When will Arteta be sacked by

[Chippy]

it was horrible - i only dared look at the result at about 11pm that night - was so relieved

Klopp

Me too! I just couldn't watch it

[Letters]

I have wanted him gone since November 2020, and I’ve yet to be convinced that this was precipitous. If it was up to me he and Edu would be out on their arses right now. But it’s not up to me, I have no choice but to be patient with him because he isn’t going anywhere so I can only hope that what I regard as utter dismal failure is turned around.

Out of interest, how would you define success and on what basis?

[IBK]

I think that there are 2 problems with those Gooners who are most vocal about Arteta's regime being a failure. First while its easy to be critical, there is often far less offered regarding what they would do differently, within the constraints of the club. Its easy just to say we should have spent more, or got in a 'world class' manager, without recognising that whoever came in and whoever was bought would always represent a risk. We tried the marquee players route at Arsenal (and we have actually spent a lot over the past few years), and it didn't really work. Other clubs have signed 'big names' (Manure; Spurs) and fallen flat on their faces. This argument fails also to acknowledge just what a mess our club was in after Wenger's long reign.

Second, IMO this argument often seems to be based on Arsenal being in a vacuum. While we may regard ourselves as being a 'top four' club, the reality is that the competition has changed - and strengthened hugely. We can look at games lost this season, but aside from Liverpool and Citeh - outliers that cannot fairly be compared to where we are at present, everyone in the leahue drops points aplenty. I don't but this 'weak opposition this season' argument. We will finish 5th on merit, just short of 4th and not that many points adrift of 3rd. In the real world and with our young team - this is by no means abject failure.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Out of interest, how would you define success and on what basis?

Well I find it’s less about what is successful in terms of my expectations but more consistent signs that there is a roadmap to success
Signs of success would be increased goal scoring and more signs that we can deal with adversity. It’s already been discussed that we have an atrocious record of getting back into games when we concede the first goal, almost to the point that when we go 1-0 down you might as well call it a day.
Will additional personnel help with that? Well I hope so but at the same time it feels like we’ve not made the best use of the players at our disposal, and often Arteta has a tendency for Galaxy Brained tactical line ups and throwing players in at the deep end where he’s overused others and broken them.
I’ve not seen a progressive learning curve either in our transfer dealings or in the way we approach games and I’m not at all convinced that we are likely to see either.
Ultimately I’m open to being proved wrong because I have no choice and I want to be wrong, I think the upheaval of getting rid of Arteta will be wholly undesirable. I just have no faith in him, and from a psychological perspective I don’t see him as a person I’d go to war for.

I caveat that by saying that I appreciate he’s a relatively young individual on a steep learning curve, it was also obvious Man City and Guardiola think highly of him I think he’s far more tactically astute than Arsene Wenger ever was and I think whatever I say about his relationship with the players it’s clearly not non existent like it was with Unai Emery.
But I think when you look at Klopp who despite having spent more inherited just as big a mess at Liverpool as Arteta inherited, it was already established within the same time frame that Liverpool were a tough side to beat and could destroy teams on the pitch and I do not think we intimidate opposition sides at all

[HCZ_Reborn]

I think that there are 2 problems with those Gooners who are most vocal about Arteta's regime being a failure. First while its easy to be critical, there is often far less offered regarding what they would do differently, within the constraints of the club. Its easy just to say we should have spent more, or got in a 'world class' manager, without recognising that whoever came in and whoever was bought would always represent a risk. We tried the marquee players route at Arsenal (and we have actually spent a lot over the past few years), and it didn't really work. Other clubs have signed 'big names' (Manure; Spurs) and fallen flat on their faces. This argument fails also to acknowledge just what a mess our club was in after Wenger's long reign.

Second, IMO this argument often seems to be based on Arsenal being in a vacuum. While we may regard ourselves as being a 'top four' club, the reality is that the competition has changed - and strengthened hugely. We can look at games lost this season, but aside from Liverpool and Citeh - outliers that cannot fairly be compared to where we are at present, everyone in the leahue drops points aplenty. I don't but this 'weak opposition this season' argument. We will finish 5th on merit, just short of 4th and not that many points adrift of 3rd. In the real world and with our young team - this is by no means abject failure.

I’m not so sure we are that constrained financially, it’s very clear the self sufficiency model has gone out of the window especially since the pandemic, we are consistently amongst the biggest spenders in the league but when you consider the money spent on full backs, defenders, defensive midfielders etc when the clear problem under Arteta is goal scoring you have to wonder whether it’s been money well spent.

[Globalgunner]

Any team that has the lummox Xhaka as the lynchpin of its midfield is going nowhere. None of the top 7 teams have such a limited player as a constant. None. Arteta is vain and has limited coaching ability, No vision and no visible football philosophy. None of those flaws will be rectified next season. We will be here next May telling you the same thing. Just as we did last May

Its like expecting the Haas team to be amongst the front F1 runners next season. Aint gonna happen

[IBK]

Well I find it’s less about what is successful in terms of my expectations but more consistent signs that there is a roadmap to success
Signs of success would be increased goal scoring and more signs that we can deal with adversity. It’s already been discussed that we have an atrocious record of getting back into games when we concede the first goal, almost to the point that when we go 1-0 down you might as well call it a day.
Will additional personnel help with that? Well I hope so but at the same time it feels like we’ve not made the best use of the players at our disposal, and often Arteta has a tendency for Galaxy Brained tactical line ups and throwing players in at the deep end where he’s overused others and broken them.
I’ve not seen a progressive learning curve either in our transfer dealings or in the way we approach games and I’m not at all convinced that we are likely to see either.
Ultimately I’m open to being proved wrong because I have no choice and I want to be wrong, I think the upheaval of getting rid of Arteta will be wholly undesirable. I just have no faith in him, and from a psychological perspective I don’t see him as a person I’d go to war for.

I caveat that by saying that I appreciate he’s a relatively young individual on a steep learning curve, it was also obvious Man City and Guardiola think highly of him I think he’s far more tactically astute than Arsene Wenger ever was and I think whatever I say about his relationship with the players it’s clearly not non existent like it was with Unai Emery.
But I think when you look at Klopp who despite having spent more inherited just as big a mess at Liverpool as Arteta inherited, it was already established within the same time frame that Liverpool were a tough side to beat and could destroy teams on the pitch and I do not think we intimidate opposition sides at all

All good points but I think it's worth pointing out that (some tactical mis-steps aside) Arteta's best 11 this season was good enough for top 4. I agree that our ability to come back from being a goal down is a cause for concern, but when our strongest team was available the strategy was clearly to score first and then defend a lead and this in turn speaks to the manager either not resolving an effective game plan, or not having the personnel to deal with a low block from the opposition. Both of these can be expected to improve going forwards (and it's no coincidence that we are clearly in the market for a physically imposing CF who can play with his back to goal, hold up play and be a target for crosses). In terms of team building, while our goals against deteriorated in the final third of the season it is a sad fact that our first choice back 5 was only available to the manager for (I think) less than 10 games this season. While they were fit, Arteta's game plan was pretty effective.

I hope very much that the fact that second string players by and large did not let the manager down when called upon is not a lesson missed by our manager or obscured by the general malaise of the whole team at the final hurdle. Rotation is something we must see next season, and if the mistake is repeated then I will be more convinced that Arteta is not the man to take us any further.

Where I do take issue with you is the lack of a progressive learning curve. I think we have seen this over the time that Arteta has been with us. His first incarnation once he was settled was to make us hard to beat and he achieved this and won an FA Cup playing defensively. There is no doubt this season that he made strides in making us a more effective force going forwards. I accept that this could be regarded as self-inflicted, but it's hardly a surprise that with one of our senior strikers offloaded (and on very poor form before this), and the other a busted flush as a goal scorer, goals were increasingly difficult to find.

I'm not sure either that the comparison with Klopp is necessarily a fair one. I don't think that Liverpool were anything like as much of a mess when he took over - at least off the pitch and at executive level. We have to remember that Arsenal were a basket case, badly damaged by Raul Sanllehi, with a vacuum in terms of executive and director level experience when he left. No coherent strategy. No identity. As a rookie, Arteta had to deal with far more entrenched problems than Klopp, who had a wealth of experience to draw on. It really is no surprise that it has taken much longer to steady the ship at Arsenal, and indeed the 'soft' achievements of Arteta in terms of identity; a playing style; healing some of the deep rifts in the fan base and (after time admittedly) putting in place a cohesive recruitment strategy are important signs that there is now a far better and more stable platform to push on than at any time since Wenger left. We don't need to look any further than the shambles at Manure - or even the constant churn of managers down the road from us to see the manager's achievements in some context.

[IBK]

I’m not so sure we are that constrained financially, it’s very clear the self sufficiency model has gone out of the window especially since the pandemic, we are consistently amongst the biggest spenders in the league but when you consider the money spent on full backs, defenders, defensive midfielders etc when the clear problem under Arteta is goal scoring you have to wonder whether it’s been money well spent.

We are constrained financially by comparison with those teams we regard as our rivals - Citeh; Chelsea and Manure (and now Newcastle). We are also constrained by our lack of CL football money for 5 years. Most importantly in terms of my question about what the club's detractors would suggest as a road map for success, we are constrained from simply buying a team of players who will guaratee success.

As I said, we have spent big, and unwisely, and our transfer business has been lamentable, but last Summer was encouraging trasfer wise, and I think the club have earned some optimism that the holes in the squad will be addressed effectively this Summer.

[Globalgunner]

We are not being outspent by Liverpool or Chelsea (Chelsea have been constrained for at least 3 seasons now). We just waste our money. We did not improve our midfield or attack and instead spent on areas we were already stocked like in defence. Has Ramsdale improved us significantly, has Ben White?. Gabriel has been our most dependable defender and he scores goals too. Would Saliba a French international not have been a better addition this season instead of the 50m spent on White that could have given us more bodies in midfield where we are weakest. We spent 75m on Pepe a player not wanted by Emery at the time and discarded by Arteta almost since he arrived. What the other teams like City and Chelsea do is offer higher wages than we generally do but then again we had our 350kpw man (Ozil)for over 4 years until last year and promptly replaced him with Auba. We comfortably outspend the Spuds. Arsenal have no business pleading poverty.


We are a badly run business enterprise saved only by the fact that despite fiscal recklessness we are still a money spinner thanks to the captive addicted fanbase prepared to leverage themselves to keep supporting the club. It is a dwindling fanbase mind you as the new generation outside the UK shores are not keen to line up behind a never do well entity. We will lose the next generation as surely as the previous generation were lured to Arsenal by the exploits of Bergkamp, Henry and Vieira.

[Letters]

We will be here next May telling you the same thing. Just as we did last May.

What exactly were you telling us last May?
I looked through the season predictions thread and you didn’t post.
What was your expectation for this season in terms of league position and what was that based on?