Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal Crisis
Arsenal‘s latest defeat was downright terrible and to be honest, they have been dreadful for a while now. Mikel Arteta’s new Arsenal has a crisis on his hands, that is the club’s seventh defeat in twelve games.
Lowest Key Passes(assisted shots) in the Premier League;
Arsenal – 62
Newcastle United – 64
Burnley – 64
Leicester City – 68
West Brom – 70We are struggling immensely to create. Mikel may have left the nest to early, he clearly hasn't mastered Pep's build up play yet. pic.twitter.com/jsAAfwDq7W
— Mab Sidam Analysis (@MabSidam) December 7, 2020
Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal does not press. Constant Pressing is a staple of total football, you win the ball higher up the pitch and with defences panicking. Technically brilliant players with strict instructions just march up the pitch and tear defences apart. That was the football I thought we would be playing when we hired a Pep Guardiola disciple. Arsenal does not press, we don’t play total football. If so why is Arteta here then?
Philosophy
I want to see signs of the philosophy being implemented even if it costs us games like it did for Guardiola in his first season at Manchester City. Those foundations helped him identify who in that team could play in his system and who couldn’t. He loaded up in the summer where he needed and went on to have one of the most dominant campaigns in Premier League history.
Arteta is not laying the blueprint, we won’t identify anyone who can play in this system like this and we won’t identify where we need help. The Arsenal top brass need to sit him down and ask what’s the blueprint we are putting down as a club?
I support this manager but these players; not so much, I just honestly can’t believe how these players have failed three straight managers. Judging Arteta on players he inherited would be too cruel meaning until he fails with his players we can’t really judge him properly.
Massive Transfer Overhaul Needed
My decisions on who to keep or let go from those who played in the Burnley game.
Bernd Leno – Keep him. Under-rated keeper
Hector Bellerin – A pace merchant/ pace dependent player who lost his pace. No reliability in attack or defence. Sell at all costs.
Rob Holding – Rotation player at best. Keep him.
Gabriel – Super signing. Must be managed properly and should become a leading defender in the world.
Kieran Tierney – Really Good. Will get better when we stabilize the backline. Should become captain, being let-down from his teammates.
Granit Xhaka – I just can’t anymore
Mohamed Elneny – A rotation player at maybe West Ham, might start our next three games with the injury to Thomas Partey.
Dani Ceballos– I see why Madrid was so comfortable letting the man go.
Alexander Lacazette– A £50 million rotational player. Bin him after Xhaka.
Bukayo Saka – Too much, too soon. We need to ease him in not ask him to carry us.
Willian – Functions best when he isn’t meant to be one of the top players at the club. Anything more you are asking for too much.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – Playing with the iconic “this club isn’t what I thought it was” sad face you’ll see from past Arsenal stars like Cesc Fabregas, Alexis Sanchez and Robin van Persie
The Kids – Innocent in the fact we don’t know how good they are but none have actually separated from their peers. These kids are bang average with potential and that’s all that’s saving them.
Mikel Arteta – Clearly left Guardiola’s nest too early. Let’s not even get into his man-management skills, he has already ostracized three of our better talents in Mesut Ozil, Matteo Guendouzi and William Saliba while overseeing the loss of form and motivation of the majority of the squad. Yet it’s the lack of tactics that are my major concern when it comes to Arteta. The game plan boiled down to get it to the wings, cross it in and hope for the best while holding our positions and being hard to breakdown. Championship football. We played this way despite not having a target man striker and not having the players necessary to shut out a team. The Spanish manager got it all wrong and the January transfer window doesn’t open for a few more weeks, he is stuck with this group.
Arsenal needs to reestablish their identity, too many sequences in that game made it seem like Unai Emery never left and Arsenal was not aside a year into this project. Mikel Arteta’s vision is the light at the end of this dark tunnel for many of us fans but if his view of it is muddled then what’s the point? Either get it right or bring in someone who will.
Main Image Credit