Quote Originally Posted by Letters View Post
I've always liked Arteta, but he always felt like a punt. He had no real experience at this level.
I thought he came across pretty well in All or Nothing, his team talks were bizarre but seemed to be effective for the team, which is the main thing.
There has been progress under him but the rate of it has been frustratingly slow. Then this season happened.
I did get the sense from All or Nothing that there was a strategy and they were trying to build something, I don't think any of us expected us to step up so much this season - my guess is Arteta secretly didn't expect it either.
It’s odd how two people can watch something and reach a different conclusion. I honestly tried to put my personal dislike of the man behind me, for the first episode of so he came across vaguely sympathetic in that he comes across as someone who is socially awkward (almost to the neurodiverse extent) his body language is closed, he finds it hard to maintain eye contact and he just seems naturally introverted.
But as time went on I just found him unlikable, shouting at the players for his own tactical mistakes….the only time I actually remember seeing his post match team talk and thinking actually the tone and the message were spot on was the post match against City at home…didn’t rant and rave, just calmly explained how they’d played really well but they’d let themselves down at times in the opposition goal and defending their own one…but wasn’t trying to kick them whilst they are down but to say don’t feel sorry for yourselves or hard done by there is a lesson you can take from this.

I remember being at the Brighton game and thinking the players just have no faith in how they’ve been sent out to play (putting Xhaka at left back, playing Lokonga and Smith Rowe in central midfield) and he comes out with some completely incoherent nonsense about Edison and then bollocks the players because he sent them out against a tough tackling team that is far more comfortable on the ball.

I just felt at times like this wasn’t a guy capable of getting his message across or developing a relationship with his players, and maybe this time around he has become more confident and more relaxed. Hopefully because it felt like the players had a much better relationship with Edu and Steve Round than they did him. I think they respect him as someone with great tactical knowledge and that’s where I think Arteta really is strong as a coach, I think his understanding of the game is second to none…