The reason Arsenal have failed to compete at the top table for a while is straight forward. We could have the best 11 players in the world on the pitch yet we’d still struggle to emulate Liverpool or City for one very simple reason. The manager isn’t the strongest character at our club.
There’s few examples in the history of the game where the manager at a successful club isn’t the biggest and most imposing personality….Shankley, Ferguson, Clough, Dalglish, Graham, Mourinho, Pep, Klopp, Simeone….the list is endless, but they’re all huge personalities and bigger than their players. UE isn’t that.
Leaders are born and no matter how much knowledge you have about the game as a manager, if you can’t get your players to believe in you as well as themselves you’ll never win a thing.
Right now there’s so few managers that could come to Arsenal and make a difference. The moral is obviously weak, the confidence low….A leader grabs them by the scruff of the neck and makes them believe in themselves.
Arsenal’s biggest problem is finding someone who can do a better job than Emery and no doubt they’ll be studying the form of teams everywhere to source someone like that. The problem is you can’t compare someone who is performing well in Italy, or anywhere else in the world, because every league in every country is unique.
The manager Arsenal needs is someone who understands the English game, is a natural leader and would shake things up. Someone who has already shown he is able to win in the premier league and unwilling to take any nonsense from players who think they are bigger than the club.
The thing is this. We’ve gone from a team who play attractive football but win nothing to a team who don’t play attractive football and still don’t win anything.
At this stage I think we need to accept winning games and silverware is ultimately the point of the game. There’s nothing more infuriating than watching Arsenal play poor on a Monday night in Sheffield and lose to a club that also played with no real flair but for all 3 points.
Would I prefer to finish higher than Spurs, Chelsea, City and Liverpool even if it looked a bit dull? Of course….’but at least we play attractive football’ doesn’t cut the mustard at my local.
By the way the person that could change the fortunes of Arsenal is looking for a job right now..
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Neil Watson