Talk of the Mikel Arteta endgame has enraged Arsenal fans who are absolutely sure the Spaniard is not failing.
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Arteta has failed? Says who…
Long, long time lurker here but what finally prompted me to write in was the Johnny Nic ‘piece’. Quite frankly, he’s talking out of his a**.
So the Arteta plan has failed. Yes, he’s been at the club five years. He’s won an FA Cup in that time (With a team basically unrecognisable to the one today) and a couple Charity Shields if you count them (I don’t, but those are the material accomplishments if you will).
He’s transformed said unrecognisable team from a mid-table mediocrity to routine title challengers. We scored the most goals we’ve ever scored last season. Won the most amount of games we’ve ever won last season. Had the best defence in the league last season. That was only a few months ago, and now’s the time to call for his head? Why? Because we’re four points off City with 11 games gone having played nine of the current top ten (With tough away trips to the Etihad, St James, Stamford Bridge & Villa Park out of the way)?
(Make that seven of the top 10 but carry on – Ed)
Arsenal have already proved that they won’t bow to so called pressure to sack managers. By Johnny’s own metric he should be gone already. Arsenal fans have similarly seen what’s gone on at other big clubs who’ve failed at succession planning (We know who they are) and we’d much rather be in our position than theirs.
If you want to play the even longer game, Pep is finally (probably) going to leave soon, there’s gonna be a power vaccuum. Even if we don’t win it this year, we’re still very well set up to go again next season. Binning it all now to start again is the equivalent to the mining meme where the man stops right before he hits diamond.
Another Irish Gunner
Ps. To anyone who considers Arteta out to be even a remote possibility… Who do you replace him with? There’s no one I’d rather have.
…Safe to say Johnny isn’t reading the mailbox on the regular to read the temperature on Arsenal fans generally, but I have to believe he at least reads the ones after his article drops to see whose piss he’s boiled this time, so maybe he sees this.
Johnny man, what’s happened? You rage against all the worst of modern football’s short-termism, disconnect with fans and media-driven hysteria. You hate the plastics mentality and the ‘only winning trophies counts’ nonsense.
So why this drive-by on Arteta’s Arsenal? Why an insistence that the writing is on the wall, not 3 months after he signed a massive extension? Why are we the mugs for liking a coach – who played for us and now has coached us back to the CL and title contention from doldrums – enough to not be calling for his head after 11 games?
Have written endlessly on the success of ‘the project’ so all I have to say is ‘Has it failed’? Don’t be bloody stupid. Has he peaked? Who can say, but you definitely can’t after 11 games.
I know our mails at this point are boring the rest of the Mailbox senseless, but genuinely, non-Arsenal fans are hyperventilating about ‘end of title challenge’, ‘has Arteta failed’ crap at an unprecedented level and it feels like a necessary call to rationality to just say ‘We’re neither entitled tits who believe we deserve titles and those who don’t win them are failures, nor are we blind devotees worshipping at the alter of Arteta’. The noise from outside the house is much louder than inside, trust me.
Even if we don’t win the title, even if we don’t win the Champions League, we can be happy. Even if we want Arsenal to be better, or feel like Arteta has to step up more, we can be happy.
Just knock it off for one week guys, you’re the ones making football miserable right now, not our team.
Tom, Leyton
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Of course Stewie agrees with Johnny
First off, I have to don my hat in congratulations to Arteta and Arsenal, who finally managed a goal after 300 minutes of competitive football without one. I won’t reiterate my derision of Agent Zero, because tbf he proved me dead wrong by adding “1 VAR-chalked-off goal” to his stat line, so fair play.
What I wanted to write in about actually, was John Nicholson’s brutal and completely accurate, evisceration of Arteta’s managerial record at Arsenal.
Every word resonates and is valid – and this is what will incense a deluge of sensitive Gooners, naturally. Expect to soon be accused of being in cahoots with the Deep State PGMOL, accused of running illicit scams from a Brooklyn pizza basement or, of being RADICAL ANTIFA HAMAS. Or some such nonsense.
The fact of the matter is simple really: can you just Imagine what Arsenal fans would be saying of ANY Spurs manager that spent over £650m, had TEN transfer windows, was paid £15m per season, had bottled not one, but TWO League titles and was being humiliated in the league by a new Liverpool manager that turned up to a club that had finished *below* Spurs the preceding season?
Imagine that new Liverpool manager spent nothing (as Spurs spent another kings ransom), and Spurs were already out of the title race in early November, only to be consigned to a Top 4 scrap with the likes of Fulham, a Newcastle manager whose job was on the line just weeks ago, Brighton with a rookie manager, Forest who were deducted points and almost relegated, and erm, Brentford?!
Arsenal fans would – correctly I might add – absolutely annihilate any such Spurs manager! But naturally because it’s Arteta and it’s a “Process”, it means all reality needs to be suspended 🙄
Many Arsenal fans are showing their propensity for intellectual dishonesty here. Many of them slated Pochettino for being a “bottler” but to my mind, he achieved more than Arteta. A title challenge with a points total it took Arteta hundreds of millions of pounds to get close to, a CL Final, a young side, scintillating football. Now, here’s where things get interesting. What is the standard Arsenal fan reply to “Pochettino did more with less”. Answer? “but Arteta won a trophy, Pochettino won nothing”.
Fair enough. I assume this also means that Arsenal fans entirely accept that ETH did a better job than Arteta, given that trophies are The measurable currency? Errrrr….aaaah. No no, let’s change the criteria again! It’s almost Trumpian at this point 😂😂😂
I really don’t know what it is with the Cult of Personality at AFC. It happened with Wenger – clear he was finished but Arsenal fans would denigrate any suggestion their Messiah was a busted flush even though that was obvious from 2006 – so the comedy of excrement continued far longer than it needed to. And now we see it with Arteta, it’s happening again. All this talk of his “heights”. FAKE ALTITUDE!
The new Brighton manager is far more impressive. He can go a goal down at home to Citeh, and find the tactical and attacking resources to come back, score more than one goal, and annihilate Citeh with attacking football. He did not need a £65m donkey to achieve this, he’s literally playing with an ageing Arsenal reject! A rookie manager, younger than Arteta. Playing great attacking football on a budget – when RdZ left Brighton, which Brighton fan had Hurzeler down as an option? When Klopp departed, how many Liverpool fans said “Slot”?
Ultimately, there are dozens of managers out there capable of replicating or exceeding, what Arteta is doing at Arsenal (whatever that is?), for far less of a budget. You are allowed to win matches when reduced to 10 men. You are allowed to score more goals than the opposition if they open the scoring. You are allowed to have more than one creative midfielder. You are allowed to win major trophies!
And if Slot wins the PL against a Pep-managed Citeh, having come in to a new league, having spent a pittance? Arteta should clear his desk of his own volition, and hand back that security badge. He’s cooked.
Stewie Griffin (“Just you wait”, since 2004 🙄)
Bring back Poch to Spurs
We have had three stubborn managers lately that were not willing to bend. Mourinho and Conte who played defensive football and now Ange who plays all-out attacking football. The way Ange plays relies on speed which is why we are having so many injuries, the high line requires players to have great speed throughout the 90 minutes, something no athlete in any sport is required to do.
The last time we had balance was with Pochettino as manager when we had the best defensive record and one of the best scoring records in the season. Poch was not backed by Levy and his board and thus had a poor start to the season similar to this season and he was dismissed. Bring him back at any cost.
Jim Gamble. COYS !
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Is there a Villa crisis?
Well, it depends what you mean: I’m old enough – as is my 8yo daughter – to remember when 4 points in 6 games was a good run of form in B6. On a related note, today (11/11) is the 3rd anniversary of Steven Gerrard becoming Villa manager (and next-but-one Liverpool manager…) for the first of 343 wonderful days; always a handy perspective-cleanser.
Also, but for that mad penalty in Belgium, Villa would be 5th in the Champions League, ahead of Inter, Barca, Dortmund, Juve, Bayern, Real Madrid, etc etc right now. Had we held on for 10 seconds longer against Bournemouth a couple of weeks ago, we’d be 3rd in the prem at the moment too. Not the end of the world.
But with the tables as tight as they are, everyone has a full hand of ‘if xyz’ cards they can play atm. And if Villa do want to live in a world of stupid paranoid online Big Club arguing, then being 9th isn’t good enough, regardless of how close we are to being Not 9th.
Also, finishing 4th has masked a lot of rough form in 2024: the big boys – City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle, Spurs, even Ten Hag’s Utd – have all absolutely walloped us at least once this year. Martinez dragged us through a couple of rounds of the Conference League before Olympiakos finally put us down; and then we got a real tonking from Palace season (admittedly while the players were drunk).
So what is going wrong? Well, Kamara’s injury has stopped us playing offside – and therefore defending – properly; and Luiz being PSRed has meant the quick passing through the middle – ie our attack – doesn’t work now.
As much as Onana has been a great signing, and Tielemans has been our best player this season, those of us who watch international football might suggest a fully Belgian midfield can cause issues? Having to sell Diaby and Traore means we can’t deploy Bailey in short bursts anymore, and he’s not really a 90-minuter. Having 4 good left backs and no good right backs means our best centre back is not playing at centre back. And basically, Watkins is not taking chances enough.
In short, we need to buy some players. This is how things work at the top right?
Neil Raines
Man City FFP corner
So Allan says that it’s unfair to punish City because by extension it will punish the players who have worked hard and will be affected.
The same can be said of any crime mate, should we not jail murderers because of the negative affect it will have on their families?
If City players feel hard done by their anger should be aimed at their club for cheating, not the league for trying to identify and punish it.
If a player is caught using steroids would you allow them to play because having that player banned will negatively affect his team mates? Of course not even though that would be true.
Those City players can (and will) leave the club so they won’t be punished anyway. They had those experiences, had those highs, got paid those wages and bonuses. From every angle this logic makes no sense at all.
Lee
