Hello All!
I’ve been feeling like writing this for a long time because I did lose a little sleep over it. I have seen the way many on this site defend our manager and I get really baffled.
Make no mistake, Arteta has done a good job so far. The team is more united than before and has greater prospects of winning silverware.
No matter how good a manager is, he is not above mistakes. What surprises me most is the way many have vehemently backed obvious mistakes, insisting on convincing everyone that such mistakes have some divine logic behind them which only the manager knows. This is why you begin to hear statements like “Arteta knows best”, “armchair manager”, etc.
It was on this site that someone said that our struggles to win earlier this season was deliberate as the club wanted to start slowly and create a grass to grace story (I’m paraphrasing). Imagine that. This statement was made to justify our first draw this season. Some people vengefully came to Arteta’s defense and were a stonethrow away from using laws of thermodynamics and quantum physics to explain why Thomas Partey’s best position in our team was at right back just to justify the manager. If I should continue citing such examples, this article would not have an end.
It doesn’t take rocket science to see that Kai Havertz (like we all expected) hasn’t been up to it. But after his first goal for us against Bournemouth, in a match where he barely did anything else, we had an article dated 30.09.2023 and another dated 03.10.2023 telling us how he was a good signing by Arteta…all because of a penalty goal. Why did the writers feel one game was enough to justify Arteta signing him when he’s been trash for 3 years in England?
We’ve just dismantled a terrible, bottom of the table and injury hit Sheffield United 5-0 at our ground, a team Newcastle beat 8-0 at their own ground and as at the time of writing this, we’ve already had 2 articles justifying the manager’s questionable decisions – one telling us why Arteta has been justified in choosing Raya over Ramsdale and outlining Raya’s stats against them. Hell even my grandmother would get those stats against that Sheffield team. Another article dated 30.10.2023 is out telling us why we should always trust the manager’s judgement like he cannot make a mistake.
We also had another (while quoting Arteta), telling us why we should all trust his judgement of Nketiah (yes, same Nketiah you know). And how many noticed the very few comments on this site following that game? That tells me that many were either not interested in that match nor were not surprised by the result due to the quality of opposition.
The most painful part is when one is accused of not being a true fan because he opposed a decision the manager made and some even go as far as telling you to stop coming to a site like this if you’re not ready to support “OUR MANAGER” no matter what.
Arteta, while doing many things right has also made mistakes. In some issues like the Saliba saga where the manager himself admitted he made mistakes, some still continued to defend his actions giving reasons why it wasn’t a mistake. Wow. I wish I had such faith shown in me.
This article is meant to ask why many so dedicatedly support every decision the manager makes even when some are obviously wrong and not working. I would really love to know why
dgr8xt
Because, right or wrong, he’s in charge, and we’re not!
👍Jax
But does that mean we follow blindly then Jax?
Or, as supporters of The Arsenal and not ANY individual, do we have a right to voice our opinions, just as this excellent article has done?
Have an opinion Ken, but at the end of the day, it makes no difference. Arteta’s the boss and lives by his results, which TBH are pretty good.
Does the manager read these articles and our comments? If he doesn’t, it means no matter how true or false the sentiment carried here is, it will scratch no surface except our own sensibilities.
It therefore could be that the over defensive folks are raising the threshold for brewing disaffection for the manager. It may be too early to bring back the days of toxic vibes.
A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.
“Only a woman ” Jax?!?!?!
Where would we be without them… and visa versa?🚻
Not me Ken! I’m as confused as you.
What on EARTH does this cryptic and unfathomable comment mean? Anyone know? No, me neither!
I realise Gunsmoke uses his own unique language, with such gems as “dip your bread” used regularly, whatever that means.
But even for him this is a new level of mysteriousness in his comments!
I thought this was an Arsenal supporters site and now I am reading the owner of this site being unprofessional. I rarely stay on one site but i liked this one up to now. Won’t be coming here again yet I wish you good luck.
Umm how am I being unprofessional? Because I posted another Arsenal fan’s opinion that you don’t agree with?
Please be more specific, I am genuinely interested….
Sure i can respond. Are you a reporter of your own site or is this a Q & A site to only your feelings? I thought this site was talking about Arsenal and not to ease your confusion on why people have opinions. If they support Arteta through thick and thin then this is good, they should. You are very critical of him already even though we haven’t lost yet. The reason why Arteta experimented so early on in the season is because it is better to do things early than late. Does it work, does it not work etc… Now he sticks to the normal process. He is still a new manager who never managed before and has that right to do so. My worry of your criticism is, if things ever do get bad for us, you will be the first to create a website ArtetaOUT.com. I don’t like that, so therefore for that reason, i want no part on those attitudes. Create stories about Arsenal and not just your confusions to get answers for yourself.
Thankyou for responding but you need a few things clarifying. Yes I am the owner of this site, but if you look at the bottom of every post you will discover the writers name, in this case it is a regular reader called dgr8xt.
We are a news and opinion site and we publish opinions from a wide range of Arsenal fans and profesional pundits from London and all over the world. In my eyes EVERYONE’s opinion is valid, whether I (or you in fact) agree with them or not, as long as they are honest Arsenal fans.
If you think that this ONE article sets out my philosophy you are COMPLETELY wrong, and IF you were a regular reader you would know we listen to and discuss opinions from all sides of the spectrum. I am not going to refuse ANY opinion just because I disagree with it, because that is called CENSORSHIP, which I do not believe in.
Would you prefer a website that only give opinions that you agree with? How boring would that be?
That’s enough. You are twisting my words. You know this but trying to hide to make yourself big. I am done, good riddance for amateurism. Now once again, good luck.
Arrogance personified, don’t let the door smack you on the way out 😂
There is an Arsenal site where it’s sacrilege to criticise Arsenal, and if you step out of line they ban you. It only has about five commenters (acolytes), so you should fit in quite comfortably. I won’t give them the oxygen of publicity, but a resourceful person such as yourself should have no problem locating it.
Totally agree with your stance Admin Pat. When Mikel Arteta wins trophies every season he has been manager at Arsenal, he will be beyond reproach; he has been serving for almost 4 years so far, so how long will it be before he can be criticised?
Thank goodness he’s gone!!
Now, let’s get back to debating and challenging others views.
Just a quick question Pat – how long has Just Arsenal been going?
hmm 10 or 11 years i guess
Long may it continue and what a diverse range of Gooners you have attracted over the years.
The amazing thing is, at the end of the day, we all want MA, therefore The Arsenal, to succeed, yet we argue and debate like there is no tomorrow 😂😂😂
On the wayback machine the earliest capture they have is on July 16 2009 (Walcott- I want to Score More Goals) which makes it 14 years.
Or did you mean 20 or 21 years?
Actually it could be 14 ish. I’ve been saying it’s ten for years lol
We can criticize him, because each fan has his or her own opinion and so does Arteta
The difference is he made the decisions based on the details in his daily job and his livelihood depends on those decisions, whereas we can say anything we want without any risk
Remember when he benched Martinelli for a long time and played him on the left wing, while many fans were begging him to assign Martinelli in the CF position?
Or when he signed Odegaard permanently, despite Odegaard’s unspectacular performance in his loan period
Similar cases could happen to Raya and Havertz
Media expression is not always a true relection or opinion of how one feels about a manager. That been said, a manager is more aware of his players than any fan. He sees how they perform and their attitude to work on training ground. Fans support a manager when he has result to prove his competency and when we perceive he has the interest of the club at heart even though he makes mistakes every coach do. Arteta for instance in my opinion likes Arsenal.
Toxic and excruciatingly negative was the major reason of the downturn of our fortunes as a club
The Nerve?
Arteta earns upward of £8m to make decisions which he, and only him, will live or die for and you dare to question his decisions?
He makes mistakes of course like all humans do. And he alone faces the consequences of those decisions.
Asking us to withdraw support because he is liable to make mistakes is ridiculous.
I guess you need some controversy to generate clicks but the arrogance is unbelievable.
Where did the writer ask to withdraw support?
Personally, i dont like many of Artetas decisions, they baffle me. I think obviously we should be able to debate them, its what good posters do. Not everyone has the same level of reason and thats life. To blindly defend him, is also not a problem because again, people have different levels of reason. I do think it is wrong not to point out mistakes and i do think it is wrong to not reason. At the moment we are Generally getting results, as i myself have put, not necessarily because of but in spite of but we are getting results. So there can or should be an acceptance that we are doing really well and Arteta should be praised for the positions we are in. But we would be silly and blind not to point out or debate the mistakes or faults. Why should we bottle them up?
👍👍
I completely agree with the article. Constructive criticism leading to good results on the pitch shouldnt be seen as anti Arteta. Every real gunner wants Arsenal to perform well in all matches and if they see Arsenal suffer due to wrong decisions on the part of the manager, they have the right to criticise. It is said, to err is human, so Arteta can definitely make errors and if a genuine fan criticises him for that and trying to correct him, it should be taken in the right spirit. For one, I never really understood why he prefers Raya over Ramsdale. Over the entirity of the last season, Ramsdale has given us so many wonderful performances, saving arsenal in several matches and yet Raya is preferred. I would really love to see Ramsdale back starting from today’s game against WestHam, he really deserves it.
👍👍
I remember on this site when tensions between “AKB” and “WOB” fans drove debate.
It is fair play to question decisions, even criticize when we see the results. Insulting is another matter, and has no place in a honest and civil debate.
We are all Arsenal fans, and too suggest that there is only one way to support the club is arrogant and nonsense.
👍
👍👍Durand.
👍👍👍
Trust in the process
I’ll focus on your title. Should fans blindly support Arteta? The answer is no. It’s the second part of your title I find problematic – even when he is obviously wrong. You go ahead and cite Raya as wrong decision for example. It’s quite subjective on right and wrong. Who gets to decide what is the right or wrong decision? The coach? The fans? Pundits? If I remember correctly, many fans considered it the wrong decision to sign Ramsdale saying the club should have done better than a GK who had been relegated twice. How did that turn out? He became a favourite and now many are claiming he is being persecuted.Ultimately, there’s no objective way of determining wrong from right decisions. Perharps only results can determine that. If a coach is getting results,then the assumption would be that they must be doing something right.Arteta could be wrong,but as fans,we should also entertain the idea that we could be wrong; particularly as we base our opinions on way lesser information and expertise.
Finally, there’s nothing wrong with criticism but I think criticism should be proportional to performance. Sometimes I feel like the flak he gets is way over the top. Interestingly,there are people who criticize him when things go wrong but would never give him credit when things go well. For a manager that has got his team within two points of the top,you’d think Arsenal is in the bottom half based on some of the criticism he gets. In a nutshell, to answer your question, some of us are compelled to defend Arteta because we feel some of the criticism he gets is unfair, over the top and based more on sentiment than fact. I don’t like to mention names but there’s someone like Ken1945 who usually offers fair criticism where he thinks Arteta can do better based on his assessment and gives credit where it’s due. Then there’s people who are perpetually complaining about this or that ; insisting they are right and everyone else is wrong.
Well said
I can only think of one occasional poster who never finds any fault with Arteta but other than that there are a fair few like me who gave him plenty of rope in the earlier years because he was new to management AND because he brought about a sea change in the way the dressing room was run. Gone were the big egos and in came what appears to be a more harmonious set in the club. It has reaped dividends
At present I’m trusting his judgement on Havertz and Raya but did find the Partey experiment baffling. I agree that MA struggles to truly trust his second string players even after so many have been shipped out. He is on a learning curve still, and will make further errors, but while we are in a strong position currently in the Carabao Cup, the league and CL too, I don’t get the sniping that occurs after a less than stellar display It’s fine to voice an opinion but to dissect every single action by the manager seems nitpicking at times.
We are all entitled to an opinion, just look at the places where you cannot express them.
The article raises some issues. Everyone can have an opinion about decisions that the manager makes and they can be debated. Categorical statements such as “obviously wrong”, “obvious mistakes” etc. are however problematic and some fans quite rightly take exception to such perspectives.
For example, the Raya vs Ramsdale situation may be debatable. However, I have seen some completely unbalanced comments particularly from those who favour Ramsdale. There are sound analyses that suggest that in certain aspects Raya is a better GK. However, according to some fans on JA his decision to pick Raya is “baffling” and wrong.
Nketiah is not the greatest striker in the world but he is currently a good back up and puts in a shift. Getting an upgrade would be quite complicated and the challenges of doing this are generally ignored when this issue comes up for discussion.
The criticisms are often unsound, unbalanced and generally lack any consideration of context. Just like the article.
David, if one sees the selection of Raya as “baffling” why would they not say that?
That’s not criticising MA, it’s just their point of view and how they want to express it.
Just as you say that you believe the criticisms are often unsound, unbalanced and generally lack any consideration of context… that’s your point of view regarding this article – I believe the complete opposite.
Funny old world!!
I wholly agree with this article; Arteta commits some of the most ridiculous mistakes ever. In a nutshell, why does he keep playing some of our strongest performers out of position just so he can fit in his preferred, poor performers like Havertz and Jorghino who basically kill the flow and overall performance of the team? Why fgs does he think it wise to play Partey as a QB? In all the 15 or so games including preseason friendlies, when did he see Havertz elevate or assist Arsenal’s performance? What does Jorghino do better than Partey? What does Harvertz do better than ESR? Why is he not rotating Raya and Ramsdale? Why’s Viera not starting matches? Why aren’t we seeing promotions from the academy that’s buzzing with so much talent? I sometimes sense bias and malice in his relationships with players.
We are fans who love our club and wanted anything that can give joy and celebration every season to happen to the club and its fan base. Circumstantially, we’re entitle to make our opinions whether reality and or acceptable to the only man in the kitchen with available quantity of ingredients to prepare sweet meal for his large guests. He will definitely not receive smile from every guest even when there is no left over. I think he is making mistakes but not obvious because he is continuously wining games as now despite perceived mistakes.
Criticism is welcome but constructive and progressive though hence, we’ll not match on the path of some club’s ex-players cum pundits who have successfully ruined their club to colossal damage with believe they love and support their clubs more than the club itself.
Arteta is on the right path to bring our club to where it belongs in distance foreseeable therefore, a little pat at back when does good and whisper where better can be done will do us a lot good.
Alright dawg, you can have that. You win, lol.
As a realist I can see both sides of thre question as I do believ deloyatly to and faith in th decisons our our manager is important if one calls onself atrue fan.
However I also believe any fan has an individuals right to give his/her own opinion.
But more than BOTH those beliefs I also recognise that any fan site simply gives us all a chance to let off steam about this, that or whatever we wish to criticise/ discuss.
But it ALTERS NOTHING, as no manager worth his salt will ever base his decisions on what fans think. Apart from which, fans have as many different opinions between us as all other teams fans also do.
FAN SITES FULFILL A ROLE FOR FANS, BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT THEY MAKE NOT A BLIND BIT OF DIFFERENCE AS TO WHAT HAPPENS.
REALITY!