The next manager..

[Özim]

Also worth noting with Leicester that it's not just about the decisive choices that they've made with managers - like Liverpool, they also haven't been afraid to sell on key assets and reinvest the money back into the squad to keep it evolving.

Yes the trouble is we're terrible at that too, often letting our most valuable assets run down their contracts and losing them for a cut price fee or worse nothing. We've got two more of our biggest asset who will have one year left come the summer, so it seems to be happening all over again, we never learn, yet oddly we decided to offer new contracts to Xhaka a player with no real world value in the transfer market.

[Özim]

The biggest evidence of a club that wants to make progress to me is Leicester City. They sacked Nigel Pearson despite them escaping relegation and then sacked Ranieri after he won them the PL title!!! They didnt then just sit there.. they appointed 5 other managers before they landed on Rodgers. If it doesnt work, move on.

We on the other hand cant tell our ass from our elbows and are constantly lumbering around with dead beat managers well beyond their expiration date.

Totally agree and we're so slow to do anything, we just sit there and watch the world go by and miss opportunity after opportunity to get a decent manager in, again with Emery we're just blindly sticking with him hoping for some kind of miraculous turn around that isn't going to happen, because let's be honest here the guy doesn't have a clue.

I'm pretty shocked that in 18 months of learning English this hasn't really improved, I'm not against a manager that doesn't speak English as long as they are capable of learning it, isn't that what Conte did at Chelsea.

[Globalgunner]

The difference is that the owner of Leicester is aspirational. He bought the club with ambitions. He isnt like Kroenke who is all business. The Thai guys want to box well above their weight. Not Mike Ashley who wants to get by with as little investment as possible. Just staying in the EPL gives you bounteous financial rewards if you dont go spending recklesly. Kroenke will only act if his bottom line is being affected. He isnt in it for the glory, Thats why a docile fanbase like ours is just perfect. Left to Kroenke. top half every year is just fine. Spurs need CL money. They are screwed without it. thats why they just had to act.

[Mac76]

Freddie might not be an option - doesn't have his full Uefa licence yet, so he'd only be allowed to do the job for a maximum of 3 months.

ah, didn't know that...

[Mac76]

Benitez... done the job before... won the CL and EL. the Chinese league season finishes end of this week.

that's interesting - can we hope that's what the Board have been waiting for...?

[IBK]

The biggest evidence of a club that wants to make progress to me is Leicester City. They sacked Nigel Pearson despite them escaping relegation and then sacked Ranieri after he won them the PL title!!! They didnt then just sit there.. they appointed 5 other managers before they landed on Rodgers. If it doesnt work, move on.

We on the other hand cant tell our ass from our elbows and are constantly lumbering around with dead beat managers well beyond their expiration date.

Agreed that Leicester have been smart. More importantly perhaps they have fostered a spirit of togetherness and optimism that we haven't had at Arsenal for years. Time and time again it has been proven that a club where all the parts are moving as one will have success on the pitch.

If we are being fair, however, we have to remember that Leicester are a smaller club punching above their weight, and the pressure on them is so much lower than at our club. A success story like Leicester is a rarity rather than the norm. If we want to look at traditionally bigger clubs we need to consider the shambles at Manure; Everton; West Ham and even until recently Spurs (won nothing, still below us in the league) for some balance, and an indication of how difficult it is to get things right. Let's not forget that Rogers was mooted by some for the Arsenal job before Emery was appointed and if IIRC the the idea received a lukewarm reception, at least on here. its easy to be wise after the event. Remember that he ultimately fell short at Liverpool. There is a goldilocks aspect to football management, and maybe Leicester are more suited to his management than a bigger club?

Should we aspire to the progress made by Leicester? Of course. But as you say, they have been through a lot of managers, and each time that happens there is a risk that things will blow up. I'm not as critical of Arsenal's choices until the last few weeks as most, but feel that real criticism will apply if the club does not take decisive action now. It was almost unprecedented having to deal with the end of the Wenger dynasty (the only parallel was Manure and look at how that turned out despite the vast sums spent there), and trying to take a measured view, I feel that some of the accusations leveled at our club hierarchy border on the unfair.

If we don't do anything about our present clusterfuck however, my 'defence' of the club will evaporate.

[I am invisible]

Yes the trouble is we're terrible at that too, often letting our most valuable assets run down their contracts and losing them for a cut price fee or worse nothing. We've got two more of our biggest asset who will have one year left come the summer, so it seems to be happening all over again, we never learn, yet oddly we decided to offer new contracts to Xhaka a player with no real world value in the transfer market.

Yeah, I agree. We've let this weird mentality btake root at the club where we seem to think that being a big club means clinging on to our best players for dear life, and I think it often either paralyses us into indecision or pushes us to make desperate offers. For me, being a big club should be the exact opposite of that - we should be able to move any player on at any moment and not even break stride. And it should always be on our terms.

[IBK]

Yeah, I agree. We've let this weird mentality btake root at the club where we seem to think that being a big club means clinging on to our best players for dear life, and I think it often either paralyses us into indecision or pushes us to make desperate offers. For me, being a big club should be the exact opposite of that - we should be able to move any player on at any moment and not even break stride. And it should always be on our terms.

I agree with you. At Arsenal I think that this mentality has arisen out of a feeling that we cannot compete finacially for the very best, proven players and therefore an innate nervousness about whether the lower tier players that we can attract will measure up. The irony is that our wage bill (partly as a result of our approach) is the fourth (?) highest in the league

[I am invisible]

Agreed that Leicester have been smart. More importantly perhaps they have fostered a spirit of togetherness and optimism that we haven't had at Arsenal for years. Time and time again it has been proven that a club where all the parts are moving as one will have success on the pitch.

If we are being fair, however, we have to remember that Leicester are a smaller club punching above their weight, and the pressure on them is so much lower than at our club. A success story like Leicester is a rarity rather than the norm. If we want to look at traditionally bigger clubs we need to consider the shambles at Manure; Everton; West Ham and even until recently Spurs (won nothing, still below us in the league) for some balance, and an indication of how difficult it is to get things right. Let's not forget that Rogers was mooted by some for the Arsenal job before Emery was appointed and if IIRC the the idea received a lukewarm reception, at least on here. its easy to be wise after the event. Remember that he ultimately fell short at Liverpool. There is a goldilocks aspect to football management, and maybe Leicester are more suited to his management than a bigger club?

Should we aspire to the progress made by Leicester? Of course. But as you say, they have been through a lot of managers, and each time that happens there is a risk that things will blow up. I'm not as critical of Arsenal's choices until the last few weeks as most, but feel that real criticism will apply if the club does not take decisive action now. It was almost unprecedented having to deal with the end of the Wenger dynasty (the only parallel was Manure and look at how that turned out despite the vast sums spent there), and trying to take a measured view, I feel that some of the accusations leveled at our club hierarchy border on the unfair.

If we don't do anything about our present clusterfuck however, my 'defence' of the club will evaporate.

Perhaps my biggest concern for Arsenal right now is the constant, pervasive anxiety I sense emanating from every section of the club about making it into the CL spots each year, and the pressure that it's putting us under. Let's be clear, that pressure isn't come from pride or ambition, which I'd be absolutely fine with - it's coming from fear of financial repercussions. Quite simply, we're living beyond our means right now, and the decisions we've been making are starting to look like they’re increasingly being driven by panic and desperation (e.g. handing out contracts that we can't afford because we're afraid to lose players, taking the safe option with Emery when we might have gone with a bolder choice, blowing next year's budget on trying to make it into the CL this year, etc).

I'm almost at the point now where I think we might need to strip this squad back to the younger players and anyone on less than 100k/wk, so we can lose that financial millstone that's hanging round our necks and reset. Give ourselves a bit of room to breath so we can start to make smart, considered, progressive choices again, and get back to a place where we want to be amongst the best, but where we don't necessarily have to be in order to keep the place running.

I don't think the manager merry-go-round should phase anyone - that's just how the process is for everyone these days. As you say, whether they realise it or not, all clubs are looking for that 'Goldilocks' candidate that is just right for them, and that is always going to involve an element of trial and error. Clubs like Leicester are still more than capable of making the poor hires, as they've shown, but where they're getting it right, and where we're getting it wrong, is that they are far more decisive about moving the wrong people on when it's not working out.

[I am invisible]

I agree with you. At Arsenal I think that this mentality has arisen out of a feeling that we cannot compete finacially for the very best, proven players and therefore an innate nervousness about whether the lower tier players that we can attract will measure up. The irony is that our wage bill (partly as a result of our approach) is the fourth (?) highest in the league

Absolutely! The idea that we can't compete is nonsense. Even without CL income or Stan's input, there's options there for us with the assets we have - we've just lost our bottle.

20 years ago we didn't bat an eyelid at breaking up a double-winning side to rebuild - we sold Anelka, Overmars and Petit in quick succession and then went out and brought in Henry, Pires, Ljungberg and Gilberto. And turned a profit! Liverpool and Leicester have done exactly the same in recent years. For me, a big club mentality is feeling comfortable in selling Suarez, Sterling and Coutinho because you know you can bring in Salah, Mane and Firmino and they'll work. It's being comfortable selling Kante and Mahrez and reinvesting in Ndidi, Maddison, Tielemans, Soyuncu, etc. Question is, do we have anyone left at our club with the nerve (and the competence) to do something similar?