Mikel Arteta is the new Arsenal Manager

i agree with those points. and because those were specifically his flaws, when both wenger and oxlade-chamberlain himself kept talking about him in the middle, it threw me.

don't get me wrong: i LIKED him. seriously. given space outside, he can be productive/useful. and, like i've said before, if he was given explicit instructions and teachings, i always felt he could have been quite good.

just . . . not in the middle. WTF.

 

We’re in agreement on most of this, but I was discussing whether Arsenal’s pre or post Boxing Day form is more representative of their potential, not Arteta’s player decisions.

Nothing was gained from Arteta’s decision to start Willian and Nketiah in the FA Cup, but that decision has very little to do with their post Boxing Day league form. It would also be nice if Martinelli got Willian’s minutes, but Arteta hasn’t relied upon either in the second half of the season.

 

It's sort of sad, because he had skills that could have been molded into an exciting and useful player. But for whatever reasons he and his coaches thought he should have been something else.

 

So are you suggesting the Arsenal medical team wasn’t up to standard because they didn’t have a high end doping program?

 

Yep. A proper #6 with an injury free Wilshire & Ramsey would have made an amazing MF in a 4-3-3.

 

Don't forget that Pep got busted for doping when he was a player! And the Operation Puerto records supposedly included season-long plans for RM and Barca.

 

He wasn’t a good footballer.

And like it has been said before, Wenger was never the right coach for teenaged footballers. He either overplayed them or gave too much freedom. He got ideas above his station the last decade at the club, which is a big reason why the youth academy nosedived.

Wenger was a great professor for upperclassmen in college, but he fancied himself as a high school principal when he wasn’t.

 

Wenger was a good guy offensively as Ibeleive he let players have freedom

defensively he was terrible after the great players he inherited left until we managed to sign Campbell and partner vieira with another elite protector in silva

football is more about the roles and player types blending than anything. We have been dysfunctional for years

ramsey as an offensive cm with ozil as a ten was awful. Song making too many forays forward in the cesc as a ten days etc

now we have an issue with either two strikers playing in a single striker system or left back backups using there right foot (unless saka plays there)

I just wish the basics could be adhered too. Inside forwards mean wide fullbacks

2 competent cms who can progress the ball and have mobility in a 4231

The right combo of forwards (Laca suits this formation more than auba who is an off the shoulder striker)

 

it's always bothered me how much credit he got as a "developer of talent" when bergkamp, henry, and van persie have said in interviews that his "coaching" of them consisted of him asking them to think about, "how can you be better?" that's great with a bergkamp, henry, van persie, and vieira. but your pennant, your bentdner, and your oxlade-chamberlain don't have anywhere to go with that.

you're spot on with the college upperclassmen vs high school students analogy, though. essentially all the success came from someone getting an education elsewhere that took the next step given the freedom from wenger and the players surrounding them. the exceptions may be ashley cole (who was said to have been taught by tony adams) and fabregas who, essentially, was educated from la masia.

 

no doubt, no doubt. but his pass from the back was damn fine, too. like, literally, he could have just left wilshere back there and not buy xhaka for the same role.

it seemed like after the debacle with diarra, he just developed an aversion to defensive midfielders.

 

But Cesc was never as good anywhere other than Arsenal.

Surely there’s more nuance to assessing Wenger’s legacy of talent development than ‘good for some weird definition of certain age with unlimited potential combined with some certain amount of career establishment’ that gets trotted out.

 

While Nasir wasn’t an academy product he arrived at Arsenal at 21 and he was never as productive anywhere else either. Wenger let creators create and when they had to play elsewhere in a more structured system their production fell. He may have won more titles if he had instilled more structure, but I enjoyed the freedom he allowed his players.

 

henry was never as good anywhere other than arsenal. nor vieira. nor nasri. etc. the list is not short. i never said his allowance for freedom does not allow players - especially capable, smart creative players - to excel and be able to show their abilities off more than at other clubs.

my point had nothing to do with "some weird definition of certain age with unlimited potential combined with some certain amount of career establishment" it was and remains that the players who flourished under his supposed "guidance" did so because they were frequently extraordinary talent who had the mindset and mentality to improve more so than because he coached them or taught them to become better players.

again, as i said earlier, you challenge an henry, a bergkamp, a van persie, or a fabregas to go and think about what would make them better players and they will go and do so. did he help and was a part of that development process? absolutely. he allowed them to do what they will and allowed their talent to flesh out as well as it could (rather than, say, them being stuck on an allardyce or a pulis team).

but "development" style does not help the likes of pennant (and, shoot, i cannot remember the dude's name from the same time frame who was supposed to be a stud prospect on the right wing) and bendtner because they thought they knew already. it does not help oxlade-chamberlain who you could see knew he needed to learn and was thirsting for instruction but does not get them.

 

If memory serves me right Cesc was played as an 8 here, but when he went to Barca they played him as a 10 or even a false 9 is that correct?

Peak-Cesc era saw us run something like this...

-----------Adebayor----RVP-------------
-Rosicky----Flamini--Cesc----Hleb---

 

he was a ten at Arsenal his last three seasons.

 

I’m gonna disagree about the 433 @The Jitty Slitter

In 2008 we played a box like 442 with cesc and flamini in the middle and rosicky left side and hleb right (Theo was used a lot as well)

eduardo was actually the main striker with adebayor playing a lot of games and rvp rotating

we switched the season after to a 4231 with Arshavin and nasri coming in. Cesc still played deeper but at times he played the ten. Especially after nasri left

we had our best times imo under late Wenger management when we had

.............rvp

Arsh...cesc.....Theo

.....denilson...song

and the usual back 4. Imo the problem always was with Wenger is he never changed it vs the big sides away. Sometimes u have to play a more negative counter attacking side and the only time he adapted was in 06 when we got to the cl final.

this is what kills me about the revisionism of Wenger, he peaked nearly 20 years ago and didn’t adapt to tactical requirements. Mourinho absolutely dominated us with his horrible low block counter and pep and Ferguson destroyed us multiple times with incisive attacks and dominating games with players who held position in midfield unlike song etc

you even saw it in the last cl years when Bayern humiliated us. No press, too many small technical forwards and no runners. Positionally poor fullbacks etc

 

But you can see how this argument is self-fulfilling, right? When Wenger players turn out to be all-time great, it was because their mentalities were ideally suited to his methods, but if a Wenger player fails, it was because his methods didn’t work for them.

But maybe Jermaine Pennant and David Bentley and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain just weren’t that good.