 got really competitive in wenger’s last 2 years, he could not cope anymore. How did we get to the champions league final just once in the 20 year period?, how did we leave the competition 90% of the time from the round of 16?, it just showed we were never good enough under Arsene and in Europe were there’s serious competition. We got bounced off the europa. And as for the FA Cup, as impressive as winning the trophies are, it’s still about having to play one or two strong competitive teams at the very most to win it. You climb all the way to the final beating the likes of Oxford, Brentford and you get a good game against a strong side in the semis or final and win it and you take that as a very competitive competition? Even at the europa league, the moment athletic Madrid were dumped to the europa from the champions league, I prayed not to meet them. But alas they bundled us out of the semi final. You can keep living in the utopia of the wenger glory days but as much as I love the man, we were mostly mediocre in his last 10 years period.
Very good post kstix and i agree with everything you wrote, basically because it is true. Arsenals biggest problem was squad recruitment and personnel. Cash has been spent over the last 5 years, where have these people been, who say it hasn’t. Im not defending Kronk, its his team and he employs everyone but the big problem was we got stuck in the mud with poor recruitment and poor tactics, that were outdated and nieve. The club has been badly run for 10 years and the rot is set in and part of our DNA now. I dont see axway out of this, i really dont, we are too far down the road to mediocrity.
Kstix, a sound post, full of proper context. but ken will hear no wrong with Wenger, save only the last two seasons, when the whole truth is exactly as you wrote, not what Ken thinks.
Ken has lower standards to be satisfied with than most other Gooners. probably why he likes Wenger, as he shares that mans lack of real ambition for our club.
Edited – it is inappropriate to capitalise every single word, only the ones for emphasis are appropriate.
Meanwhile Jon, you continue to have difficulty in answering the simple question – how did he do it!?
If, as you say, we still have dross and mentally frail players, despite spending over £200 million since Wenger left, why are we struggling to qualify for european football and nowhere near a top four finish?
What has changed Jon, in the last three years, except the fact that we have gone backwards.
No trophies, no top four places, still buying dross players and still blaming Wenger – what a joke…. and don’t forget Jon, you recently said you would welcome Arsene Wenger back – true or false???
Edited – All capitals turned to lowercase were appropriate, I am sure this was purely accidental.
Deleted for abuse
I could pick all your points to pieces, but let’s take a couple of them.
Why do you think there was only fergie and him when he took over?
Let’s remind ourselves of the two seasons before he took over :
We finished 12th under GG and the teams that finished above us deserved to be there, even though we had the super defence that everyone says AW was lucky to inherited.
The next season under Rioch, we improved into fifth place and that was to be the lowest position for the next twenty years.
Neither GG or BR have been accused of leaving dross players behind, but AW got on with the job and produced the finest football ever seen in decades at The Arsenal.
Then came four incidents that a lesser person would just have walked away from.
1. kronkie became sole owner.
2. Kronkie and the board sacked David Dein
3. Abramovitch bought Chelsea and started buying top players, with unbelievable money.
4. City topped this by being bought out by a country’s leader and you say AW was mediocre by keeping our club in the top four, with kronkie investing absolutely no extra money into the club?
AW performed miracles during his time and got on with keeping our club at the forefront in European football – who do you suggest would have done better, with points 1 to 4 above?
Klopp? It has taken him four years and a budget larger than kronkie ever gave Wenger and do you think our fans would have waited that amount of time? Wenger was still getting top four places and fa cup trophies, while he was cutting his teeth in the premiership.
How weird that you don’t mention the two teams we beat, when winning our last fa Cup, the oil rich city and the rouble inspired Chelsea, one was the champions and the other runners up, but you class this as not competitive?
Why are you sayibg we should have won the league when we finished 2nd?
Are you saying that Wenger did a fantastic job in finishing above Chelsea, United City, Liverpool and the spuds, which, incidentally, was samdwiched between two fa cup wins – or are you saying that every club manager in the premiership was worse than Wenger and Raneiri?
Whichever way you look at it, he certainly showed he wasn’t finished, even with dross and mentally frail players, none of whom could defend.
Fast forward to Mikel Arteta and the situation he has highlighted.
Tell me, what is the difference twixt him and the man you say was mediocre in his last ten years?
Before he starts stating the obvious, unlike Wenger and what he inherited, let’s see if he can beat City and then chelsea/united in the final.
Of course I’m fully behind him, but let’s just not put him on a pedestal for saying what AW had to cope with, once kronkie took over.
He has proved he can bring the best out of players, now let’s see if he can win a trophy that, according to you, is not a very competitive competition – I sincerely hope he can.
I agree Ken
People make out when Mr Wenger came to us we were one of the top 2
In reality we hadn’t won title since 90-91 ?
Were finishing below Blackburn and Newcastle , et c
There are fans who make things up
Like the idea arsenal Wenger didn’t build his own defence
I applaud MA for having the courage to speak out. However, the notion that Kroenke has not supported the team is harsh.
The last two seasons Arsenal have spent significant amounts. Unfortunately the money was not well spent. This is the problem. Raul has been quite poor, and our scouting needs a thorough overhaul. Given our business model revolves around self-sustainability, our scouting needs to improve. Otherwise we will continue to struggle.
From another site I posted on but relevant here.
stan the maN ain’t spending any money out of his pocket for players. He has not spent a cent on any of his clubs in the nfl, nhl, and mls. NONE!
It has been cited numerous times ad nauseam. (Swiss Ramble and others)
AFC gets 100% of it’s spending through commercial operations, those right now are in an economic collapse and freefall.
stan the maN owes $billions for the ramS stadium and most likely he used AFC as collateral, and he owes the banks $700 million for the purchase of AFC. We are a team of poverty.
The only way forward is to sell players of value, and rebuild.
End of….
That leaves us with £8.75 then after selling all the ‘deadwood’ and paying up Ozil’s contract.😱
That much?!! 😂
turns out to be £2.99 after agents fees.
😂😂 nice one!!
Nickerless, would you pay Aubameyang his reported demand of £280,000 and three year deal and don’t forget the pay cut that’s bringing poor old kronkie some needed relief, as his fortune plummets!!! NOT.
Although I agree with you most of the time but unfortunately getting away with the “fox in the box” 85k a week don’t cut it anymore.
I appreciate we were sold a line moving to the Emirates but if we want the best you have to pay for the best. Unfortunately we ended up with… add name.
This club needs a proper kick up the arse and until that happens nothing will change. So if the manager agrees with the fans and says stop being led by the middle management then I’m all for it.🥰
Despite all the negativity surrounding the Club, I still believe there is hope for the future. First, there is untapped value in the Club, namely the Emirates and other commercial properties. Second, we now have in MA a young manager who knows the league and has clearly identified the considerable head winds facing the Team. Third, AFC’s considerable match-day revenue stream and enthusiastic fanbase. Clearly scouting, recruitment and our relationship with super-agents remain a cause for concern but this can be fixed. Likewise, if we are able to leverage our assets and secure low interest loans, we could find the means to prevent falling further behind our rivals. And why can’t the board effectively leverage the considerable world-wide potential of the Arsenal brand to create more value. There could indeed still be light at the end of the tunnel, but bold decisions are required at the highest level.
Well it now seems that MA is saying that kronkie has supported him right down the line and he can contact him directly whenever he wishes – so what’s the problem then?
Just ask him for the money you need Mikel, no need to make a statement that really doesn’t need to be made.
Just get on and do it – every one and his aunt knows we need some rebuilding, so pick the phone up and tell him what you want and see what he says…. it’s also being reported he’s very pleased with what your doing, so the world’s your oyster.
Let’s see the results!!!