Match Reaction: Inter 1 Arsenal 0

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Originally Posted by Letters

Certainly the people I have spoken to don't, I do seem to be in the minority - which is unlike me, I'm usually the super patient one.
But my reasoning is that while I fully acknowledge he has done a lot of good, and were we not up against the juggernaut of City we'd definitely have one title, possibly two, it feels like we have peaked under him. The areas of weakness last season weren't addressed in the summer and we look to have gone backwards. I just don't feel that Arteta is the man to push us over that final hurdle and land a major trophy.


I don't think the part in brackets is as true as it used to be. There does seem to have been a real investment and push to do a bit better than just endless top 4 finishes. From All or Nothing it did feel there was more of a plan and more ambition.

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I think the issue with attacking players goes back well before the summer

I acknowledge to an extent that this summer was going to be one of belt tightening, it was abundantly clear to me that we had to make player sales in order to be FFP compliant, this is why we went for the cheaper and inferior option in Merino over Zubimendi. But there was no justification in my book for spending 45 million on another defender, Arteta has spent years and a lot of money trying to procure this perfect left back….from Zinchenko to Timber to now Calafiori.
Now I really like Calafiori I’ve been really impressed by what I’ve seen of him, but we had to buy a striker at the exclusion of everything else if things were tight but we had to sign a striker.

But the thing is the same was true last summer and we ended up with Havertz, and I also like Havertz but let’s not forget that Arteta bought him as a midfielder, he’s only playing up front because Arteta finally relented and admitted he was no good playing in midfield.

In fact Jesus was never an out and out striker, often he’d play on the wing for Man City. So in fact if you look at it, we’ve never actually signed an out and out striker in the almost five years Arteta has been with us. The defenders and defensive midfielders we’ve signed are far in excess of what we’ve spent on creative players and strikers throughout his tenure. The only conclusion that you can come to is Arteta simply does not value these areas

For the millionth time it wasn't FFP it was the Kroenkes wanting to break even in terms of our summer spend8ng

[QUOTE=Mac76;4597237]For the millionth time it wasn't FFP it was the Kroenkes wanting to break even in terms of our summer spend8ng[/QUOTE

Even with the Champions league money coming in the cost of the transfers we’ve made in the last few years, and the fact that we’ve been making modest losses for about five years, means we have to expand commercial revenue and continue to be in the Champions League for the next few seasons and that’s without factoring in extra expenditure for new signings.

Are we in the position of Newcastle or Aston Villa? Let alone Everton or Forest. No


But it’s a consideration all the same. Much in the same way it has been for Liverpool and let’s be fair every club in the league

The days of going berserk are over, even Chelsea had to act with some restraint

The point anyway was that the failure wasn’t even so much in not signing a striker in the summer, but not signing at least one in the three transfer windows between Summer 2022 and Summer 2023 (Jesus nor Havertz really count in my view)

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Originally Posted by Mac76

For the millionth time it wasn't FFP it was the Kroenkes wanting to break even in terms of our summer spend8ng[/QUOTE

Even with the Champions league money coming in the cost of the transfers we’ve made in the last few years, and the fact that we’ve been making modest losses for about five years, means we have to expand commercial revenue and continue to be in the Champions League for the next few seasons and that’s without factoring in extra expenditure for new signings.

Are we in the position of Newcastle or Aston Villa? Let alone Everton or Forest. No


But it’s a consideration all the same. Much in the same way it has been for Liverpool and let’s be fair every club in the league

The days of going berserk are over, even Chelsea had to act with some restraint

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Anyway, spending lots of money has nothing to do with taking objective decisions about how much power you give the manager and how long you give them to succeed, which is actually what I'm talking about

[QUOTE=Mac76;4597243]

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

Anyway, spending lots of money has nothing to do with taking objective decisions about how much power you give the manager and how long you give them to succeed, which is actually what I'm talking about

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No it doesn’t, and I’m saying that spending loads of money is what helped Chelsea win things not their management policy

My attitude is unless there is a horrible run of results, a coach should get three seasons to show noticeable improvement

As for how much power the coach has, I do think a coach should be able to choose the players they want at the club. How much influence they have outside of first team tactics and training etc, well preferably little as there such be some element of compartmentalisation in that regard

[QUOTE=HCZ_Reborn;4597244]

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Originally Posted by Mac76

No it doesn’t, and I’m saying that spending loads of money is what helped Chelsea win things not their management policy

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Well that's demonstrably untrue, you only have to look at Chelsea more recently and also Man Ure to know that spending loads of money doesn't work unless you get the right manager

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

Well that's demonstrably untrue, you only have to look at Chelsea more recently and also Man Ure to know that spending loads of money doesn't work unless you get the right manager

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It would be demonstrably untrue if I’d said that spending money is the only guarantee of winning things. Man United like Chelsea (more recently) have spent a lot of money on players that weren’t good enough or had the wrong attitude.


Chelsea’s high turnover of managers almost always accompanied a run of poor results, and in both cases their champions league wins were accompanied by poor league form. Three of their five titles were delivered by the same coach….so there’s an argument for retaining a sense of consistency

I’m not sure I’d back Arsenal being run in the same way as Chelsea however during the Abramovich era it was ridiculous how much they won despite the chaos. It was hard not to be envious when our supposed stability and consistency yielded nothing other than a few FA Cup wins.

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Originally Posted by Letters

Certainly the people I have spoken to don't, I do seem to be in the minority - which is unlike me, I'm usually the super patient one.
But my reasoning is that while I fully acknowledge he has done a lot of good, and were we not up against the juggernaut of City we'd definitely have one title, possibly two, it feels like we have peaked under him. The areas of weakness last season weren't addressed in the summer and we look to have gone backwards. I just don't feel that Arteta is the man to push us over that final hurdle and land a major trophy.


I don't think the part in brackets is as true as it used to be. There does seem to have been a real investment and push to do a bit better than just endless top 4 finishes. From All or Nothing it did feel there was more of a plan and more ambition.

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Yes, the concern definitely is that Arteta may have peaked. There are some mitigating circumstances - look at Liverpool last season after they had been pipped by Citeh to the title by a point the previous one - off the top by 9 points, there can be fallout.

But I agree with others that the issue could well be that our manager's natural focus is on defence/possession and not in sharpening our attack. Given what we are seeing in the league - even Pep, the manager who seemed previously willing to play without an out and out striker revised his approach when buying Haaland - this seems a somewhat outmoded approach (could Arteta be living a bit in the past from his Citeh experience?).

Its funny how we have gone so quickly from having what was considered the most cutting edge tactical manager in the league (with Guardiola) to the likes of Iraola; Maresca; Slot and even Espirito Santo and Emery showing that their tactical nous is equal to his.

It's Arteta's blind spots that may prevent him from making further progress with us. It's too early to assess whether our current form will continue, but the signs are suddenly not particularly optimistic.