He’s only a week from claiming being a manager at a top club is not about winning trophies but about the friends you make along the way
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The most stupid thing is he has just done the motivation speech for slot before the game at Anfield match on Sunday regardless of what happens in Paris today!
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He doesn’t need trophies to be a winner…but he is a winner.
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Everton DNA.
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Haha, Arsemoysiah.
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Someone send this soft cunt some Pepto Bismol.
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He tried to be Guardiola and ended up becoming late-stage Mourinho.
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It does come across as an Evertonian.
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I bet he votes Tory too. The prick.
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I think I have been one of the more vigorous advocates of his work there, arguing that even at a top club not everything can be fairly rated on whether you win the big trophies. And plenty of very well regarded teams through history are so without having the trophies commensurate with that.
But, when you do this well you raise expectations and there comes a time where no matter the quality of your work up to that point pressure mounts to eventually win a big one. How much you can keep that at bay is influenced by loads of factors, but ultimately it is about putting on a front that gives the people faith that you’re going to be in the mix next year again. Mikel has an excellent side to call upon, and it feels to me for the first time that they are bailing him out. Everything he has done for the probably the past 12 months has been fuel for the perception that he isnt going to be the one who gets them there. This sort of stuff, even without the absurd maths problem of comparing his 38 game point haul to our 35 game one, is what people will ultimately point to when it unravels and Arsenal games start to be covered by Sky not as “title contending Arsenal” but as “does Arteta need a win to keep his job?” watch.
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I agree. I just find it baffling that he has continually added pressure on himself with odd comments such as the above, or like that earlier in the season ( Sept/ Oct) where i think he said something like Arsenal were the only side capable of going the season unbeaten? Or the fact that almost every draw or loss is met with him blaming referees. That negativity isnt going to help him. Would have been better for him to play the still developing / always aiming for incremental improvements card…
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Emery , if given the time to ditch the non performers , would probably have won a trophy for arsenal by now (disregarding the fa cup that arteta won which can be put across as a glitch).
And I dare say , the football would have been so much better as well.
Arteta finished 8th in his first full season. Emery would have had his team performing higher than that.
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I wonder if the lack of other credible challenger to us backed him into a position of trying to be too confident so as to keep a non-existent challenge alive. If City had kept their usual pace and put Arsenal in a place much earlier in the season where they were not pushed into the role of being a title challenger they were not actually capable of being, would he have been able to respond to their downturn in a more productive way, rather than feeling the pressure of doing what was necessary to keep them focused on a chase they were just never good enough to sustain?
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This is why we are different. Or one of the reasons. Classy. Sporting. Humble. It’s part of our DNA, passed down in the culture and now embodied by Slot and his men.
Arteta seems so bitter, and quite unable to give an unqualified congratulations.
While we are talking about points, Klopp’s Liverpool side twice came second to Manchester City - a cheating Manchester City - with a points haul on both occasions greater than Arsenal have managed in any season in their entire history.
It’s all about winning the league and finishing ahead of everyone else, after playing them home and away. Arsenal have not been good enough, or consistent enough.
When I look at the quality, they are a very good team indeed. But I have a strong suspicion that they have regressed a bit, as they have sought marginal gains. If they played with freedom and joy, and not so cynically and under detailed instruction from a flapping madman on the line, I suspect they would have won some trophies and would be regarded better by the wider footballing community.
But I can’t warm to them, at all, under Arteta. Small man. And it’s a shame, as he, and his side, are close to being great, but there appears to be a lack of magnanimity that makes them shrink back a bit.
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This has been done over and over again, but the approach of taking short term medicine to rid the club of bad contracts and bad attitudes was driven by Arteta himself, and something that once enacted came with the luxury of going backwards in the table in the sort term.
It just isnt a viable way to compare him vs Emery by comparing their results after 1 year.
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I think part of the problem with Emery was that he appeared to fall out with his squad over his training sessions. I dont know if he has changed his approach since then or if his other teams where more open to his way of coaching…but i dont think he had any issues elsewhere…
It’s an ego thing with Arteta, I suspect. For some odd reason there is a sense of entitlent that crept into his demeanor and it’s taken over to the extent that the only reason this title isn’t theirs is because they’ve been shafted by refereeing decisions (they haven’t, really), an injury list over and above the pale (it wasn’t really) with the league winners having incredible luck with refereeing decisions (we didn’t, on the whole) while having zero injuries to key players (we did, actually). He’s come across more as someone who thinks he’s managing a team that’s won titles with this being a blip of a season that’s allowed them to be overtaken while simultaneously behaving as if this title was ordained to be theirs if not for the factors above.
In all it’s made him, his club and his fanbase all a bit unlikeable. A more positive vibe and the romance of the message being of a once great team striving to win their first title in decades would have created a much better feel good factor around the club, similar to what we had going into '18, '19, '20. Not saying they would have won it this season but it would have been closer, I feel, with less of the bile floating around them.
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I think they have been over-hyped, and ended up believing their own hype. There are elements at that club who genuinely believe that they were champions in waiting - a little slip from Man City and they were next in line.
When we won the league in 2020 I think we had a sense that if we could get a bit of luck in the form of a City wobble, we’d be in - but that was off the back of getting 97 points and winning the European Cup. There was every reason to believe that we were champions in waiting.
Arsenal have never broken 90 points.
I’m in the camp that believes that Arteta is probably a really, really good manager. I think it is unstated the job he has done there, and while he has spent a lot of money, there were nowhere when he joined.
But he is prone to these really stupid gaffs. Like playing the champions when you really need the points and they don’t, and deciding now is the time to undermine their achievements and tell the world that they’ve had it easy. That is a really stupid thing to do.
I think he can win one of the big ones, but he could really do with not stepping on rakes.
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Yeah, they definitely wore the credit of being winners before they earned it and that has trickled down through all the players.
To them, they were offended that a man who has loads gave them the “stay humble”. Doent he know who he’s talking to? They should listened to Vigo.
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*insert David Moyes quote here*