I don't remember him much as a player but was he a prick even in his playing days? The antics he does on the sidelines as a manager is pretty childish. Remember once he pushed his player back to the field who was lying from injury outside the playing field. That looked really childish.
Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch
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He was always pretty bossy according to his former teammates.
The player he pushed back onto the pitch was Thomas Partey against Tottenham. Partey was genuinely injured so couldn’t track back. We conceded a goal on that attack and then Partey was out for months.
Not Arteta’s finest moment. He’s made a few rookie errors, but he does seem to be learning from them.
Think he's doing a good (if not great) job, think recent results are down to a lack of squad depth (especially in the fullback positions) which I think he will be given funds to address in the summer.
A decent LB backup for Tierney (Tavares is shit) some depth In the midfield and a player like Jesus (Who they have been linked to and IMO would take their forward play up a level) and they will have a decent shout at competing for top 4 again next year.
I would have thought Manchester United fans could understand that Arteta has had a job on his hands (due to the toxicity in the dressing room) when he took over and recognize that even competing for 4th spot while bombing your highest profile players out of the club (including one in January) is pretty good going.
When it comes to the job that Ten Hag has on his hands everyone is preaching about how everyone has to be patient and that expectations should be low while he performs Ralfs open heart surgery.
I would say Arteta started off at a lower point and is doing a good (not great) job up until now irregardless of wether he finishes 4th or 5th this season.
A decent LB backup for Tierney (Tavares is shit) some depth In the midfield and a player like Jesus (Who they have been linked to and IMO would take their forward play up a level) and they will have a decent shout at competing for top 4 again next year.
I would have thought Manchester United fans could understand that Arteta has had a job on his hands (due to the toxicity in the dressing room) when he took over and recognize that even competing for 4th spot while bombing your highest profile players out of the club (including one in January) is pretty good going.
When it comes to the job that Ten Hag has on his hands everyone is preaching about how everyone has to be patient and that expectations should be low while he performs Ralfs open heart surgery.
I would say Arteta started off at a lower point and is doing a good (not great) job up until now irregardless of wether he finishes 4th or 5th this season.
Not that one. I am referring to the one where he pushed his player back to the playing field to waste some time. That player of yours was actually injured but he just forced him to go back to the field and lay down there. I don't remember which game was that, maybe against wolves this season. It looked pretty childish.
I made comments about Arteta, and you then asked me to explain why Tuchel was doing shit, I gave some context which might explain it. What have I missed when stating that I simply don't think Arteta is good enough to get Arsenal competing for the league? Do you genuinely believe Arsenal would be getting top 4 if we weren't a dumpster fire of shit, and Conte had been at Spurs for the whole season?
20 points behind leaders. And people talk about how he is successful.
How mighty have fallen.
Just like us.
How mighty have fallen.
Just like us.
Ah right, that was Martinelli. Kinda contradicts my point that he’s learning from his mistakes if there are at least a couple examples.
Seeing as we’re three points behind 3rd and on track for a points total that would land you in the top four in virtually every PL season… I’m gonna say yeah.
Plus, we may not even get fourth. It’s still very much up for grabs.
I was trying to hint at this when asking Utd fans their expectations of ETH & timescales they were willing to give him.
I seen on his thread that Utd fans were demanding clear outs, that only 4 or 5 players would fit his system, they don't care how long it takes etc, while at the same time having a go at Arteta & Arsenal because they aren't improving quick enough.
Mind you, on the flip side there's some think he needs a season to settle, 2nd season securing top 4 comfortably & 3rd season a proper title tilt.
You are literally contradicting yourself there, you could easily not even get 4th, and that's with Spurs and us being awful, how can you say you say you think you would have gotten 4th regardless? That makes no sense.
We haven't got top 4 yet and we still might not. Our team IS a dumpster fire of shit and still it's performing on par with Tuchel's Chelsea and better than United.
That's the part you're obfuscating. Our shitness is 3 points behind Chelsea mate. That's something which you're struggling to explain.
I'm not struggling to explain it at all, I couldn't give a shite about Chelsea. I am talking about Arsenal potentially getting top 4 over Utd and Spurs, I don't really care about Chelsea in the discussion, they obviously aren't doing particularly great either.
The mental gymnastics that Conor is performing is absolutely amazing.
He's saying Arteta = below par manager (which I agree with).
Why is he a poor manager, because he's performing poorly. But he's above Spurs & United right now....oh that means they're performing poorly aswell. But Arteta is only 3 points behind Chelsea....oh that must mean Tuchel is performing poorly aswell.
So ALL the teams above are performing poorly...yet Arteta is still performing on par or better than them?! Conor simply cannot reason his way out of this.
His only possible excuse could be that Arsenal's team is at the same level as Chelsea, United etc.
But that excuse is BS. We have a much worse squad than Chelsea, and should not be within 3 points of Chelsea or above United.
It's just astonishing how people abandon all logic.
3 points behind Thomas Tuchel's Chelsea. He's either a miracle worker or Tuchel's a complete fraud considering the resources they have.
I assumed you meant Arsenal being in with a shout for fourth. You know, seeing as we haven’t actually got fourth and the season isn’t over. If you didn’t mean that… then I’m not sure what you mean.
My point is pretty simple, we’re on course for enough points to nab fourth in almost any season. That suggests to me that our league position is more to do with our performances than a team that we play twice - like all the other teams.
Spurs finished 7th last year, a whopping one point above us. Where has this idea come from that the major factor in Arsenal’s league position is Spurs being inconsistent?!? Lads, it’s Spurs.
It would be understandable (though still illogical) on a Tottenham forum. But why United fans seem so insistent on it is beyond me.
Yes, it the goal posts have changed from "Arsenal will do well to make Europe this season" to what is essentially "Arsenal should be challenging Liverpool and Man City this season".
I think what would help would be if, rather than arguing about how everyone is doing relative to everyone else, people could give an idea of how many points they think each team should have taken this season had they performed as expected. How many would have backed Arsenal to have 63 points with four games to go? And how many points should Chelsea/Spurs/United have?
The fact is
Arteta is a young manager. He is 40 now. When he took on the arsenal job he was only 37 I believe.
He is also a rockie manager as Arsenal is his first manager job. He is learning on the job.
He improved the club's league postion since he took over. When he started Arsenal was in bottom half of the table. His record so far is 8th, 8th and this year from 4th to 6th.
He and Edu spent over 100m to turn over an aging squad with young players.
Arsenal has less resource than Man Utd, City, Liverpool and Chelsea, but Arsenal still has the 5th largest wage bill in EPL without european football.
The board still believe in him and he will remain as manager next season.
Whether he is a below par manager for Arsenal is not for me to decide. Arteta needs to answer to the board. He needs to meet the board's expectation, and he also needs to win the fans over too. To me he is doing fine.
Arteta is a young manager. He is 40 now. When he took on the arsenal job he was only 37 I believe.
He is also a rockie manager as Arsenal is his first manager job. He is learning on the job.
He improved the club's league postion since he took over. When he started Arsenal was in bottom half of the table. His record so far is 8th, 8th and this year from 4th to 6th.
He and Edu spent over 100m to turn over an aging squad with young players.
Arsenal has less resource than Man Utd, City, Liverpool and Chelsea, but Arsenal still has the 5th largest wage bill in EPL without european football.
The board still believe in him and he will remain as manager next season.
Whether he is a below par manager for Arsenal is not for me to decide. Arteta needs to answer to the board. He needs to meet the board's expectation, and he also needs to win the fans over too. To me he is doing fine.
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If they end up 4th, I predict they will end up 4th in the UCL Group Stage. Imagine Arsenal facing the likes of Bayern, Barcelona, and Napoli in the same group (could happen).
Look I'm just having to repeat myself over and over here, but at the end of the day, your position this season has nothing to do with any other season, it's based on how your team is playing and how the teams around you are playing. The 2 teams around you were both playing so badly that they sacked their managers during the season, and in our case, were still actually in with a shout of getting fourth afterwards(until we really melted down), with Spurs still being neck and neck with you at this point.
Everyone in the world has been talking about how the race for fourth place has been awful, it's not like it's some sort of contentious opinion. If you get 4th, well done, but it's not some incredible achievement, just like it wouldn't be if we had(or if Spurs do). You spent a load of cash, had no midweek football, and the aforementioned things happen to teams you are competing with, not sure how anyone can argue with these comments. I'm going to leave it there to save us all repeating ourselves further.
Chances of that happening though...really?
If we get 4th i predict we're winning the CL unbeaten without conceding a single goal.
Bayern or PSG (league champions), Barcelona (2nd), Napoli (3rd), Arsenal (4th).
Do we know the coefficient for who would go in each group yet?
The two teams around us had a rocky start to the season. We were literally rock bottom after three matches. I don’t really see the significance.
I keep seeing a variation of the same argument in this thread:
“The only reason Arsenal are in fourth spot is because they’ve performed better than all but three teams.”
That’s why I think the conversation is going in circles. Quite a few United fans seem to think that this indicates that Arteta is doing a bad job. While Arsenal fans (and a fair few neutral fans) can see how that might point to him doing a decent job.
It’s almost as if the entire point of a league format is to rank teams based on sporting merit across a season.
Mainly seen this from United supporting journalists and fans.
Also, one could use the "it doesn't count when your rivals are shit" argument to belittle a lot of historical achievements. We could have a whole discussion going through every league season and concluding how one or more teams underperforming led to another's success. It's just how the league works, teams take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. Liverpool's project under Klopp began with them beating us to top 4 by one point in a season that was considered by most fans as our worst under Wenger at that point.
We're on track to surpass the points total needed to finish 4th or even higher in the past few seasons anyway. I don't care if we don't receive any plaudits from pundits/rivals and just go unnoticed. What I have an issue with is this artificial diminishing of our position simply because other clubs didn't have their shit together. This isn't a 2015/16 situation either where a club like Chelsea simply had a bizarre meltdown of a season. United have underperformed because of years of bad decisions on and off the pitch, and there's no guarantee that's going to be remedied immediately. Chelsea could very well get even worse.
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Only an Arsenal fan could say that maybe getting 4th place is a historical achievement
Listen, praise Arteta as your saviour all you want, I'm simply saying I think it will all end in tears, and that the context of this season is overinflating your placing in the league. We have literally just experienced something similar with Ole.Only an Arsenal fan could say that maybe getting 4th place is a historical achievement
I was referring to achievements in general, not 4th place specifically. Could be anything from a relegation survival to a title win, any instance of a team finishing higher than another.
You vaguely talk about the context of the season overinflating our position but what do you see changing in a way that makes us supposedly revert to our default position or whatever? Are Spurs guaranteed to be better next season what with Conte already hinting at leaving if he isn't satisfied with how the current season ends? Will Chelsea surely increase the gap between us when they've already sold their best centre-back and are having post-Abramovich off-the-pitch problems of their own? Even with United under Ten Hag, there is an acceptance that for things to be better there would have to be an initial rebuilding phase.
It would be one thing if we were still operating the way we did in 2018-2020 but we have made positive changes to our recruitment strategies and that's part of the reason fans are more confident about where we're headed. There seems to be a sustainable plan.
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The chances of it happening are zero.
If we make the CL, we will be in Pot 2. We would be one of the last teams to make it in, but we would get in based on the current coefficient rankings.
Napoli will be Pot 3, so we could hypothetically end up with something like Bayern from Pot 1, Napoli from Pot 3, and whoever the best team in Pot 4 might be. That would be the worst outcome.
But we could also end up with Porto and Basel out of Pots 1 and 3, you never know.
You won't be playing 1 game a week, you probably won't spend as much money as you did last season, you won't have 2 direct competitors sack a manager, not sure why I have to keep repeating this.
One thing I've learned from my short time on here is there's no point in worrying about CAF predictions. We were to finish outside the top 6 and Utd were to be challengers at the start of the season. One thing we do know is bar City & Liverpool most likely, everything is up in the air, so it's hard to predict anything. Picking an order from 3rd to 7th could go any way currently.
What I have as trying to work out is that he seemed to be picking teams in groups made up of current league placings, so PSG / Bayern 1st, Barca are 2nd, Napoli are 3rd & we might finish 4th. I was just wondering if he thought that's how the groups were made up?
I like to engage them regardless. I don't worry about their predictions, I just don't get the logic behind them. The whole thing is so disingenuous. At the start of the season, people confidently predicted we'd finish below teams like Villa and Leicester let alone Spurs and United. Now that we might actually do it, you get people bringing up supposedly mitigating factors like playing once a week as if they were evident all along, even though there was no hint or indication that they considered the possibility of such factors coming to our advantage. If anything, saying that no Europe was a boost to our top 4 hopes this season would have been met with derision.
For what it's worth, I do think 3rd to 6th will be quite close next season, but that's still a better position to be in than seeing qualifying for Europa League as our ceiling like at the start of this season, and I currently favour us in the upper tier of that group.
You repeating these points doesn't make them right.
Do you think the club hasn't considered the fact that we will have extra fixtures added to our schedule next season? Something literally every fan can see? Also, United have played what, 4 extra games because of Europe in the part of the season where the top 4 race heated up? Spurs went out of Europe in December too.
For your second point, considering we spent around £150m last summer without any funds generated from qualifying for Europe, I think it's reasonable to expect the same level of investment this coming summer. Maybe we won't spend as much from a quantitative perspective because we had more holes to fill last summer but we are clearly looking to sign two forwards and another midfielder at least. We were willing to pay over £70m for Vlahovic and we specifically alleviated our wage bill in January to prepare for incomings this summer.
We're projected to finish at around 70 points, can that be attributed to Spurs and United sacking their managers in autumn alone? That's a good enough points tally to qualify for CL on average. Over 2 points per game since we dropped Auba and started playing with our preferred system. Not to mention there is still a degree of uncertainty around Spurs' managerial situation and even assuming that they stick with Conte, he hasn't made them better than us, we're still on the same level. And as I already alluded to before, United will probably will improve under Ten Hag but it's not set in stone that you will see significant improvements immediately. Finally, Chelsea themselves are going through a volatile situation which could drag them down.
The point is that even next season, there will be an entirely new set of factors you will see as excuses to explain why a team underperformed. Anyway, I've reached my daily limit for today so hopefully I was at least able to communicate why my reasons for feeling optimistic about next season go beyond blindly trusting Arteta or whatever.
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I have to disagree on this. I think we will just have fund to bring in a striker and may be some spares for squad depth. It also depends on whether the club qualifies for CL as well. Arsenal is doing extremely poor in selling players. We have an army of unwanted players on loan.
Up all night making sure his girlfriend wasn't shagging Courtois
Just realised this is the Arteta thread
My bad, wrong thread.
Just realised this is the Arteta thread
I swear I didn't click on Arteta thread either, some weird shit happening
Maybe because none of those points are particularly solid.
We’ve played a whopping 3 games less than United this season. It was our first season outside of Europe for over 20 years. We’re familiar with the concept of playing (slightly) more games and will compose our squad accordingly.
I’m surprised that you seem to know for sure what our transfer budget is. I’m even more surprised that you know for certain that it would be lower in a scenario where CL qualification increases our revenue by ten of millions of pounds.
We may in fact have two direct competitors sack their Managers next year. And it would mean as much next year as it does this year - very little. You seem to be confusing cause and effect. The teams that finish in the top four aren’t where they are primarily because the teams below them fire their Managers. The teams below fire their Managers primarily because they they’ve been outperformed by the teams above them.
Just about securing 4th seems to me to be the sweet spot if the Kroenkes are to shell out for the summer. If we do finish 5th, then the club will be extremely reluctant to spend unless they believe Arteta can make something of it (and, if 4th is lost from here, his stock would fall accordingly). A comfortable 4th, or better, might encourage executives to believe that we can maintain top 4 with a lean squad and the best of Hale End incoming.
On your first point, I'm sure you must be facetiously comparing travelling around Europe to games against powerhouses like Wimbledon and Sunderland. On the transfer budget, I said probably, happy to be proven wrong. Your last point is nonsense, we didn't sack Ole because you were doing better than us, we sacked him because we were atrocious and getting hammered by Watford and the likes. If you can't see that the table would most likely look different if Utd and Spurs had functioning teams for the whole season, then I don't know what to say.