Man U reaction and player ratings

[Marc Overmars]

I don’t think things were that bad. Apart from the fact that for reasons I couldn’t fathom we were starting Joe Willock in games, the squad wasn’t terrible. We had functional strike force in Auba and Lacazette.

I don’t rate Pepe but actually could have been used better

The midfield is actually worse now than it was then. Defence was pretty rubbish admittedly.

Arteta it feels to me fell out with too many of these players because he didn’t have the personality to manage them properly. Someone who isn’t so thin skinned and can actually interact with people on a one on one basis maybe wouldn’t have found themselves needing to junk most of the team for next to nothing.

It feels that the club have persevered with Arteta in a way it didn’t with Emery despite nothing Arteta has done has shown he deserves that patience.

I am utterly convinced that we will look back on his tenure as coach as being an utterly dismal failure (as we should)

Emery is a good coach but wasn’t the right fit for us. He also worked with Sanllehi and Mislintat who bombed really as far as recruitment goes, all 3 of them were sent packing within months of each other. Persevering with Emery was never really an option with such a mess at executive level too. Plus as far as I’m concerned those players completely downed tools at the back end of that season, the league form fell off a cliff and that culminated in the Europa League final disaster. The hangover from that continued and led to his sacking the following season.

Anyway as for Arteta that’s fine if you think this is going to end in tears, a part of me thinks it will too mainly because Arsenal have conditioned me to think that way due to recent history, however I feel like we’re still some way off pressing the panic button. He’s been given the time Emery wasn’t because the club actively pushed the self-destruct button and started again, rather than just try to repair something that was long broken. Also, you have to give a rookie time otherwise what’s the point? The club had to have some courage of its convictions with him.

As I said though, 3 years is fair and he’s been backed enormously. We must be playing CL next season.