MIKEL Arteta’s managerial career will endure a baptism of fire at Arsenal. Arteta’s own reputation, grounded in immaculately conceived theory, is under the microscope. For everyone that says he will make a tremendous coach, there are plenty lying in wait waiting for him to fail. Never has a coach that has never managed come into a job with such expectation.
Make no mistake; people are expecting Pep Guardiola MK. II and failure to deliver excellence will besmirch his reputation for many years. However, despite the scrutiny and the expectation, he does have a few things in his favour. First of all, most Gunners fans have accepted that the season is a write-off, in terms of the Premier League.
I am certain that Arteta himself does not think that and neither do Arsenal, for whom Europa League qualification is a fiscal imperative. We should be under no illusions that the Arsenal fan base will be an oasis of patience and understanding. That’s not how the world works. However, Arteta will have a little bit more of a buffer than he would have had in 2018.
A new era begins today.
Let's go, @m8arteta ✊ pic.twitter.com/zGP4HA25zY
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) December 22, 2019
The stock of the current squad is at an all-time low with the Arsenal supporters, to the point that very few individuals would be missed if jettisoned. Even Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, whose contribution has prevented a genuine relegation alert, is no sacred cow. Losing him would represent a blow, but the Gabonese will turn 31 next summer and he will need replacing sooner or later in any case.
Arsenal opted for a ‘must-win now’ strategy in the transition between Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery, they signed Auabmeyang and Mkhitaryan on large salaries and tethered themselves to a monumental contract for Mesut Özil. Arsenal invested in Sokratis and David Luiz in central defence, with both players in their 30s. They also elected to leave significant transfer windfalls on the table when they allowed Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck to leave on Bosman deals.
These were live situations when Emery took over. 18 months on, Aubameyang and Özil are one year closer to the end of their deals and Mkhitaryan has already been farmed out on loan to Serie A. It will be slightly easier for Arteta to turn over some of the more senior players to aid the rebuild project. He also doesn’t have to handle anything like the delicate Ramsey situation Emery inherited.
Old Father Time and contractual situations will help the Spaniard to churn late prime players on big contracts. He will also have the permission of the supporters to sacrifice whomever he needs to sacrifice. Few of these players are sacred in the eyes of the fans. Özil will always have a committed fan base, but I think that to be more of an online phenomenon and one slightly separate from Arsenal.
If Arsenal are offered their money back for Aubameyang in January, should they take it?
— gunnerblog (@gunnerblog) December 21, 2019
Mesut won the spin war with Emery because Emery quickly became unpopular and proved difficult to connect with on an emotional level. Yet Özil has already had his collar felt by Freddie Ljungberg for disciplinary reasons and further intransigence will be laid at his door rather than Emery’s. That said, the difficulty for Arteta is the lack of depth in the squad.
The transfer window is the time for churn, but for the remainder of this season, Arteta will have to rely on some of these players. Ljungberg decided to make a statement by leaving many senior players out and he was left with academy players as a fig-leaf. As the former U-23 coach, it could be that staffing the team with academy players he knows well helped Ljungberg coach in his comfort zone.
Arteta is likely to view it differently. While the fans will have the appetite for renewal and for a few fragile egos to be smashed, the reality is that Mikel cannot career into the dressing room wielding the axe. Not straight away anyway. As he acknowledged himself in his impressive opening media exchanges, a coach needs emotional intelligence to understand the issues his players are experiencing.
It is tempting to simply write them all off as wastrels and afford the coach the license to write some P45s, he will need some of these players now. In any case, no leader earns respect by making pre-conceived judgements and acting on them impulsively. Even George Graham waited for a couple of seasons before he started dismantling the established order at the club and replacing them with the young and the hungry.
Arteta will have the fans’ “permission” to clean out the valuables in the attic, but he doesn’t have a squad deep enough to instantly make too many enemies and the reality is that he needs time to work out who fits his vision and who doesn’t. In short, don’t expect the demolition to begin straight away. Revolutions need a lead-in time.
