Quick poll, personally I would remove both of them and bring in a coach and someone who knows how to negotiate (lulz) does anyone trust this process? Seems to have gone south like the 76ers when that bald fraud Adam Silver made Philly fire Hinkie
As usual, the problem for me is a lack of confidence the leadership would get anyone better. Put another way, I don't trust the owners to know what to look for and how to hold the president, manager, et al properly accountable. You'd have thought that after the Ozil fiasco someone would have framed what the budget would be like such that deals like Willian don't happen. More importantly, there's not a drive at the ownership level to win trophies. If there was they'd be more attuned to the things we keep discussing here, to what the press is saying every year, and to the metrics that reveal the flaws in simply trying to reinstall a system that hasn't proven successful. Instead the owners only seem to listen to the folks who are failing in the first place and can't see the forest for the trees. I appreciate that the club threw money into transfers this summer. Credit due. But they'll likely see that the effort was wasted because the people making the decisions weren't focusing on the right things to begin with. Do I think Arteta and Edu need to go? At the least one of them needs to be replaced and someone needs to step in and get a hold on the whole roster/budget situation. Player recruitment and development has simply been abysmal, especially if the few gems (Saka, ESR) we have end up leaving because the larger organization is rotten. But do I trust Arsenal will get someone better? Sadly, no. I just don't trust the Kroenke leadership to make the club competitive again.
This may be an unpopular opinion but I think it would be a lot easier to replace Edu than Arteta. But it is a major problem that Arteta is at the same level in the hierarchy as our DoF. We need a technical director and to demote Arteta to coach again. You can see the magic of an actually competent DoF in the difference it makes for ManU’s transfer window. No more dallying for them.
I don't have a list of names or anything, but the vast majority of frequent visitors to this forum were completely on board with Arteta being the next manager when Emery was out of favor, and many felt he should have been hired in the first place (to succeed Wenger). So what happened? Are we all that fickle? Or just complete shit at predicting the future, or both? EDIT: For the record, I never had an opinion either way on Arteta. I just knew we needed change (for years at the end of Wenger's reign, and during the last year of Emery's).
I thought Arteta should have been fired last spring after losing to Villareal, so haven't really changed on that. Arteta as manager complicates my judgement of Edu. Who is really responsible for signing Willian? Or giving Auba a new contract? Or giving Cedric a 4 year deal? Or keeping Nketiah last January? I can assume Arteta wanted Willian since he selected him to play at every opportunity. Was Edu 100% on board with Willian? Or was he skeptical, but went along with it because Arteta pushed hard for him? So I'm Arteta out. If Edu is fired, too, I have no real objection. If he stays, I'll give him another chance. At least the signings this summer are all 21-23 year olds (supposedly Arteta is the one that convinced Xhaka to stay and sign a new deal). If Edu is fired and Arteta stays, that would be the wrong move for me.
I wasn't keen on Arteta due to lack of experience, and said if you back him in you have to give him a few windows to build a team. And then he gives guys like Xhaka 4 more years. So in my mind he has had his chance, send him and Edu on their way.
As long as the club is owned by Kroenke, we will always be too-late-reactionary to managerial change. There is zero interest in winning. AFC is a piece of a very large, very valuable, but also very risk adverse investment portfolio.
If we continue to fail to qualify for any European competitions, the value of that particular part of the portfolio starts to drop.
This may all be true, but for me what's needed most, right now, is a good tactical manager, with good man management skills. And sadly it seems that Arteta is not that man. Can't say I'm surprised. I never championed his appointment... too green. Even so, I'd give him a little more leash, i.e. a few more months to see what he can produce, before pulling the plug once and for all. p.s. As much as our squad is strangely constructed and needs help, is it really worse than Brentford's? I suspect that if Frank, for example, was in charge of our squad we'd be doing better and we'd be a lot happier.
Kroenke has never sold a share of any sports team he owns. Ever. At worst, AFC has only doubled in value in terms of what Kroenke spent to acquire 100% of the club. Do you think he cares if the perceived value dips by 20%? He's never going to sell.
I never said he was going to sell, nor even implied it. My point, still, is that unlike the NFL or any of his American franchises, the Prem doesn't have the same sort of parity built in. So if his club doesn't make Europe, or worst case finds itself in a relegation battle, it will start to lose value --- fewer matches every season, loss of prestige leading to Arsenal not being a tourist destination, etc. It seems obvious he recognizes the importance of this, thus, jumping on the Super League and all its guarantees. As someone who prefers to make money rather than lose it, one would think he'd prefer to arrest that decline. I suppose we might see --- although hopefully not.
Aye, but the catch is that there's a sweet spot where sports entities can make money without needing to be great, and there are owners who'll be content in that spot while the fans get frustrated for lack of pushing on. How many years with Wenger was Arsenal seemingly 1-2 players removed from challenging for the league again, only to stay pat because of economics? How many player decisions were made based on just that player's value vs making a difference in the side? That the ownership okayed money to invest this season struck me as a positive, and possibly a change in this approach. That may still be true from that position but it matters little if you don't have the right people managing how the money is spent. Which leaves me to believe this summer might be a one-off feature whereby if it doesn't work then the results will simply be KSE using that to justify less spending in the future. That they'll be content again to find that sweet spot and not care about results unless it becomes really dire. I hate to say this but I believe we've reached the point where people need to not show up for matches. Keep your tickets so you can have your seat if times become good again, but don't attend, don't buy food and drinks, don't buy jerseys... Start to slow the cash flow in hopes of getting attention.
No amount of money will fix this. To be fair, they have invested. They just get little returns on these large cash outlays.
Dont trust KSE but i think the right play is to bring in Overmars now and put him over Edu. Give Arteta a bit more time, mostly because you arent gonna get a better alternative now. If he doesnt improve, replace him with Ten Hag in the summer.
Arsenal aren't like Kroenke's other teams. Nothing is guaranteed, and how much money we bring in is very strongly linked to how we do on the field. There is this weird idea a lot of people have about sports teams always increasing in value, and that giving Kroenke a reason to never sell. That may be true for US teams, but how much is Portsmouth worth? Or Sunderland, or Bolton, or Blackburn? Even Newcastle were going to be sold for 300m before the takeover was blocked. Our fan base will start to dwindle. I'd argue it already has. Our commercial revenues were poor when we were a CL team, how much do you think we will get when we have to renew these deals as a perennial midtable side who don't even play in Europe? The massive Sky TV deal that made the premier league as rich as it is, was renewed at the exact same rate as before - no growth. Our revenue was in decline pre-COVID, and will likely continue to decline going forward. Kroenke paid off the stadium debt, and if he ever wants to get paid back, the club is going to have to start generating a lot more money or find a way to cut back on spending in a way that doesn't reduce our revenues further. Kroenke would absolutely sell the club if we continue down this path. The reason he didn't sell to Ek was he thought he still had a big club on his hands that would bounce back and be worth more than what was offered. It is going to become clear soon, that is not the case. On to the question at hand, Arteta and Edu absolutely have to go - I'd fire Arteta today, and Edu on September 1st. Kroenke's biggest problem with hiring is that he hasn't found a good adviser. Our board and keep coming up with bad ideas, and Kroenke trusts them to know more than he does, so he signs off on it. I'd take a shot at hiring Conte. The big clubs other than Barca all have stable managerial situations, and Barca are never going to want Conte's style of play. We have a free run at him at the moment, but that won't be true if we wait until next summer. Then I'd fire Edu and replace him with Monchi from Sevilla. As much as I like Overmars and Ten Hag, I don't think we have a shot at them. Overmars doesn't seem to want to leave, and Ten Hag just renewed his contract (and I think he would wait for the Barca job, which he will almost certainly be a candidate for).