Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch

Hes barely been doing acceptably in the league without european football. I think its more likely hes sacked by november than this being the start of anything with the gunners
 
Jezpeza said:
Hes barely been doing acceptably in the league without european football. I think its more likely hes sacked by november than this being the start of anything with the gunners
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I'd say it all depends in how they can improve the squad in the transfer window. Probably say the same for all teams though.
 
GoonerBear said:
I'd say it all depends in how they can improve the squad in the transfer window. Probably say the same for all teams though.
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perhaps. For my money, your team still has no identity and once you are playing 3 games a week and cant do a tactical deep dive into every league fixture hes going to get badly found out.
 
Jezpeza said:
Hes barely been doing acceptably in the league without european football. I think its more likely hes sacked by november than this being the start of anything with the gunners
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'Barely been doing acceptably'? ok bro, because of course we were widely predicted to be challenging for top 4 this season, particularly afting losing the first 3 games by an aggregate of 9-0.

I 100% read that we would be lucky to finish top half on here. Don't worry about giving any credit where it is due, it shows we're relevant.
 
BurgerVan said:
'Barely been doing acceptably'? ok bro, because of course we were widely predicted to be challenging for top 4 this season, particularly afting losing the first 3 games by an aggregate of 9-0.

I 100% read that we would be lucky to finish top half on here. Don't worry about giving any credit where it is due, it shows we're relevant.
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ok mate i hope you arent crying under your bed about it….

A good example of your fans mindset and shows how small your clubs become. You were bitching about wenger ‘only finishing top4’ for 15 years. Now you are doing backflips because you might finish top 4 and had expected 8th. Like a handful of shit thats slowly sliding down the wall
 
Jezpeza said:
ok mate i hope you arent crying under your bed about it….

A good example of your fans mindset and shows how small your clubs become. You were bitching about wenger ‘only finishing top4’ for 15 years. Now you are doing backflips because you might finish top 4 and had expected 8th. Like a handful of shit thats slowly sliding down the wall
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We're all shit sliding down a wall compared to City & Liverpool. Thought you would be used to it by now.
 
GoonerBear said:
We're all shit sliding down a wall compared to City & Liverpool. Thought you would be used to it by now.
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we’ll fight to get back up there. Our fans accept top 4 as a minimum, not celebrate it. I think Arsenal will be a casualty at the top after Newcastles take over. You cant compete with us financially and never could. Newcastle will be on the up for several seasons - they have unlimited money now. Chelsea are still there. You have an artificial 4th place anyway atm, its taken our worst PL season, spurs and Leicester falling apart and West Ham running out of steam because of Thursday nights to get you there. As i pointed out earlier, you are a team without identity and when you cant spend the weeks between games figuring how to scrape wins against mediocre PL teams Lego pep is going to get really badly found out.
 
As someone said, the success of Arteta will be decided this summer on his signings. He’s getting the top 4 and should be able to attract some top talents, if he could do that and build a solid team that can compete for top 4 regularly then it’s not right to call him lucky or fraud or whatever.
But at the moment they are scrapping wins by some luck through referees and also other teams falling apart.
 
Arteta and Arsenal finishing 4th has to be respected and appreciated. It is not his fault that Manchester United are having a mare. The challenge is to sustain or else the patience shown on him will become waste.
 
AshRK said:
Arteta and Arsenal finishing 4th has to be respected and appreciated. It is not his fault that Manchester United are having a mare. The challenge is to sustain or else the patience shown on him will become waste.
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Not particularly, their 2 main rivals for it sacked managers mid season, and they've had no midweek football. They also spent 150 million quid or something.
 
He finished 8th and 8th, so finishing 4th is progress.

I think, however, that will be as good as it gets for Arsenal under him. Like with us under Ole, i don't think Arsenal will ever challenge for the League or CL under Arteta. In fact, i would be shocked if they finish 4th again next season.
 
I've written off Arteta twice during his reign: both times, he has managed to come back. Next season ought to be the moment when he really demonstrates results from his project. I'm currently confident that he can show some sort of progress - a trophy of some kind. But I also have reservations. Namely:

- His in-game management. Arteta has been excellent at identifying structural flaws in our game, and slowly squeezing them out of our play. But he has been slow to adapt when opposing teams have zeroed in on a weakness they have spotted. He usually does something to remedy it two or three games in the future - but that might be two or three games too many. And he is so caught up in driving the team from the touchline that he could fail to see what needs to change right there and then. It's partly because he is both a control merchant in the Pep sense and a cautious counter-attack minded manager, and he tends to revert to the latter whenever he is worried about the opposition (as we saw against West Ham).

- His man-management. Özil wasn't really his fault; but Aubameyang, Saliba and Guendouzi are losses which hit us. There are a lot of smaller things which recur from time to time (such as the way he interacts with or speaks about players) which make me wonder whether he has really developed the kind of bond with his players that great managers demonstrate. If he can't, that will come back to bite us at crucial moments.

I think he is good enough to work on these flaws, and become a better manager for it, but I'm still not certain he solve them while at Arsenal.
 
Jezpeza said:
we’ll fight to get back up there. Our fans accept top 4 as a minimum, not celebrate it. I think Arsenal will be a casualty at the top after Newcastles take over. You cant compete with us financially and never could. Newcastle will be on the up for several seasons - they have unlimited money now. Chelsea are still there. You have an artificial 4th place anyway atm, its taken our worst PL season, spurs and Leicester falling apart and West Ham running out of steam because of Thursday nights to get you there. As i pointed out earlier, you are a team without identity and when you cant spend the weeks between games figuring how to scrape wins against mediocre PL teams Lego pep is going to get really badly found out.
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Explain what you mean by "a team without an identity?" You "pointing it out" multiple times doesn't make it true.

I am not an Arteta fan by any stretch of the imagination, but that's a laughable suggestion to make - if there's one thing he's done right it's been him trying to develop an identity by creating a hard-working, no-nonsense, team-oriented squad.

He has moved on players he has deemed a distraction and taken a real no-nonsense approach to his squad management. Ozil, Guendouzi and PEA are all players that he has moved on because he did not like their attitudes. All of those players still had something to offer us on the pitch at the time of them being moved on. But despite that, they obviously did not fit into the identity of the team that he was fostering.

He has also implemented a very distinct game plan. Rightly or wrongly, he's made the players stick to it.

All of these things are what a normal person would consider equates to creating an identity.

Now if you want to look at a club that's without an identity then look no further than this current United side. From Ole until this current day it is a team without an identity. There is no distinct game plan. There are no pervasive team-wide traits. Players are regularly taking the piss.

It seems that either you're projecting, or you simply haven't paid any attention.
 
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Conor said:
Not particularly, their 2 main rivals for it sacked managers mid season, and they've had no midweek football. They also spent 150 million quid or something.
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What should he have done then?
 
I can’t stand Arsenal and am far from convinced that Mr Lego is anything special, but the saltiness of some United fans on here does seem a bit OTT; it isn’t as if the Gooners are unreasonably Glaston-ish.

At least they seem to have achieved the Cultural Reset that United have yet to embark on. We should take heart from their experience; clubs with evil, distant and clueless American owners are capable of change.
 
I don't really buy this argument that if we finish fourth it'll be because United and Spurs were poor. If we win 2 more games we'll have the same amount of points that 3rd place got last season.
 
Revaulx said:
I can’t stand Arsenal and am far from convinced that Mr Lego is anything special, but the saltiness of some United fans on here does seem a bit OTT; it isn’t as if the Gooners are unreasonably Glaston-ish.

At least they seem to have achieved the Cultural Reset that United have yet to embark on. We should take heart from their experience; clubs with evil, distant and clueless American owners are capable of change.
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It's a desperate urge to wind up, a sort of schadenfreude club of the really piss poor lot out of the 'top 6'
 
Jezpeza said:
we’ll fight to get back up there. Our fans accept top 4 as a minimum, not celebrate it. I think Arsenal will be a casualty at the top after Newcastles take over. You cant compete with us financially and never could. Newcastle will be on the up for several seasons - they have unlimited money now. Chelsea are still there. You have an artificial 4th place anyway atm, its taken our worst PL season, spurs and Leicester falling apart and West Ham running out of steam because of Thursday nights to get you there. As i pointed out earlier, you are a team without identity and when you cant spend the weeks between games figuring how to scrape wins against mediocre PL teams Lego pep is going to get really badly found out.
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Do you not think this attitude is part of your problem. "We're Utd, we'll be challenging, we have a lot of money, we'll be back."

I hate to break it to you but you've had just as shit as last 8 or 9 years or so as us (our stretches even longer). In fact your probably further away than you've ever been currently in that the me. So it's ok saying 4th is a minimum, we won't settle for anything less, but it's not done you any good so far.

Also, yeah, you might have more money than us, that might help you finish higher than us, but have you more than City, Chelsea, Newcastle now? I don't know why Arsenal fans should fear their place in the pecking order & Utd fans shouldn't.

See, perhaps that's what a lot of Arsenal fans have learned since the Wenger Out days. This league is hard, & it's actually difficult to get it right, & easy to get it wrong. From what I've seen of City, Liverpool & Chelsea, you need some sort of combo of the most money, the best structure & the very best managers. Until you get 2 or 3 out the 3, your just noise, & that's what we are just now.
 
Revaulx said:
I can’t stand Arsenal and am far from convinced that Mr Lego is anything special, but the saltiness of some United fans on here does seem a bit OTT; it isn’t as if the Gooners are unreasonably Glaston-ish.

At least they seem to have achieved the Cultural Reset that United have yet to embark on. We should take heart from their experience; clubs with evil, distant and clueless American owners are capable of change.
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What do you mean when you say they have “achieved the cultural reset”? What is this change you speak of?

It’s all meaningless guff really. Same stuff was said about Ole a couple of years ago with his young team and talk of “playing the United way”. Fairly sure the same “cultural reset” phrase was used when he shipped out Lukaku et al. And Ole actually made a top two finish!

And I can understand why this rubs United fans up the wrong way. It’s classic Arsenal. The British media has always been full of Arsenal fans desperate to exaggerate their achievements. Going all the way back to Wenger and the insanely over the top praise every time a bunch of their kids smashed a team of PL reserves in the league cup, en route to scraping a top four finish. It’s tiresome.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
What do you mean when you say they have “achieved the cultural reset”? What is this change you speak of?

It’s all meaningless guff really. Same stuff was said about Ole a couple of years ago with his young team and talk of “playing the United way”. Fairly sure the same “cultural reset” phrase was used when he shipped out Lukaku et al. And Ole actually made a top two finish!

And I can understand why this rubs United fans up the wrong way. It’s classic Arsenal. The British media has always been full of Arsenal fans desperate to exaggerate their achievements. Going all the way back to Wenger and the insanely over the top praise every time a bunch of their kids smashed a team of PL reserves in the league cup, en route to scraping a top four finish. It’s tiresome.
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Like the Utd media was with Ole after they put out PSG, or the likes of Rio crowing with glasses of champagne after you signed Ronaldo back? Why do you think Oles at the Wheel got popular whatever the opposition by the end? Don't think we have any more friends in the media than Utd do, especially when the biggest media company in terms of EPL coverage Sky has an ex Utd player as 1 of its 2 main protagonists.
 
GoonerBear said:
Like the Utd media was with Ole after they put out PSG, or the likes of Rio crowing with glasses of champagne after you signed Ronaldo back? Why do you think Oles at the Wheel got popular whatever the opposition by the end? Don't think we have any more friends in the media than Utd do, especially when the biggest media company in terms of EPL coverage Sky has an ex Utd player as 1 of its 2 main protagonists.
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Exactly like that, yes. United shades it with sycophants on Tv. Arsenal in the print media. They both consistently get vastly over-rated after achieving not very much.
 
I feel that Mikel has made Arsenal a bit more "cool" again after a long time.

Playing with the Odegaard's, Martinelli's and Saka's than the Ozil's and Aubameyang's.

It's not much but it's something id like to have seen at United in a season we didn't achieve much.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Exactly like that, yes. United shades it with sycophants on Tv. Arsenal in the print media. They both consistently get vastly over-rated after achieving not very much.
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Fair point again, can't really argue against it.
 
Mogget said:
I don't really buy this argument that if we finish fourth it'll be because United and Spurs were poor. If we win 2 more games we'll have the same amount of points that 3rd place got last season.
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Correct, usually the team finishing 4th will be having an inconsistent season very similar to what United, Arsenal and Spurs had. It's just the matter of who can squeeze out few extra points when it matters the most.

With clubs like newcastle,wolves,villa,hammers etc getting good investments it will be the norm going forward. When everyone has money it gets tougher. It's not like Arsenal can't spend, we have spend well in last few years. At this point every team apart from City and Pool falls in same bracket, they all can do well or fall apart next season it's very hard to predict.

I am not a big fan of Arteta, he still has a lot to learn to coach a top club. We have to live with his limitations and hope that he keeps improving. But he has brought some good changes in last few years. Arsenal had to change from how club was run under Wenger, it was outdated.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
What do you mean when you say they have “achieved the cultural reset”? What is this change you speak of?

It’s all meaningless guff really. Same stuff was said about Ole a couple of years ago with his young team and talk of “playing the United way”. Fairly sure the same “cultural reset” phrase was used when he shipped out Lukaku et al. And Ole actually made a top two finish!
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Ok maybe it’s too early to say they’ve achieved anything, but they had a backroom setup that was riven with infighting, allegedly corrupt (even United have been free from that by the look of it) and a squad of perennial underachievers, some ludicrously overpriced (Pepe), and a major problem with Big Time Charlie attitudes. They now seem to have sorted the backroom out, have a sensible recruitment policy, have not only a decent academy but also a reliable mechanism for bringing players through into the first team, and a much better attitude in the dressing room.
And I can understand why this rubs United fans up the wrong way. It’s classic Arsenal. The British media has always been full of Arsenal fans desperate to exaggerate their achievements. Going all the way back to Wenger and the insanely over the top praise every time a bunch of their kids smashed a team of PL reserves in the league cup, en route to scraping a top four finish. It’s tiresome.
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Which is why I can’t stand Arsenal!

The constant trotting out of the excuse that they haven’t got (or the tight owner won’t spend) any money is particularly tiresome. There was a bit of belt tightening around the time the new stadium was being built, but they’ve been up there with the big spenders for years now.

The fawning over their “great football” was sickening as well; the notion that there was something noble and glorious about the way they were constantly losing yet playing “the right way”. They sometimes had individuals that were good to watch (I loved Carzola) but bloody hell, they were hardly peak Cruyff.

Oh yeah, and Ramsdale after Bruno missed that penalty…

I just find it a bit weird that rather than taking comfort from the fact that a club in a not dissimilar state to United might have found a way out of its mire of shite, people are so bitter and resentful. As I said initially, it’s hardly as if Arsenal fans were lauding Lego as some sort of messiah.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
What do you mean when you say they have “achieved the cultural reset”? What is this change you speak of?

It’s all meaningless guff really. Same stuff was said about Ole a couple of years ago with his young team and talk of “playing the United way”. Fairly sure the same “cultural reset” phrase was used when he shipped out Lukaku et al. And Ole actually made a top two finish!

And I can understand why this rubs United fans up the wrong way. It’s classic Arsenal. The British media has always been full of Arsenal fans desperate to exaggerate their achievements. Going all the way back to Wenger and the insanely over the top praise every time a bunch of their kids smashed a team of PL reserves in the league cup, en route to scraping a top four finish. It’s tiresome.
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You definitely don't seem to tire of it.
 
Getting top 4 will be similar to us getting 3ed and 2ed. Just delays the inevitable and makes the next managers job that much harder.
 
There seem to be a lot of Man Utd fans who are mentally stuck in the 2000s era, when top 4 belonged to Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. Times have changed; while Pep and Klopp are around, top 2 for the most part belongs to Man City and Liverpool and the rest of us, including teams like Tottenham, West Ham, and Leicester, scrap for the remaining European places.

Arsenal and Man Utd can still attract great players which is an advantage, but only if Liverpool or Man City don't want them. I know some people here won't like this opinion, but if both Liverpool and Man Utd are in for a player, Liverpool is the clear first choice; a winning team with a non-toxic atmosphere that won't ruin their reputation and career.

Arsenal and Man Utd managers need to be judged in this light, as difficult as it is. Winning the league is not a reasonable expectation when there are two other clubs either of whom are capable of putting out near-perfect seasons.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
What do you mean when you say they have “achieved the cultural reset”? What is this change you speak of?

It’s all meaningless guff really. Same stuff was said about Ole a couple of years ago with his young team and talk of “playing the United way”. Fairly sure the same “cultural reset” phrase was used when he shipped out Lukaku et al. And Ole actually made a top two finish!

And I can understand why this rubs United fans up the wrong way. It’s classic Arsenal. The British media has always been full of Arsenal fans desperate to exaggerate their achievements. Going all the way back to Wenger and the insanely over the top praise every time a bunch of their kids smashed a team of PL reserves in the league cup, en route to scraping a top four finish. It’s tiresome.
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I think the cultural reset was initiated when he moved on Guendouzi, Ozil and PEA.

All three of which had more to offer the club at the time they were moved on.

Ozil was moved on when he was clearly our most creative player, and he was absolutely no one to fill that creative void.

Guendouzi would still be our most talented young CM, and we really lack depth in that area of the field - as evidenced by us having to play El Neny at such a crucial point of the season.

PEA was clearly declining as a player, but to ship him off half way through a season when we were in the midst of a top four battle was the epitome of ballsy. Especially when Laca and Nketiah are your fallback options.

Another one is Saliba - the highly talented and touted CB who was bought for 30 million. IMO it was absolute madness shipping him off at the start of the season, only to spend 50 million on Ben White. Especially given we had a limited budget and had multiple areas that we needed to strengthen. Saliba has now been one of the premier CB's in France this season. He was ready for a full season and I believe he could have contributed, at the very least as a bench option, this season.

But for whatever reason Arteta considered all of them a distraction and moved them on.

That's the cultural reset. Players aren't going to be allowed to be distractions, they aren't going to hold power over the Manager or abide a lack of effort.

Personally I don't agree with all of these decisions, but there's been a clear direction in setting a culture. The jury is still out on whether it will work or bite us in the arse.

IMO it will be the same as ETH binning the likes of Pogba, Rashford and Lingaard.
 
GoonerBear said:
Do you not think this attitude is part of your problem. "We're Utd, we'll be challenging, we have a lot of money, we'll be back."

I hate to break it to you but you've had just as shit as last 8 or 9 years or so as us (our stretches even longer). In fact your probably further away than you've ever been currently in that the me. So it's ok saying 4th is a minimum, we won't settle for anything less, but it's not done you any good so far.

Also, yeah, you might have more money than us, that might help you finish higher than us, but have you more than City, Chelsea, Newcastle now? I don't know why Arsenal fans should fear their place in the pecking order & Utd fans shouldn't.

See, perhaps that's what a lot of Arsenal fans have learned since the Wenger Out days. This league is hard, & it's actually difficult to get it right, & easy to get it wrong. From what I've seen of City, Liverpool & Chelsea, you need some sort of combo of the most money, the best structure & the very best managers. Until you get 2 or 3 out the 3, your just noise, & that's what we are just now.
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baloney. We have won more trophies than you in our terrible spell. ‘Just as shit’ get out of here
 
cesc's_mullet said:
Explain what you mean by "a team without an identity?" You "pointing it out" multiple times doesn't make it true.

I am not an Arteta fan by any stretch of the imagination, but that's a laughable suggestion to make - if there's one thing he's done right it's been him trying to develop an identity by creating a hard-working, no-nonsense, team-oriented squad.

He has moved on players he has deemed a distraction and taken a real no-nonsense approach to his squad management. Ozil, Guendouzi and PEA are all players that he has moved on because he did not like their attitudes. All of those players still had something to offer us on the pitch at the time of them being moved on. But despite that, they obviously did not fit into the identity of the team that he was fostering.

He has also implemented a very distinct game plan. Rightly or wrongly, he's made the players stick to it.

All of these things are what a normal person would consider equates to creating an identity.

Now if you want to look at a club that's without an identity then look no further than this current United side. From Ole until this current day it is a team without an identity. There is no distinct game plan. There are no pervasive team-wide traits. Players are regularly taking the piss.

It seems that either you're projecting, or you simply haven't paid any attention.
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you’ve signed some mediocre young players who dont make trouble and Arteta has tried to make you a bit harder to beat. I dont see how thats a team with identity. As i say, you will find out next season what i mean. When you dont have time to do a tactical deep dive in preparation to scrape a win against 15th placed Villa Arteta will have to send them out to play your ‘brand’ of football and it will unravel rather quickly
 
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