Mikel Arteta Sack Watch

Unproven manager = failure
Football is so simple yet

He's out of his depth, but they need new players, too.

How have the new signings Gabriel and Partey been?

Robespierre wrote:Unproven manager = failure
Football is so simple yet

I think many clubs were more or less influenced by the trend that was originally started by Barcelona with Pep and then later on by Madrid with Zidane which consists on hiring a former legend of the club with youth and modest coaching experience and ride their luck with them.

What those clubs perhaps failed to see though is that Barça and Madrid were very, very lucky that they also had legendary rosters with the two best players of this generation for Pep and Zidane to work with.

I'm not sure both of them would've been nearly as successful hadn't they had those players at their disposal. For instance, I see how Zidane's Madrid looks without Ronaldo and with an ageing Modric, Marcelo and Kroos, and I tell ya, it's not pretty.

Every season people say Arsenal need new signings. Arteta has actually spent more than Pep this season. He's made enough signings with a good combination of experienced and young and is paying players like Willian, Partey and Aubameyang salaries not many teams in the world can afford.

Simply put, the performances have not been in line with the money spent, hence more money is not going to solve the issue. The teams above Arsenal who have done much more with much less should serve Arsenal as an example.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:

Robespierre wrote:Unproven manager = failure
Football is so simple yet

I think many clubs were more or less influenced by the trend that was originally started by Barcelona with Pep and then later on by Madrid with Zidane which consists on hiring a former legend of the club with youth and modest coaching experience and ride their luck with them.

I always thought it was funny to attribute this trend to Pep in Barcelona and then Zidane in Madrid when it has existed all throughout football history. Very much a recency bias and la liga centric.

Zoff coached us in the late 80s after retiring. He had some assistant position, a goalkeeping coach, and then got promoted to Juve's manager.

Deschamps, who coached us a couple of years before Pep was appointed to Barcelona, coached Monaco straight out of retirement in 2001, taking them to the CL final.

Ferrara had his first stint as 1st coach with Juve a solid half decade before Zidane got into coaching.

This is just thinking about our former players in the last couple of decades. No doubt Juventus didn't invent this trend, and it certainly didn't start in the 80s either.

It may have existed for a long time, but you can clearly see that many clubs have either only started doing it until recently or stopped doing it for a long time and then recently went back to it. I'll give you some examples:

1. Chelsea: if you look at all of Lampard's predecessors, most of them were the furthest thing from being newbies (Sarri, Conte, Hiddink, Mourinho, Benitez, ...). So appointing Lampard was definitely an unusual move even if it's not the club's first.

2. United: before Ole, they had Mourinho, van Gaal and Moyes (not counting Giggs since he was just a caretaker). So it was definitely a move that the club hadn't done in a long time.

3. Arsenal: before Arteta, they had Emery who took over after Wenger left.

There's definitely a trend here that's making many clubs go for youth and inexperience rather than seasoned, grey managers.

Maybe I was wrong in saying "originally started by Barcelona", but Barça and Madrid's success stories have definitely revived this trend because it's clearly more frequent now.

danyjr wrote:Every season people say Arsenal need new signings. Arteta has actually spent more than Pep this season. He's made enough signings with a good combination of experienced and young and is paying players like Willian, Partey and Aubameyang salaries not many teams in the world can afford.

Simply put, the performances have not been in line with the money spent, hence more money is not going to solve the issue. The teams above Arsenal who have done much more with much less should serve Arsenal as an example.

Yep money can't be an argument when simultaneously teams like Soton, Leeds, Wolves are outperforming you.

Football has gone nuts really. I know the culture has shifted in terms of quick results and quick transition of a club. It surely needs to be looked at closely from a strategic point of view whether it really makes sense to appoint new managers and sack them within few months/few years.

Arteta was clearly a project where "learn while on the job" tag was used. Not defending his tactics or his systems but I would first sack the person who appointed him and who laid out this project/strategy with Arteta. If Arteta has failed, so has the person who has appointed him. That means the decision making process is flawed when they appointed Arteta.

I think Arsenal should wait before again taking some random, stupid decision to sack the existing manager and to appoint someone else unless there is a clear upgrade/guarantee available in the market. For me, Arteta needs to be given more time to prove himself.

Helmer wrote:Football has gone nuts really. I know the culture has shifted in terms of quick results and quick transition of a club. It surely needs to be looked at closely from a strategic point of view whether it really makes sense to appoint new managers and sack them within few months/few years.

You're certainly making a fair point here.

This is going to sound a little simplistic, but I have always thought that the expectations of any club correlates highly with their budget coupled with the quality of the players they have.

So if for instance I give you an elite squad and enough money to sign your own players to execute your plan to perfection and you still come up short at the end of the season, the sacking becomes justified.

If, however, I give you a modest squad and fail to sign your targets then I can't blame you later when you don't deliver.

In Arsenal's case, and even though Kroenke has always been a little stingy, the squad they currently have is certainly way too good for 14th place. So Arteta is definitely coming up short here. And the reason he still hasn't been sacked yet in my opinion is because the club isn't in a hurry for silverware and their expectations doesn't seem to be that high.

Arsenal may be a big club, but their board is certainly not acting like one.

15th place, 13 points after 11 games, negative goal difference, just lost the NLD.

Surely that has to be the end of the story?

Surely he has to be sacked tonight? Tomorrow?

His job is safe for now

At a normal club he would have been sacked tonight but we love to take our time.

Couple of ways to look at this one:

This isn't terribly off from where Spurs were last season, and this is about where Poch was sacked. There are a couple of key differences, like the pure # of injuries Poch was dealing with, and the fact that Poch was highly proven.

I wouldn't say it's wrong for Arteta to get the sack. At the same time, I think it wouldn't be awful to wait another few weeks (3-5).

Arsenal are out of the CL race in all probability. Partially because they're pretty far behind now and partially because they suck. At this point sacking him is because you want to get EL qualification, and it's arguable if that's really a goal to move towards as opposed to giving a young manager more time.

IMO Arteta is out of his depth and should go right now. But Arsenal aren't playing for much, so I don't see it as wrong to hold on for a few more weeks and see if he can right the ship.

Another former player-manager out of his depth

Who would've thunk

The sooner this trend dies, the better, Zizou really got clubs seeing red after his successes

He must be sacked immediately, no alternative, this is just not good enough, the club must act and think of something.

We are talking about a hugely expensive squad full of top players, Aubameyang, Lacazette, Pepe, Partey.
There are no excuses for shit results and performances like that.

And it's not like he's just taken over, he's in the job since one year.

RealGunner wrote:His job is safe for now

Why? How is this possible? Surely his sacking compensation fee isn't terribly high is it? Seeing he was hired as a complete newbie on surely not a very high a salary?

They trust him and want to give him more time. Also another transfer window or two.

He said how he needs 6 or 7 new players so let's see if the club listens.

RealGunner wrote:He said how he needs 6 or 7 new players so let's see if the club listens.

Trust a nobody Pep wannabe with 7 new signings. Sounds legit.

CBarca wrote:Couple of ways to look at this one:

This isn't terribly off from where Spurs were last season, and this is about where Poch was sacked. There are a couple of key differences, like the pure # of injuries Poch was dealing with, and the fact that Poch was highly proven.

I wouldn't say it's wrong for Arteta to get the sack. At the same time, I think it wouldn't be awful to wait another few weeks (3-5).

Arsenal are out of the CL race in all probability. Partially because they're pretty far behind now and partially because they suck. At this point sacking him is because you want to get EL qualification, and it's arguable if that's really a goal to move towards as opposed to giving a young manager more time.

IMO Arteta is out of his depth and should go right now. But Arsenal aren't playing for much, so I don't see it as wrong to hold on for a few more weeks and see if he can right the ship.

I would agree with some of that. Probably Arsenal board can chalk out a plan meanwhile just in case things do not improve till end of December, how exactly they wish to have things in place across all sectors of the club so that there is no rinse and repeat situation once again.

Haven't caught much if any of Arsenal this season, what are their problems?

His excuses are identical to Pep's. Somehow they both believe having more possession than the other team makes them protagonists, thus deserving to win.

Off-topic: as a La Liga fan, what concerns me more is the bigger picture when I see Arsenal. Unfortunately this bottom half EPL team easily raided a CL team and possible La Liga winners for Partey. It is becoming more common for mediocre EPL teams to easily pry and steal La Liga players simply because they have far more money than their Spanish counterparts. You can be as sure that Partey didn't leave Atlético for Arsenal because of glory. He left for money and the fact that Arsenal paid his buy-out clause.

danyjr wrote:

His excuses are identical to Pep's. Somehow they both believe having more possession than the other team makes them protagonists, thus deserving to win.

Off-topic: as a La Liga fan, what concerns me more is the bigger picture when I see Arsenal. Unfortunately this bottom half EPL team easily raided a CL team and possible La Liga winners for Partey. It is becoming more common for mediocre EPL teams to easily pry and steal La Liga players simply because they have far more money than their Spanish counterparts. You can be as sure that Partey didn't leave Atlético for Arsenal because of glory. He left for money and the fact that Arsenal paid his buy-out clause.

Arsenal's football under Arteta has very little to do with Pep's, just as much with Moyes' tbh.

RealGunner wrote:
He said how he needs 6 or 7 new players so let's see if the club listens.

When did he say that? Before or after he got 5 new players?

52 crosses, holy shit. This is Cross and Inshallah on steroids.

Kaladin wrote:Another former player-manager out of his depth

Who would've thunk

The sooner this trend dies, the better, Zizou really got clubs seeing red after his successes

Mate, this didn't start with Zizou, it's been going on for as long as football has been around. If you get rid of former players you lose 90% of your managers.

Arsenal had chance to sign ancelotti but they went for arteta instead. i dont think ancelotti would made  a vast improvement with current arsenal squad but atleast in terms of man management he would have sorted out some players to get the best abilities out of them

know how it feels gunner fans hang tight

Only few days ago people were baying for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's head, now United is 5th with a game in hand.

Arteta deserves the patience and trust.

Kick wrote:

Kaladin wrote:Another former player-manager out of his depth

Who would've thunk

The sooner this trend dies, the better, Zizou really got clubs seeing red after his successes

Mate, this didn't start with Zizou, it's been going on for as long as football has been around. If you get rid of former players you lose 90% of your managers.

I know, i am just saying post-Zizou there was a wave of player managers

And yes, it should be like that. A coach should be an old parental figure not some green chickling, with a face younger than his players who barely got his badges but saw tifofootball on youtube and decided to give it a shot