My fellow thinking Gooners, having long considered the mountain of posts about Arteta (MA) ranging from strong support to highly critical and not having him at all, I have long wanted to add my own thoughts on what any top level Arsenal manager in our modern 21st century era needs, in order to be successful.
Firstly, modern managers need far different people skills and personal qualities than the old school types such as Clough, Revie, even Fergie, whose old school style of managership was fast losing its appeal to modern era players, and Fergie got out of that job IMO in the nick of time to avoid tarnishing his legendary reputation.
Another Fergie or Clough would not have a hope in hell of success in today’s totally different society, which of course includes footballers.
Our very own legendary Arsene Wenger was IMO, definitely the first Prem club manager who was way ahead of the curve when he arrived; his new methods and way of treating players as human beings was at first not understood, then teased by old school players such as Ray Parlour, likeable but never the brain of Britain as a man.
A drinking buddy of Adams who did little to try to dissuade Adams from the alcoholic fate that befell him, although which ultimately became the seed that made the admirable Adams into the mature modern man he is today.
AW was legendary not ONLY for his glorious first decade but for his new way of managing the existing old school type British players. By brilliantly mixing modern-thinking athletes such as Bergkamp, already here, but simply sublime for a decade after AW and the likes of Henry, Pires, Vieira and many others from foreign climes who regarded the British drinking mentality as quaint, unthinking and harmful to any true would-be athlete.
Wenger’s great skill was in using the new players to persuade the old school (mainly British ones), of the foolishness of such as the Tuesday drinking club.
In October 1996, Arsenal Football Club stepped way into the future and for a while, were pretty well there alone among Prem clubs, thanks to AW and his extraordinary man management.
Significantly AW was just turning 47 when he took over. He was in managerial terms still young, though not young in football experience, nor as a manager, unknown though he was when he came to us!
Naturally, we were not alone in that future for long. Other top managers came, almost entirely from abroad and changed forever the face of English footballers and how they behaved away from the pitch.
Players who drink heavily are now rare and are doomed to an early finish to their career in this age of supremely fit athletes.
Sports science boomed and exploded into clubs, and now all clubs have dieticians and all sorts of people who monitor how players live, sleep, feed, train and rest. The standard today is light years ahead of even the mid 1990’s.
Today’s top manager MUST be fully aware of the physical importance of sleep, proper rest and time to get fully over injuries No more injections into ankles to get through a game, though that does still go on but not, except in exceptional circumstances with GREAT MANAGERS, who know better.
He MUST have the interpersonal skills to make all his coachs, physios, masseurs and sports scientists feel an integral part of the whole club, as well as ALL his players, even the lesser ones.
An ‘all for one, one for all’ club dressing room spirit is beyond vital, and managing players widely varying individual needs, mental as well as physical, including personal and home life problems, is a key part of a manager’s job.
Obviously, he MUST be a supreme tactical coach and be able to instill confidence in all individuals, while carefully keeping those who are benched or don’t even make the bench a key part of the whole family feel. He must also be himself physically fit, old enough to manage but still young enough, ideally to take part in training drills.
He must have an enormous work aptitude, exude total confidence and belief in his own players and he must be a great judge of talent, knowing who to buy, who to let go, who is best in each match while still keeping a mostly settled team with not too many unforced changes.
He needs to be honest with his players but guarded, though approachably pleasant to the media and not make foolish public statements that can come back and trip him up later.
Above all he needs to win silverware, to keep the fans happy, and have an excellent personal rapport with the club’s owner and his own director of football.
My friends, I have deliberately refrained from giving my opinion on whether our own MA has all or any of those qualities. I very much hope you will tell us all what you think about that and about anything else about our club, and what would constitute the perfect Arsenal manager.
COYG
Jon Fox
It would be a ruthless manager with great tactics up his sleeve and the ability to use minimum resources
Guardiola and Arteta are ruthless tacticians who never hesitate to replace their senior players, but they have never managed small teams
De Zerbi and Postecoglou seem to meet the criteria. But I’d like to see how they handle the pressure at the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Muenchen, where major trophies are the minimum requirements in every season
@Gai, For me no team would ever get a “perfect manager” that is the flawless one. Only good manager exist. So I for Arsenal I chose Arteta. Like the saying goes “You probably dont value what you have untill you lose it”
Agreed. For me, Arteta’s tactics for Arsenal are way more entertaining than his predecessors’, because they are unorthodox and vary
To me, a great manager is one who finds ways to win titles – doesn’t matter to me if that’s with “exciting” football or a less exciting, more pragmatic approach, so long as it’s generally fair (not encouraging diving or kicking lumps out of people). Ideally, I suppose, it should be part of a consistent identity, set by the manager, but as long as it works, and it’s fair, I’m happy.
I don’t find the more stylistic aspects (approach to training or the media) to be overly important, so long as whatever style they take on brings them success – so I guess I don’t have an image for a perfect arsenal manager.
The perfect manager for us is Mikel.Period
Perfect manager depends very much on what resources he working with.
I will get behind any manager who despite limited resources manage to be competitive.
When talent is less and money is the solution to every problem I expect nothing less than trophies. The big one PL or failing that, the lesser CL.
Arteta is an average manager and that is being generous. Which manager in the world has spent 700M, allowed to wash his hands on 336M, is one of the highest paid in the world and still manage to be kicked out of Carabao Cup in the first round?
When we look back at checkbook managers for example Mourinho and Guardiola, they all delivered in the short period with less than what Arteta has cost Arsenal (its very important to always add money spent and money lost together which is 1 billion because it was all to aid him to win trophies).
Arsene Wenger sacrificed personal glory to put the club healthy financially for many years in the future. Arteta is doing the exact opposite.
If Arteta is a failure, Arsenal is going to fall into harder times I am afraid, more than during Wenger and Emery hardships.
When Arsenal is worth just over 2 billion and Arteta project has already cost 1 billion woth significant to show for it, I am afraid for the future.
*1 billion with nothing significant*
😲🫣
@HH
RealTalk 👏🏾
Agreed. A great coach either spends a lot of money to achieve instant success or focuses on developing what he has and be granted the time for a multi-year project. Arteta is neither atm.
@HH
My goodness, you sound so bitter. From reading all your personal grievances that Arteta seems to have caused you, one might be led to believe that Arteta came in and destroyed the amazing Arsenal that was flying high before he was appointed. Your prediction of Arsenal getting into financial difficulties in the future due to cruel Arteta’s spending etc. I will ask as a question. What makes you fear for the future when it comes to Arsenal FC’s financial outlook when the Kroenke’s and their own financial advisers / accountants seem to be predicting a brighter future for the club?
And I am yet to hear from any outside / objective financial guru that has the same predictions as you. The Kroenke’s seem to be comfortable spending. They won’t even listen to any potential Arsenal buyers, that tells me they don’t sense this Doom and Gloom that you seem to sense. If Arsenal are in such bad financial shape for the future due to Arteta’s over the top spending then the club would show give us little clues here there, or they would say so. Wouldn’t they?
I will trust the Kroenkes and their well paid financial advisers on this. They wouldn’t own / run all these $multi Billion sports companies if they were financially naive / gullible. They’ve been in this $multi billion business game for far too long. Have they even ever bankrupted any of their own businesses or Sports franchises?
The same Kroenkes who:
1. Refused to support Wenger financially, let him sell his best players season after season at the expense of winning for their profits.
2. Fired one of the most intelligent and tactical managers of this generation instead of supporting him with players discipline and choice.
3. Hired a complete novice who made mistake after mistake and sanctioned a loss of 336M and 700M in spending, THINGS THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE WITH ARSENE OR EMERY!
How our players and managers management is done doesn’t speak intelligence to me. The well paid advisers are duping the Kroenkes or they own the club for reasons more than winning and profit.
And being a well paid advisor doesn’t mean someone is good at their job. Nokia and Blackebrry had well paid advisors too but their expensive advices flushed those giant of companies down the loo.
HH
I’ve never known someone to be as delusional, and just an outright liar as you.
Arteta is a cheque book manager apparently! Absolutely zero context in that.
Did Arteta inherit a great squad…No!
Were Arsenal anywhere near the levels of Liverpool and City when he took over…No!
Have other managers at top clubs spent money since Arteta started money…Yes!
Is it normal to spend money at a top club…Yes!
Has Arteta created more wealth from his coaching in regards to squad value…Yes!
Has Arteta left the club in a great position for the next manager…Yes!
Has Arsenal improved since Arteta took over…a massive yes!
@Pat
This man accused me here on JA of harrasing him on all his social media accounts while I know zero about him nor do I care to plus I dont have any social medias to harass him with. No action was taken for such vile, evil and nasty accusation.
@Pat
This man has a tendency of calling me a liar whenever he reply to my posts. What gives him the right?
@Jen
I consider myself very fortunate to not have to deal with you in person on a daily basis. My sincere condolences and a minute of silence for those who do!
Nice article, Jon.
In my opinion Arsene Wenger was and still is the perfect Arsenal Manager. Much of today’s game is build upon the style of play and off-field demands he imposed during his tenure. Arsene’s greatest limitation was hit inflexibility; his absolute resolution against deviating from his preferred style of play. It is this which ultimately cost him and the club in those head-to-heads against Fergie and Mourinho.
Both Fergie and Jose adapted to the requirements in the moment far greater than dear old Arsene did. I’m not saying AW was wrong but fundamentally, whilst his principles brought the club great success, it was this steadfastness against an alternative way of playing that hamstrung us on occasions against our rivals.
Sadly, this inflexibility seems to be a failing of our incumbent manager. Whilst I am no great fan of Arteta it wouldn’t take much to change my mind, for he has reinstated the pride we felt in the club during the glory days under AW. Arteta need only iron out a few of those imperfections, which he may do over time, to become the next legendary title-winning manager.
So, in short, as reluctant as I am to admit it, I think Arteta is the perfect man for the job right now. He has played under Wenger and coached under Pep, and it is hard to imagine a better apprenticeship than that. If he can improve his in-game management, be a little more flexible in our approach, and perhaps manage his playing staff a little more fairly, he could well go on to emulate and possible even improve upon the titles won under AW.
It really hurt to write that last paragraph.
Wenger’s one major flaw was that he wasn’t ruthless enough, and maybe that’s one of the reasons he always failed in Europe. Otherwise, he was very close to perfect in that first decade.
Perhaps he wasn’t ruthless enough but you know what he built a team that went 49 games unbeaten. That is unlikely to ever happen again and the team he built with players no one had heard of or has-beens from a bygone era where daytime drinking was the norm reimagined into regular starters that could achieve such greatness.
And yes, Arsenal sacrificed his legacy for the sake of club stability and got hated on for it and more shame us for doing so. He helped make the Premier League what it is today. And he made football beautiful.
I used to watch J Klopp’s passion from the sidelines and would wish we had a top manager who showed passion and I think we almost have that with Arteta just need some silverware
Jon
Great article and topic, I enjoyed reading your work.
I don’t think there is a “one size fits all” model for managers, I think it depends more on the needs of the club. I shall refrain from going down that rabbit hole, as it would become an article in itself, and likely divest into opinion as I know little specifics regarding individual clubs.
As for your general question, I shall keep to generalities that I think the modern game requires managers to exhibit.
1. Leadership, they must lead and set the example, a ruthless hard hand if necessary. One cannot be their friend nor even a father figure, they need to be a boss setting expectations for both behavior and performance.
2. Technology savvy. I mean analytics, data, and all that this technological age requires. Eye test is great, but a manager needs to be proficient to apply all the tools at their disposal.
3. Tactically astute. Gone are the days of 1 dimensional players and strategies, versatility has redefined today’s game.
4. Adaptable and able to evolve. Risk averse is a bad trait, and managers have to be open minded to changing their styles and setups to keep up with today’s game.
5. Self-reflective and critical of themselves. Managers have to admit their failings, change what is not working. One cannot stubbornly continue repeating themselves and expecting different results.
There are other characteristics, but I think these are the main traits that would apply across all clubs, regardless of additional specific needs. This os only my opinion of course.
Durand I have a theutmostrspect fot you as a a person Your thankfully detailed post full of sensible comments gladdened my heart.
There are a few other really worthwhile posts on this thread too,from those who have clearly thought about what I asked all Gooners to do, meaning to think and write sensible well thought through comments.
And yours was IMO the very best, so I thank you most gratefully good sir!
Thank you Jon.
I have actually considered that very topic since the struggles we saw Wenger face in his final years. When it became clear his time was up, I thought what traits should our new manager exhibit.
Much of my list embodied those very traits, as change was needed across the spectrum, in my opinion.
Thank you for your kind reply, I read on a previous post where you said you were writing this article and wondered my thoughts on the matter.
I wanted to post a meaningful comment, reasoned and thought out; or post nothing at all. No sense posting a shallow, fruitless comment when the article clearly asks for a well thought out response.
There is no perfect manager. Each manager is different and has their own personality. Arsenal as a club has gone through countless managers since the late 1800’s when it was founded. Every manager brings something different.
I think after the great wenger and disappointing Emery tenures, an Arteta type of manager was what we needed. The previous managers were too soft towards the player’s poor attitudes that had festered at the club. A authoritarian, no nonsense, no player indulgence, no coddling attitude that Arteta came with was what we needed. Arteta’s ruthlessness is very appealing to me in general. And also his ability to identify what areas need to be improved and going out there and improving them if possible. He has his flaws like any other manager but Right now he is perfect for Arsenal. Things can change tomorrow but what he has done since being appointed as manager has been very satisfying to me. Came in when we were a banter club with banter players that did not give a flip. Quickly or gradually got rid of them and now we are getting back to being taken seriously as a club.
In 1996-2015 we needed Arsene. But 2019 to today we needed a different personality / manager, and that’s Arteta.
That will do for me at this moment. Lets see how he gets on at the end of the season.
Wise words sir.
I am most grateful for your clear thoughts also well and clearly explained!
Engrossing topic and great response from Durand.
Wenger did revolutionise football in England and it’s pretty much the blueprint for today in terms of over all management. Evolution has taken place and today’s managers have to be highly adaptable.
HH is right in respect of managers reflecting the ownership model and how this plays out with various clubs – as in managing on a shoestring or having access to untold resources. Neither type is better than the other per se but the likes of Pep have shown incredible ability to stay one step ahead. Money helps, of course and his squad has been cleverly assembled. The departures leave for good money and new ones arrive with talent in abundance, in the knowledge that success is all but guaranteed at ManC under Guardiola. He had at Barcelona an embarrassment of riches on the field too which strengthened his position.
Klopp is a great example as a motivator, having enormous talent but less finance to work with and this is shown by his lack of silverware in comparison.
Jose is the proverbial short term fix type of manager but I would loathe to have him or a similar manager with his character at Arsenal as he came across as a bully, misogynist with narcissistic tendencies as well. Not my cup of tea as you can tell.
I’m refraining from really getting on the subject of Arteta as I fear this will just end up in a written slanging match between the factions and I guess that wasn’t the intention of JF’s article. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of his management style so far, what has impressed me is his belief in togetherness Those lucky enough to be regulars at the Emirates can see and feel it. On my occasional visits the sense of all for one and one for all has been electric
SueP
I feel the same, that is why I did not include either Wenger or Arteta’s name in my comment. I did not want to be the source of a argument that evolved from my post.
Jon, my criticisms of your otherwise thoughtful article is your apparent acceptance that great managers with proven track records, you specifically mention in Clough and Ferguson, could not adjust to the demands of management in the EPL. I am also disappointed that George Graham did not warrant discussion of Arsenal managers, given his win record, development of youth products and excellent coaching acumen, particularly in implementing a miserly defence.
I won’t pretend to know what it takes to become a top manager other than winning trophies I could google for some examples but so can any of us