When will Arteta be sacked by

[HCZ_Reborn]

Yeah - fair enough - we are all guilty of over statement sometomes

I take your argument re the level of responsibility assumed by Arteta, albeit that my position is (I guess) that it is what it is, and we are yet to see whether it takes us where we want to go.

I just don’t see how it can ever be successful in this day and age, it ended in tears for Wenger because he took on too much power. Arteta shouldn’t be the boss of the Director of Football, it’s not to say he can’t have input over transfers but Berta shouldn’t be his Acolyte.

[Mac76]

Mate - that's not really an illuminating point. Every team's performance (and of course this is always relative) is to a large degree down to things within a manager's gift (HCZ knows I don't agree with his 'pilotless team' argument). This is evidenced by teams' relative ups and downs under different managers. Arsenal are no different.

Also, few managers (if any) do not make some mistakes, or are not reliant on good fortune.

Again, I am not making excuses for Arteta's mistakes (that I have criticised on many occasions), what I am saying is that people calling for his head are, in my view, taking our league performance and failure to improve on 2nd place as irrefutable proof that he is not up to the job, and failing to see this in any proper context.

I'd have thought all the things i mentioned re tactics, team selections etc is context, that said I'm not one of the ones saying our league position is our fault more than other factors, in particular what people are saying even now about finishing second being really important is silly given what's on offer in the CL

[Mac76]

It’s almost not worth responding to this, because I think you’re so desperate to be right your whole argument is utterly confused.

What im clearly saying is if the setup at a club is good enough it doesn’t necessarily matter who the coach is. This isn’t the same as saying at every club the coach is just a functionary….please tell me you understand that?. It didn’t matter for Real Madrid whether Zidane or Ancelotti was head coach because ultimately they were just one small part of the overall structure.

So I don’t even know why you’d mention Forest or Everton as neither work to that structure. And I think it’s strange that you’re still trying the Moyes example because actually the results for Everton have gone back to being how they were under throat cancer boy, so your example of why what I’m saying is absurd actually only serves to prove my point.

Arsenal don’t have that structure either, Arteta has far too much power and influence, that needs to be curbed. We don’t need self professed geniuses with a god complex, we need quiet unremarkable guys who can work as part of a team not being the generalissimo.

Now kindly go away and try not to start arguments with people unless you bother to actually understand what the argument is first

Nice try but you have a habit as you well know of making unequivocal statements which others prove untrue and then you try to shift the point, change your position (I note the use of 'necessarily' in your view on coaches all of a sudden ) or try to simply bury everything under relentless denial

I've no desire to have an argument per se but you keep on relentlessly saying rhings which are nonsense and then when people demonstrate you're wrong through examples you call them 'exceptions'

Just know that no-one's taken in by it

[HCZ_Reborn]

Nice try but you have a habit as you well know of making unequivocal statements which others prove untrue and then you try to shift the point, change your position (I note the use of 'necessarily' in your view on coaches all of a sudden ) or try to simply bury everything under relentless denial

I've no desire to have an argument per se but you keep on relentlessly saying rhings which are nonsense and then when people demonstrate you're wrong through examples you call them 'exceptions'

Just know that no-one's taken in by it

So just to clarify again so I’m not misunderstanding you

I say I don’t want us to sign Gyokeres because I think it’s not a great idea to sign someone who is almost 27 and hasn’t played at any higher rate of domestic football than Portugal and your response is “Jamie Vardy ha ha I win”


I say that a club that spends the most money and has the best players will invariably win the biggest prizes or perform the best, and to that end who the coach is, is far more peripheral than a lot of people here think it is and your response is “Leicester City, Nottingham Forest and something about David Moyes, ha ha I win”


You can understand how from my perspective it’s a bit like me saying “you always have sandwiches for lunch”

And you saying “that’s a nonsense statement because one day five years ago I had a salad”


And another thing, it’s not people who are arguing with me like this. It’s you. Just you

If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were being petty minded because Ive held a mirror up to you as a person, and you keep denying it and giving examples of how I’m wrong about you that keep on inadvertently proving my point.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Seriously, I don’t think anyone is in any doubt that I can be a rude and condescending prick when the mood takes me. But unlike you it seems I’m actually aware of it. I’m actually discussing things with other people here (others might say for a change ) in a respectful way and youre being a dick and showing that you didn’t even understand the point I was making before you decided to blunder in and try and refute it.
Now that’s not entirely your fault, as I think two other people misunderstood the point I was making, and whilst usually I’d make that their problem. Today I decided to be reasonable and explain it better. Do they agree with me? No but I don’t need them to, but they now know at least that I’m not talking about having a “pilotless team”

I’m fine with you being a bell end when I’m being one, but today? It just makes you seem quite childish for a man your age

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

But your post ignores many of the points that I have raised.

I did watch the Barca/Inter game last night and share your sentiment that the level appeared far higher for both teams than we have shown. What I fail to understand is how this relates to the arguments I have raised to put Arteta's performance with us into context.

Barca - 5x winners of the comp in the past 20 years. Inter 1x winners in this period, and finalists in 2022/23. Both teams with continuous participation in and experience of the comp for the past 7 seasons (Barca since 1998). Arsenal never winners and not even in the comp for 5 years prior to last season. Even then, Arteta matched Barca's performance last season and bettered Inter's. Surely you are not saying that because Arsenal's performance on Tuesday with a very depleted team did not match these two last night this should be the standard by which Arteta is judged. Put another way, would Inzaghi's or Flick's teams been as scintillating/effective with 2 of their best 3 MF's absent; no strikers; no first choice LCM and, say Lamal and Dumfries (who scored or assisted all 6 goals last night) at 70%? You also don't know how PSG - equally packed with talent - would have fared against either team.

Your 'favourite' for the EPL and the CL point cuts both ways BTW. At the time when this may have been the case - it was based on performances and results achieved by guess who - the manager you want rid of. I'm also not buying the choker tag. You can't apply this while at the same time ignoring our injuries. My view is that we might have prevailed on Tuesday with Partey playing. We even had good chances to win the match. Are these factors the manager's fault?

Is it naive to think that titles are won by sometimes incremental progression? Even the great Klopp - coming in with vastly more experience - took 4 seasons to win the league and having done so failed to do this again in his following 4 seasons. There are almost inevitably setbacks - success is often not linear. Yes Slot, and some Chelsea managers won the league at the first time of asking, but my above post pointed out Slot's advantages over Arteta, and Chelsea had financial advantages not available to him. Also, Arteta did not inherit a decent core of a team. He came into a club in complete disarray, with a mediocre and unbalanced team, and huge work to do to turn the ship around.

If you are panning Arteta for an admittedly disappointing league season this season, are you saying that had our first team remained largely fit this season we would not have had a decent shout at overhauling Liverpool?

Where I have more sympathy with you is taking the next step. We are yet to see how we do this, and I am reserving judgment until I do.

The main thrust of my above post was lamenting the lack of any balance and context in assessing our manager. HCZ at least acknowledges Arteta's achievements. The issue is not as black and white as people on both sides of the argument seem to think.

IBK, I want to keep this short as I don't have much free time on my hands today.

There will always be good and "solid" arguments for coming up second best, if we don't have/create them we lose our humanity and competition becomes an immoral, unhealthy and fatal concept, like it is in most of the Animal kingdom.

However, deep down we all know that winning and especially dominating requires a level of ruthlessness and conjuring that from the safety of "I tried my best with the hand I was dealt" is likely not going to get you there.

There were factors this season that hindered Arteta. He had no strikers, he had injuries. The first factor was called by every one in the press before the season started. The injuries is a hazard of the job that previously cost us his first proper title run. Next season there will still be some sort of adversarial situation he will need to get past. Its just the way things work.

As for Slot, every unbiased person will agree he started off this season on a weaker footing than Arteta or Pep, yet he prevailed. He had an unfamiliar ageing squad. He came from a different league. He had star players that shouldn't be commited as they had contracts that were ending. He had what everyone considered a vastly inferior team. There will always be adversarial issues one needs to get past, this what makes competition exciting to onlookers.

Also, no one is saying Arteta is a bad manager and hasn't achieved anything; what we are saying is he hasn't achieved what we want and what was expected at specific times; an example is the good fortune we were given with the implosion of Citeh earlier this season in the league. Another example is the good fortune of playing a CL semi final with a team we already beat 2-0.

Next season Citeh won't be this bad. Newcastle and Villa will probably keep improving. Chelsea or ManU could suddenly wake up. Injuries could come. The striker he signs could be a disappointment. Shit happens.

Look, there will always be reasons not to win, but at the end of the day, it's pretty simple, you likely didn't do enough or someone was better and more ruthless than you, which kind of still means you likely didn't do enough. One day you might just have to look in the mirror and recognise that you don't have that "umphh", that ruthlessness or the desire, that carries you through the finishing line, especially when 2nd best become a habit.

Ultimately, where we differ is you believe Arteta is the best person that can take advantage of "his' team and turn them to winners. What I am saying is I've seen little evidence that he has that "quality" that will allow him to do so. I am also saying their are other people who immediately can, as Slot has proven.

It's thin margins, you could be right, but you've (we've) been wrong for 6 seasons and counting.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I see it’s not just me, who says “I don’t have time to spend all day arguing” and then proceeds to write a short novella

[Mac76]

Seriously, I don’t think anyone is in any doubt that I can be a rude and condescending prick

Finally an accurate statement, progress

[HCZ_Reborn]

As for Slot, every unbiased person will agree he started off this season on a weaker footing than Arteta or Pep, yet he prevailed. He had an unfamiliar ageing squad. He came from a different league. He had star players that shouldn't be commited as they had contracts that were ending. He had what everyone considered a vastly inferior team. There will always be adversarial issues one needs to get past, this what makes competition exciting to onlookers.




I think he had the third best squad in the league (second best in attack) and he had the fortune of having no one competing with him for the title. I’m honestly not trying to do him down, I actually like the fact that he’s humble. But if you compare Liverpool last season with it this season, there’s not a remarkable amount of difference, the main difference is how Arsenal and City have done by comparison.


Now I fully expected that Klopp’s departure would be disastrous for Liverpool, and that Liverpool not only would not compete for the title but would struggle to get top 4. So Slot deserves credit for defying this, but I would still argue that he wasn’t left with the club in a mess by Klopp (just in the same way that if Arteta fucks off, the next guy will be left with a pretty good setup) and actually the whole set up at Liverpool was conducive to a smooth transition

[Mac76]

So just to clarify again so I’m not misunderstanding you

I say I don’t want us to sign Gyokeres because I think it’s not a great idea to sign someone who is almost 27 and hasn’t played at any higher rate of domestic football than Portugal and your response is “Jamie Vardy ha ha I win”


I say that a club that spends the most money and has the best players will invariably win the biggest prizes or perform the best, and to that end who the coach is, is far more peripheral than a lot of people here think it is and your response is “Leicester City, Nottingham Forest and something about David Moyes, ha ha I win”


You can understand how from my perspective it’s a bit like me saying “you always have sandwiches for lunch”

And you saying “that’s a nonsense statement because one day five years ago I had a salad”


And another thing, it’s not people who are arguing with me like this. It’s you. Just you

If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were being petty minded because Ive held a mirror up to you as a person, and you keep denying it and giving examples of how I’m wrong about you that keep on inadvertently proving my point.

A lot of people disagree with you a lot of the time, I'm sure like me they just give up sometimes because you always counter and deny everything, but that's where my point about relentlessness comes in

And you've done it again ofc, re Gyokeres you specifically said a mid-20s player from the Chamiponship couldn't do well at PL level, on coaches you said just above somewhere that the coach didn't make a difference and then when people actually undertake the admittedly pointless exercise of tryi g to show you how wrong you are, in the vain hope you might avoid getting yourself into these situations so often, you play the man not the ball and roll out the faux psychologist stuff

All so predictable so yes, fool on me for taking up a train journey with it out of boredom