Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch

So again what's the deal with Lacazette and Aubameyang? They can't get along, or Arteta fall out with both! What a mess. How players will play for this manager?
 
The net spend of Arteta was around 80 million if I recall, prior to this year's transfer window. We just spent this much on one player. If that doesn't emphasise the difference between where Arsenal are at in terms of ownership and budgets and where the top sides are I don't know what does. We can address one position with the money with which they have had to try and rectify a squad.

All I'm saying is I think there has to be some kind of realism over the types of signings you get when this is the entire outlay over a few windows. They're not the top bracket, they're hopeful signings that have potential or people that just aren't top class and never will be but they can hopefully do a job.

They were also being added to a fairly average squad to begin with. He has to get the best out of them agreed, but what is the best of Pepe, Saliba, Tierney, Luiz? Nobody above Arsenal in the league would be coming knocking for them. I can't factor in other people's mistakes in the market. This would be like blaming Arsenal's next manager if White flops, it makes no sense.

I agree he seems to have been backed this summer, the fruits of which are yet to be determined. Which is why I said he will need to improve substantially on what has been shown. However, that is not really in dispute, it is the reading of previous backing and exactly what should be expected out of this lot that I question. My feeling is yes he should have done somewhat better and no I wouldn't be confident in him as a chairman, but there's not much balance on this forum either.


Net spend is irrelevant especially as all the outgoing money was on average players at best, they weren't good enough for the first team anyway.

It's not like the sales of players weakened the team severely. The transfer value of his current squad is huge so he should be doing far, far better than what he currently is.

Emery didn't have that much of a better squad than Arteta and if he did it's because Arteta decided to sell them players and replace or use different players that aren't as good.

Emery did a far better job with similar resources.

There shouldn't be any excuses for Arteta and his incompetence.
 
Did you see the team on Friday though?

Leno
Chambers White Mari Tierney
Xhaka Lokonga
Pepe Smith-Rowe Martinelli
Balogun

Given Xhaka is easily most senior, captain of his country, he was the obvious choice, so I can't really complain about that.

I think the most disappointing thing about Arsenal last season was the form of the senior players, Auba was poor in the main, Laca not much better, so I'm going to be brutally honest, it wouldn't break my heart to see either of them go. Getting adequate replacements, thats another matter.

When you look at that starting 11, it’s awful.

Tierney is the only top player in it. Arteta has taken Arsenal so far backwards it’s not even funny.
 
Aubameyang didn’t just go to the dogs overnight. The way Arteta uses him on that left hand side is so running against his skillset it beggars belief.

He makes the strangest decisions and I think the players are fed up with it. There is no security, he changes his mind on players depending on the day of the week and he tries to implement bizarre ideas that have their best players coming in and out of the side in different positions.

Arsenal need to cut ties and they need to do it ASAP before the value in their side is lost.
 
When you look at that starting 11, it’s awful.

Tierney is the only top player in it. Arteta has taken Arsenal so far backwards it’s not even funny.

To be fair, there were a few out. First choice should look something like this (assuming Odegaard signs)...

Leno
Chambers White Gabriel Tierney
Partey Xhaka
Saka Odegaard Smith-Rowe
Auba

The 2 in bold are what we most would perceive as the weakest parts, 2 positions that they wanted to strengthen apparently, but we are struggling to sell Bellerin & have gave up trying to sell Xhaka.

Certainly not good enough to challenge top 4 but at least a clutch of good young players that they should be trying to build round.
 
He's not gonna survive the season. Fans are back in the stadiums. Pressure would be irresistible if they're anywhere near the performance levels of last season.
 
Net spend is irrelevant especially as all the outgoing money was on average players at best, they weren't good enough for the first team anyway.

It's not like the sales of players weakened the team severely. The transfer value of his current squad is huge so he should be doing far, far better than what he currently is.

Emery didn't have that much of a better squad than Arteta and if he did it's because Arteta decided to sell them players and replace or use different players that aren't as good.

Emery did a far better job with similar resources.

There shouldn't be any excuses for Arteta and his incompetence.
I don't think net spend is irrelevant as at clubs that aren't receiving a lot of external investment it is an indicator of the budgets involved. It may have been that they had to sell to afford the limited expenditure they have managed in the last couple of years. It tells the overall picture, taking account of wages, incomings and outgoings that factor into an overall budget that will have some flexibility depending on what is achieved in the market. I don't think they would run with one figure for incomings and that's it so I prefer to have more detailed context which I think net spend brings.

What that net spend tells me is they didn't have much to work with to improve the squad in each window. Now, it can be argued that they have spent it poorly regardless, and that certainly is on Arteta and the recruitment team because teams like Leicester have done better with limited budgets. But personally I stop short of expecting top 4 performance unless there is a top 4 budget, there is no coincidence to the makeup of the top 4. At some point you need the players.

The transfer values paid for players pre Arteta and the value of the players on the pitch are two different things. Would we expect a manager to replace Ole and have Van de Beek playing like a proper Manchester United footballer? Not necessarily. There is a balance there, you have to get the best possible out of them but they may not be good enough to reach the expectations of the club.

I agree Emery did better. I'm no expert on what went wrong there and why he got sacked. But the fact is it happened, they've tried to go a different way and there's an inexperienced manager making some mistakes within that process of reshaping a squad in difficult circumstances. I'm just trying to look at some of the mitigation for Arteta rather than just climbing into him, it's easy to just criticise but there is a context.
 
Aubameyang didn’t just go to the dogs overnight. The way Arteta uses him on that left hand side is so running against his skillset it beggars belief.

He makes the strangest decisions and I think the players are fed up with it. There is no security, he changes his mind on players depending on the day of the week and he tries to implement bizarre ideas that have their best players coming in and out of the side in different positions.

Arsenal need to cut ties and they need to do it ASAP before the value in their side is lost.
He plays Aubameyang wide because Auba is awful with his back to goal. His hold up olsy usbt up to standard. Arsenal play a slow methodical game with a lot of control. Having a striker that can't hold the ball is a liability.
 
He plays Aubameyang wide because Auba is awful with his back to goal. His hold up olsy usbt up to standard. Arsenal play a slow methodical game with a lot of control. Having a striker that can't hold the ball is a liability.

When you are a club like Arsenal with a squad like they have, you play to your strengths, or you sell the player if you can’t play him where he is quality.

He is a complete waste out wide and offers nothing. It doesn’t make sense. Yes, he can’t play with his back to goal, but he certainly can’t do what he is being asked to at present. He is a world class poacher. Play him there or don’t play him at all.

His approach isn’t working anyway, so why sacrifice your best player for it?

He hasn’t sorted any of their issues from last season, none whatsoever, despite a 75 million spend so far.

Him and Edu are amateurs and need to go to give the club a chance.
 
I don't think net spend is irrelevant as at clubs that aren't receiving a lot of external investment it is an indicator of the budgets involved.

Net spend is more relevant when, like back in the late 00s, you're constantly having to replace your good players because they were sold to the competition.
Arsenal barely have any substantial sales since 17-18.

The net spend of Arteta was around 80 million if I recall, prior to this year's transfer window. We just spent this much on one player. If that doesn't emphasise the difference between where Arsenal are at in terms of ownership and budgets and where the top sides are I don't know what does. We can address one position with the money with which they have had to try and rectify a squad.
If you have issues with spending money then you should probably not spend almost 60m on a 23-year-old defender who'd barely played in the PL. It would be nonsensical even if the player were great.
 
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Net spend is more relevant when, like back in the late 00s, you're constantly having to replace your good players because they were sold to the competition.
Arsenal barely have any substantial sales since 17-18.


If you have issues with spending money then you should probably not spend almost 60m on a 23-year-old defender who'd barely played in the PL. It would be nonsensical even if the player were great.
Net spend is relevant full stop for a club that clearly is not bankrolled. The club will have parameters for a wage bill and parameters for what they wish to spend as a function of revenue streams, of which sales and loan fees are one source.

It is more complete information and therefore more useful for analysing the financial structure the manager may be working under. In comparison outgoing spend lacks context. They haven't actually made that many sales, but there was Martinez for a non-negligible sum so I see no reason not to factor it in. Either way you dice it, Arteta hasn't exactly been splashing the big bucks.

Who said anything about having a problem spending money? I don't know what that point is aiming at. Generally speaking, managers will spend the money given to them. They have tunnel vision towards the footballing side, the squad and their own success. In my opinion if they didn't spend much previously which is my whole argument it's because they couldn't, and if they are now it's because the board has provided funds. He should rightly be judged on these recent signings as the season unfolds, that is normal. If you spend then fans expectation increases and the boards certainly will as they expect a return, but it's too early to say much about it.
 
Auba is bad back to goal but they did give him a massive contract while Arteta was there and they don’t have money to upgrade on him. Leaves the question why they don’t then play to Aubameyang’s strengths. Arteta is a poor manager as of yet and Edu might be even worse as a technical director.
 
£220m+ spent under him. Should be enough to secure a third successive top 10 finish.
 
Spent much fortune in adding quantity rather than quality despite they are not in Europe.

Arsenal should have added muscle in midfield because partey can not be trusted with injury issues and young striker like vlahovic to give competition to auba and laca but also replace them.
 
Looks like they're singing Ramsdale for around £25m.

Really surprises me that because I watched a decent amount of Bournemouth and Sheffield and thought he was pretty crap.
 
Looks like they're singing Ramsdale for around £25m.

Really surprises me that because I watched a decent amount of Bournemouth and Sheffield and thought he was pretty crap.
I'm definitely not happy about signing Ramsdale but you've got to pause and think how did he get POTS at his 3 previous clubs if he's the worst keeper everybody has ever seen. I know he was not competing with brilliant players at those clubs but still.
Maybe i'm just trying to reassure myself about this shamble of a transfer window but he will get his chance. We were after Raya, who Brentford would not let go for around the same money (ok maybe 5m less). Maybe they see something that makes this a better deal on top of being 2 years younger and english.
Various clubs got on the Onana case and left it right there. Something must be up with him other than money demands.

I don't know what's going on with Leno, he was very good his first 2 seasons. As soon as we started improving (statistically at least) defensively, he started dropping clangers every few games. Now he looks like he doesn't care and doesn't want to be here. He's not getting anywhere near Bayern's or Dortmund's goal. He's getting close to 100k pw at Arsenal and can't see him getting that somewhere else so not sure what his plan is.
 
I'm definitely not happy about signing Ramsdale but you've got to pause and think how did he get POTS at his 3 previous clubs if he's the worst keeper everybody has ever seen. I know he was not competing with brilliant players at those clubs but still.
Maybe i'm just trying to reassure myself about this shamble of a transfer window but he will get his chance. We were after Raya, who Brentford would not let go for around the same money (ok maybe 5m less). Maybe they see something that makes this a better deal on top of being 2 years younger and english.
Various clubs got on the Onana case and left it right there. Something must be up with him other than money demands.

I don't know what's going on with Leno, he was very good his first 2 seasons. As soon as we started improving (statistically at least) defensively, he started dropping clangers every few games. Now he looks like he doesn't care and doesn't want to be here. He's not getting anywhere near Bayern's or Dortmund's goal. He's getting close to 100k pw at Arsenal and can't see him getting that somewhere else so not sure what his plan is.

You should try for that Martinez fella at Villa. Looks better than Ramsdale and Leno
 
Arsenal should stick to not spending given they're crap at it. May as well go for the high moral ground.

On a more serious note, I still don't get the backing Arteta's "project" gets. Arsenal FC are one of England's biggest and should demand more.
 
if they lose here today and then get smashed by City is he getting sacked?

Will his old mentor be his downfall?
 
In fairness, playing a hyped up Brentford in their first prem game in 70 years, without their best players, then playing Chelsea and City back to back isn't the kindest start.
 
In fairness, playing a hyped up Brentford in their first prem game in 70 years, without their best players, then playing Chelsea and City back to back isn't the kindest start.
It would have helped if he wasn't so shite prior to this run.
 
Chelsea are different class to Arsenal, and so will City show next week.

Arteta won't last the year, the crowd will turn against him and empty seats will be the norm. At least under Wenger you were treated to some good football, now who'd want to pay to watch dross?
 
Chelsea are different class to Arsenal, and so will City show next week.

Arteta won't last the year, the crowd will turn against him and empty seats will be the norm. At least under Wenger you were treated to some good football, now who'd want to pay to watch dross?

The confusing thing is why they thought Wenger's latter days would be their bottom end.

They're discovering it wasn't at all.
 
No shame losing to a much better team but the wingbacks have been running behind his defence for fun throughout the first half. If me, an idiot at home, noticed it, how can he not notice and change something? Go to a back 5 or get Saka to temporarily drop back to get back some control.
 
I am sure arsenal board must have written off two out of first three fixtures. Brentford was shocker though.
 
The confusing thing is why they thought Wenger's latter days would be their bottom end.

They're discovering it wasn't at all.
Wenger at least realised how important creativity was in midfield, even though he seemingly moved away from Vieira type midfielders. I think his home record was excellent in his final season bar the games against the big six.

They don't have runners in midfield, they can't counter and they struggle to keep the ball against a well pressed unit. It's a terrible combo.