Originally Posted by
I am invisible
The thing is, it’s not just about where we finish and how we’re progressing on the pitch - that’s just half of it.
Just think back to the state the club was in when Arteta took over: no vision or leadership anywhere, chaos at executive level, culture in the toilet, relationship with the fans in the toilet, atmosphere at the ground in the toilet, outdated coaching methods, untrained, criminally unfit players who had just tanked two managers (three if you included Arsene) and were treating the place as their private social club, wage bill and contracts out of control, a bloated, unscientific scouting network who’s only purpose was to get Arsene what he wanted (and that had since been made completely redundant by Raul’s contacts book), Stat DNA there just sitting there ignored and unused (we own that ffs!), no joined-up thinking between the academy and the first team, etc. The list of problems was endless.
Now look at where we are now - all of that has been addressed, and it’s been done during a global pandemic no less! It’s been painful at times, but we really have turned the tanker over these last couple of years and, imo, Arteta has been the driving force behind allot the changes we’ve seen. It certainly hasn’t come from Josh or Vinnai or Edu - the first of those two are willing, but clueless and, whilst Edu seems capable, I don’t think he has the sheer force of personality needed to have made it happen (if you point him at a task then he’ll get the job done, but he looks easily led and can easily become part of the problem when you have someone like Raul doing the pointing). Honestly, I’ve been blown away by the turnaround - absolutely blown away.
As always the big question you need to ask when judging any manager is: will he leave the club in a better state than he found it? And that has to be a resounding ‘yes’ for Arteta. You might not rate what he’s been doing in the pitch, but whoever comes after him will walk into a well-oiled machine with no fires to put out and nothing to worry about other than coaching the first team. For me, the Arteta appointment has already been a hugely worthwhile.