Leno, Bellerin, Tierney, Partey, Saka, Aubameyang, Gabriel, AMN, Pépé (debatable) and keep the kids, but the rest are no more than freeloaders, journeymen or not good enough. I'd shed no tears if any of those names not mentioned left the club.

Agree 100%

I’d suggest though the kids needs loans to expand their experience if you compare Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham’s to Nketiah and Willock you can understand where we are at the moment.

I wish Arteta would stick up for himself more, he seems to be taking the weight of responsibilities but the hand he was dealt was appalling.

Leno, Bellerin, Tierney, Partey, Saka, Aubameyang, Gabriel, AMN, Pépé (debatable) and keep the kids, but the rest are no more than freeloaders, journeymen or not good enough. I'd shed no tears if any of those names not mentioned left the club.

Really good Arseblog this morning.

This penultimate sentence stood out for me.

...whether it’s Arteta or someone else, there’s a ceiling to what you can achieve with this squad of players, and it’s too low for what we say we want to be.


Couldn't agree more.

There are rumblings that some of the dressing room are not happy with the way he has ostracised some players, the way he has dealt with certain situations. It looks like we will end up selling Guendouzi for peanuts when a season ago we probably could have got £35m for him.

Personally, since day one I have had some misgivings about his team selections, his tactics and his substitutions despite an FA cup win and a few great results against the big boys.

I feel that what we are seeing from Arteta is more David Moyes Everton than Pep Guardiola Man City.

Clearly he has not been given a great hand to work with in terms of the squad but its not the worst set of players either.

Who are some options? Simeone? We still have a big enough name to get a good manager. Plus London and the world's most popular league to boot. I have to think successful foreign managers would like to see if they can win in England.

Arteta did an interview with a Spanish journalist. I found it on twitter, sorry no link but I'll copy out some of the more interesting quotes:
(Asked about Arsenal and which aspect about it has influenced him the most to be the manager) “More than the culture is the knowledge of the club, the values we want to share, know the history, where has that success come from and the fall down afterwards”
"Then from there try to get the project to what you believe, what you feel or you think it’s going to have success but that takes time”
“For me the most important when you are building a new project is that you need to have very clear what you want to do and the people around you have to know what you want to do, believe in that and be willing to defend that for a sustainable and reasonable period of time”.
“Change to what we want has risks and the way we want to play requires a lot of precision, a lot of game lecture. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We have very clear where we are going and in this path there’s going to be times when the project is going to suffer”.
“At Man City in our first year, which was complicated, I saw the reaction of people around Pep, the people in the hierarchy... they didn’t have a doubt, they knew the path to follow, -this year something has happened- but we are going there, the following years it was different”.

(asked about no crowds)
“Without attendance we are lucky the players hear us more but if you ask any player I’m sure they would like to hear us a lot less.

(Asked about the style) “For me the way we occupy space and who is going to move in there is more important than the formation. And from there we have some very similar players that are not used to play in those positions so we have to keep changing the formation a little bit”.
“We want to move to a 4-3-3 but for that you need a lot of specificity in every position but now in 5/6 positions we don’t have it. The aggressiveness, the effectiveness, the amount of steals we make in opposition half I think we have been very steady against some big clubs”
“I think that what we miss is in the opponents area and the last part of the pitch. We have to find the key in the attack, that last decision, that last pass, that last cross to create a goal situation, a goal, a shot, a corner, etc.”

Underlined in bold is the interesting part. To play 4-3-3 Arteta feels we have 5 or 6 players short....and one assumes that is based on the entire squad! You'd think he's talking about a CB, 2 x centre-mids and a couple of forward players - maybe a full back position as well?. The question is can any of the current squad evolve in to the players Arteta wants? Perhaps Saliba can at CB but I don't think Holding or Chambers can. In Central midfield I don't think anyone other than Partey fits the bill. Up top Lacazette, Nelson and Nketiah probably don't fit the bill. Martinelli and Pépé have the potential to meet Arteta's expectations just based on raw talent.

The fact people are talking about new managers on here is depressing. Wiltshire gooner called this yonks ago. Managerial merry go round time for Arsenal as we refuse to accept observational reality.

George Graham should have got more out of David Hillier and Ian selley

It’s funny how any manager with a team packed full of shite players “loses the dressing room”

The fact people are talking about new managers on here is depressing. Wiltshire gooner called this yonks ago. Managerial merry go round time for Arsenal as we refuse to accept observational reality.

Pochettino still isn’t in work, although it’s not impossible he’s simply waiting for the Manchester United job to come up.

One name I haven’t seen mentioned is Gerrard. I watch Rangers whenever I can and he’s really impressing me. Rangers are ultra well-organised and play good football. I understand Rangers routinely play weaker opposition than Arsenal, but he’s got worse players than Arsenal to do it with. Anyone who thinks Arsenal have worse players overall than Rangers is living in a fantasy world. We all have our own ideas of who our worst player is. But whoever your own choice is, I reckon he’d walk into the Rangers team.

Okay, Gerrard has a long affiliation with Liverpool but so have many ex-players with whatever club, who ended up managing their opposition. In our case, O’Leary and Graham to name just two.

Anyway, Gerrard always strikes me as a good professional who, if he joined a club competing with Liverpool, would do everything he can to beat them. The issue is how long Klopp will stay there. But if it’s a few years yet, as I expect, Gerrard can consider what to do if Liverpool offer him their job then.

Having said that, I still want Arteta to get more time. But unless things improve dramatically, the pressure is going to build up on him.

It may be depressing as he is widely backed within football to have a successful future ahead of him in coaching/management. Yet we all have to acknowledge that if the team stops developing, or even worse if it starts to regress, then surely his future has to be up for discussion

Hi Rich,

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for anything major in January.

I think you hit the nail on the head, there are only maybe 5 or 6 players you wouldn't want to lose. That means signing 2 players every summer window is just not enough if you want to close the gap relatively quickly. By the time you have signed 6 players some of the others will be either too old or will have left for pastures new disillusioned by the lack of CL football etc.

Why ? How much of this is the guys fault. Surely after 4 different managers over a few years you have to admit our problems are endemic

...Sorry for the length of this post but if anyone bothered reading it, I hope you don’t see it as a total waste of your time.

If nobody comments it may have been a waste of your time, so I will comment, especially as my lauding of Le Boss has led to your time-consuming work!

1. You really must get out more B.
2. Good research, but I must say I can't recall anybody ever measuring managerial success by days in job. Heaven forbid anybody should check the records but on that basis it may turn out that Mourinho was a better maanager of United than Ferguson! And we all know that wasn't true.
3. Any analysis that has Arteta ahead of George, Herbert and Arsene is surely an exercise in fantasy?

... I have doubts about Arteta but there's also a lot I really like about him. I think it's way too soon to look at dumping him. He's got a squad of some talented individuals and some who are no more than average at best. Add to that the covid crisis which has been unprecedented and hit us hard financially and it's hard to draw too many conclusions about him. There's clearly a bright guy there but until we address some obvious flaws in our personnel, it's hard to gauge too much more. However, we can't keep losing this many games without something giving in the end.

...It is surprising how few managers in the league are being mooted as close to the sack - perhaps it is due to the lack of fans in stadiums so there are no audible boos so the media hasnt had the opportunity to pick up on fan unrest and pile more pressure on managers. I'd bet that in most seasons at least 1 manager has lost his job before Christmas

I'm glad you read it and interpreted the results as I ran out of steam half way through. If your conclusions are correct then I would also have to question the merit of measuring a manager's success solely by the days/trophy ratio. Where would Roberto Di Mateo place in such a table? Didn't he win the Champions League with Chelsea having been in the job a few months?

CHAPMAN: 11/6/25 to 6/1/34, 3132, 3, 1044.0
ALLISON: 28/3/34 to 31/3/47, 4752, 1188.0
WHITTAKER: 2/6/47 to 24/10/56, 3433, 3, 1144.3
MEE: 20/6/66 to 4/5/76, 3607, 3, 1202.3
NEILL: 9/7/76 to 16/12/83, 2725, 1, 2725.0
GRAHAM: 14/5/86 to 21/2/95, 3206, 3, 534.3
WENGER: 1/10/96 to 14/5/18, 7896, 10, 789.6
ARTETA: 20/12/19 to 1/12//20, 348, 1, 348.0


Sorry for the length of this post but if anyone bothered reading it, I hope you don’t see it as a total waste of your time.

Interesting stuff Bern but surely for a fair assessment you have to exclude League Cups and all European competitions since they weren't available to Chapman, Allison & Whittaker.

If nobody comments it may have been a waste of your time, so I will comment, especially as my lauding of Le Boss has led to your time-consuming work!

1. You really must get out more B.
2. Good research, but I must say I can't recall anybody ever measuring managerial success by days in job. Heaven forbid anybody should check the records but on that basis it may turn out that Mourinho was a better maanager of United than Ferguson! And we all know that wasn't true.
3. Any analysis that has Arteta ahead of George, Herbert and Arsene is surely an exercise in fantasy?

Don’t like that stat based on time. Always seems a deliberate snipe at Wenger not accounting for financial difficulties in the 2nd part of his reign.

I’m pretty sure a stat can be produced that jamie vardy is more prolific than Maradona. At some point you just have to use your eyes

And the FA Cup. Two trophies in less than 8 months in the job - and that included the summer break! On B's analysis we should get him in now - he may be unemployed and available.

How the hell can the length of time in post not be relevant to the number of trophies a manager wins? It has to be.

How the hell can the length of time in post not be relevant to the number of trophies a manager wins? It has to be.

It may be depressing as he is widely backed within football to have a successful future ahead of him in coaching/management. Yet we all have to acknowledge that if the team stops developing, or even worse if it starts to regress, then surely his future has to be up for discussion.

The question really is at what point does the club have to try a different manager? Give him at least two more transfer windows? A mid-table finish? Hovering above relegation? Poor football? Dwindling attendances?

Don’t like that stat based on time. Always seems a deliberate snipe at Wenger not accounting for financial difficulties in the 2nd part of his reign.

I’m pretty sure a stat can be produced that jamie vardy is more prolific than Maradona. At some point you just have to use your eyes

It also doesn't take into account the strength of the competition. The EPL has been incredibly tough, with the rise of Chelsea, then City, then the resurgence of Liverpool.

Its a bit like saying a golfer was sh*te because they didn't win a lot of majors in Tiger's heyday.

Because it depends on the circumstances of the club at the time. These things may differ.

For that reason I consider Brian cloughs achievements in football more impressive than Alex Ferguson. It’s a one dimensional statistic

As opposed to a two/three dimensional statistic which is mumbo jumbo and does not exist. Are you a management consultant because you are attempting all the jargon. I suggest you shelve your post. Bit of management speak for you.

A good/great manager will get players to play to their strengths, develop players(even established players), mentor the young, be respected and get players to play beyond their limitations. You could never say that Graham had many great players but jeez he got the best out of them.

As opposed to a two/three dimensional statistic which is mumbo jumbo and does not exist. Are you a management consultant because you are attempting all the jargon. I suggest you shelve your post. Bit of management speak for you.

A good/great manager will get players to play to their strengths, develop players(even established players), mentor the young, be respected and get players to play beyond their limitations. You could never say that Graham had many great players but jeez he got the best out of them.

It also doesn't take into account the strength of the competition. The EPL has been incredibly tough, with the rise of Chelsea, then City, then the resurgence of Liverpool.

Its a bit like saying a golfer was sh*te because they didn't win a lot of majors in Tiger's heyday.