The size of a Club is much like a brand if you go to deepest Africa or some random island in the Philippines people know who Arsenal are the same cant be said for for say Leceister despite recent success. It's sustained fame over time the creates this. The Nottingham Forest argument isnt really true - they were'nt that big before Clough and they disppeared again soon afterwards. I do like the Club though. I put some parameters down but its alot of things, History plays a huge part. The other modern factor is internet presence and with current online fanbase Only Madrid, Barca, United and weirdly Chelsea (which is about the same) have a bigger community.
Sure, a big manager coming in knows he wont be backed financially, and that there is no European competition to play in, but as long as some random filipinos on a third world island somewhere have heard of the club its A-okay? Yes Arsenal are big club by reputation....but that doesnt help in the here and know.
Clearly the reality hasn't sunk in with you yet about the demise of your club. You are now a mid-table premier league side with no European football, bang average players for the league and a board reluctant to spend a few quid. You are not in a position to bring in a top level manager like Conte. They'd turn you down without a second thought.
I agree with you to an extent, and to be fair, I don't think managers or players view things as cynically as fans do. However, there are a number of things that are going against us right now which will deter potential top managers from coming in. 1. Passive ownership - it's no secret KSE aren't big football/'soccer' fans, but the way they've tacitly accepted where we are, not hiring/firing people at the right time, lacking ambition, trying to cut corners etc will put people off working with them. Communication lines can't be easy when they're spending most of their time in the States, meanwhile, they have hired such an inexperienced exec team and CEO. 2. Recruitment strategy - what is our recruitment strategy? How many genuinely successful signings have we made? Why are we targeting Chelsea's cast off players all the time? How are we ensuring that the players we buy fit into our philosophy? The issue here isn't necessarily spending money, but how we spend our money. How we allocate our resources. The timing, the profile of players we sign, whether it's the right position to strengthen, the thought process etc - this is still so unclear. 3. Lack of identity - what is the direction of the club? What are Arsenal trying to be? What is the plan to get us back to competing at the top? We still don't know. 4. Reactiveness - I feel like a lot of the decisions that have been made at times are too reactive. We try to plaster over cracks too often, when we need to be more proactive than that. Take control of situations rather than just responding to them. Until we sort these major issues out, it will be harder to attract top managers, especially as there are currently more attractive propositions right now than us.
The only way we'd be able to pull of an appointment like Conte is if the ownership decide they're going to back the manager 100% with the funds for the players he wants and that he has the final say over transfers. He'd need financial backing and power. This won't happen realistically. So we need to keep rolling the dice with different managers a tier or two below until we eventually land the right one. That's the only way I see us getting out of it under the constraints of this ownership.
I would add to that, that the way we've gone about hiring and firing scouts and recruitment chiefs has been ****ing diabolical. We've bought players that aren't up to the job and we've let players go for a pittance. This side of things has been ****ing shambolic and it's now being played out on the pitch.
Nonsense - as always I dont agree with you. Possibly the most negative guy on the internet and thats quite an accomplishment. If we went in for Conte he would jump at the chance. Any high level manager would get an improvement from this team and by doing that will get alot of recognition/praise. Its a great job. You think Bentford are better than us player for player? Heeelll No. At the moment we have a keeper who is technically poor with his feet being forced to play out from the back - Errors are going to happen. He looks nervous all the time! We sold a Keeper who was great with his feet and fitted our system well. We have a guy who consistenly scored 25+ goals a Season for years unable to score. We have a CB being played at RB. We have a defender who is considered among the best in France, still only 19-20, was bought for £30 million and has'nt been given a single game in two years. We have Willian getting 30 odd apps last Season while Martinelli cant get more than 5 mins off the bench. We play a high line, everyone knows how to counter it as we are clearly error prone when pressed high yet the boss has not made any tactical changes to fix this. Rather than making us better it seems to me we have more issues with individual players than we did before Arteta arrived.
Yeah your recent policy of hiring our cast offs when they have gone past their sell by dates is a little baffling. Petr Cech I understood to a degree, and I dont think he was terrible for you. But Willian and David Luiz were weird signings. Really not what you needed to take you up to the next level. Both great players in their prime, but not by the time you had signed em.
Most negative guy on the internet? I think that's a bit of a reach. I'm realistic about where we are as a club and the direction we're going in. You clearly haven't accepted this yet. We haven't won the league for 17 years. Nearly 2 decades. We've not finished in the CL spots for 5 years. We have had back to back 8th placed finishes. Our worst league form in nearly 30 years. Broken records for all the wrong reasons. The worst owners in the league. Why the **** should I be positive? If you think conte would join us without having guarantees of funds, or having a powerful role as manager, and you think he'll rather join because we're historically a big club, then you're delusional.
Gotta say Bear, I think Brunel is right here. Conte turned down Spurs for the same reason. Yeah I know Arsenal aint Spurs, but he turned down Spurs because he was not going to get the backing from board that he wanted, and that your squad needs. I doubt your fillipino fanbase would seal the deal for him
We went 19 years without winning the league between our old double winning side in 1971 and Mickey Thomas scoring that famous goal at Anfield in 89. I see nothing at the moment to suggest that we won't go past 19 years without a title.
No matter how big a club is historically, or what they've won in the past, if the current owners and exec team are not willing to support a prospective/incumbent manager, they will look for another club that will support them in their endeavours. Inter are a gigantic club and Conte won them their first title in a decade - but he still left because the owners wanted to sell off their prized assets and weren't going to support him in the way he wanted any longer.
Unless you think we'll win it this season or next season, I think we're pretty much certain to go past the 19 year mark!
If we ever got Conte, our squad would need serious manipulating yet again as he doesn't play wingers and wants to play three central midfielders, the area we're still a bit **** in. Suppose it would be Xhaka, Partey and ESR and ESR would have to change his game. Pepe would be screwed. Saka could play LWB but then that's sort of what Tierney is for. We need a decent RB regardless.
Agree - which is why I’m saying Conte would need to be heavily backed by these owners (in a way we’ve not seen for previous managers) to fit his ethos and style of play. If he doesn’t feel like he’ll get that, he’ll look elsewhere - regardless of how big he perceives Arsenal to be.
Spot on about Conte. He would jump at the chance to manage the Arsenal. We can keep throwing the little money at it, with Arteta at the helm, not much will change. Why don't we get a manager in who is able to get the best out of what we have, instead of this constant buy buy buy, depending on who you ask, we need 5 to 11 new players. The team we have, might not be capable of winning the league, but without a doubt capable of challenging for top4. Rafa/Rodgers would be a massive improvement on Arteta!
We dont know the exact reasons Conte rejected Spurs. His explanation was vague at best. I mean it's been well know for a while their best player is set to leave and I cant imagine Levy is the easiest guy to deal with in negotiations. There's no point having hypothetical conversations about wether someone would or would not do something. But I still maintain Arsenal is an attrractive proposition for any potential managerial candidates.
What I will say… for the first time I am more concerned with getting more out of the players we currently have than signing others. (yes I still believe we need 1 or 2 more signings) but I don’t believe our current squad is as bad as the results they are getting, for me this is what I want to see; unfortunately I think a new manager would be the only way to get this improvement.
