Darren Bent says winning the FA Cup only helped to paper over the cracks at Arsenal and Mikel Arteta could be sacked if his team crashes out of the Europa League and cannot finish this season in a European place.
The Gunners started the season as FA Cup and Community Shield winners and there was a lot of hope that this would be the campaign that they finally return to the top four.
But it has been a poor one with Arteta’s side now struggling to finish inside the European places and on the verge of a Europa League exit.
They will visit Slavia Prague for the second leg of their quarterfinal Europa League game this Thursday.
Prague scored a late leveller to earn an away goal at the Emirates last week and Arsenal has it all to do now.
If they crash out of the competition, they could face a season without European football and Bent says it could be the end of the road for Arteta.
“The early signs were really good in terms of look how quickly he picked up a trophy. Yes, this season has been really inconsistent but I don’t want Arsenal to turn into a club where they keep sacking managers – at some stage you’ve got to give someone a little bit of time,” he said on TalkSPORT.
“The FA Cup papers over a lot of cracks and if Arsenal go out of the Europa League and finish tenth or eleventh, I think he could be out of a job.
“I would like to see him stay and turn it around because I’m not big on sacking managers. Arsenal are not Chelsea.
“Chelsea have been very successful doing it that way but I don’t think that will work for Arsenal.”
Darren Bent? Talksport? Who cares!
Bent should write the sack letter himself because he’ll be waiting long if he’s waiting for the board to do it
If we lose next match then he should be
The situation at Arsenal is tricky. If you were stupid enough to employ a rookie lifeguard to man a busy beach, you cannot blame him too much if people drowned. When Arteta was employed I was very skeptical. He represented for me a massive step down from the quality of Wenger. But he had 2 advantages that affected our emotions (not cognition). I. He is family. 2. Wenger is gone so we had to simply get over it and stop the stupid moaning.
But all of this does not change the fact that MA is really inexperience. We are his training ground. It is an investment that is going to be painful for a while. His 2 biggest weaknesses are throwing his team under the bus like ‘Specialist of failing after 2 seasons’, and his team selection is unstable. If he gets these 2 things right he could survive. The first is where I am most upset with him. I lead a team of 30+ researchers across several countries and you dare not tell me one of them is stink. I will always defend them. When no one is looking I tell them ‘Go brush your teeth’. I have seen him openly refuse to protect 5 players now. This is immature. He needs to grow up fast. This is an adult task. There is a thin line between being too defensive or too aggressive and getting it just right. MA always seems to err on the side of caution. I rather get beaten by trying that get beaten before I start. That is a personality issue.
But I see this as a bad relationship. The second reason people stay in bad relationships is the fear that the next person could be just as Bad. This is the only reason why I would keep him – coupled with the fact that he seems like he will listen and learn.
But right now I am in pain. The first goal scored on Sunday will keep me dreaming for a while.
Bless
Ah Darren Bent, just your average rent-a-quote nobody off of TalkRubbish.
The question is, why does ‘admin’ think this is worthy of a post?
Why do you think it worthy of a comment?