Quote Originally Posted by Letters View Post
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.
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