If indeed it is Arteta, I have zero expectations. We will be going for a complete rookie. He has never managed, might be a good coach, but we all know managing a club is completely different to being an Assistant coach. I cannot even think of any high profile Assistant Manager who has made it on their own. I seem to remember Paul Clements, apparently good coach...
It's a hugely risky appointment. Arteta has zero experience at managerial level and he's coming into a bear pit of a job. We are in such a mess at the moment and when managers like Ancelotti, Allegri and Pochettino are available, I do not understand why the club are taking such a big punt on Arteta. I read somewhere that the club wanted to bring more ex-players into Arsenal, those who know the club and the history and can communicate well. I'm not against that, but I just feel that we needed to appoint a safe pair of hands for 12-18 months to steady the ship before taking on another experiment. I hope I'm proved wrong, but this appointment, if it happens, fills me with anxiety. If the board get this one wrong then they have no case to remain at Arsenal either.
Expectations.. hard to know really. This is his first 'managerial' job (although technically he's a head coach) I hope we at least start to play some attacking football again. Play to our strengths.
I wonder if its because an Allegri/Anchelotti might not be suited to the limited role on offer here at Arsenal. Sahlleli and Edu are in charge of recruitment, youth setups, hiring and firing etc. Whoever comes in while have to answer directly to Raul. They want a head coach someone to run the training sessions, work on tactical decisions and take media obligations. Everything else is covered.
I cannot even countenance getting this wrong... As this will set the club back, the rumours are an initial 3.5 yrs deal. What would they do if it does not go well, another 1yr or even looking to replace before the season is over. They should be going for a Manager to come in fire fight, as you say steady the ship. This job is by no means a steady ship, if we can all see it, why cant they. I guess the same way we knew from a while now, we needed an holding midfielder, and defenders... Well the chicken has come home to roost now! Again, why would Arteta want to take over this job?
Emery was an experienced manager - he won the league with PSG, coached Seville; Spartak, Valencia etc.. Maybe our best option is to hire the best 'coach' we can. And when I mean coach I mean someone who understands modern training methods, has a clear philosophy and will get highly involved with the training sessions. Remember we are not hiring for a traditional managers job here.
FFS give the guy a chance. It might just work out. Emery was an experienced manager and look how that turned out. If after 6 months we are in the bottom six, then pull him apart and say it was a big mistake.
Why take a risk like that in the first instance? Would you trust these guys to get it right? These are the the same guys who fired Emery, without so much as a plan and were hoping Freddie would see us to the end of the season and arrest the slump. Freddie, himself has come out to say, he needs this fiasco sorting out ASAP, he was not provided with the usual support staff...We all want Arteta to succeed, like I said, I am not expecting much from him, just get us into mid-table safety and I will be content!
The same guy who's Barca won 9 x league Championships, and 4 x Champions League titles. One of things to be excited about at Arsenal is that Sahlelli seems to be doing exactly what he did at Barca in terms of brining in quality youth. Martinelli, Guendouzi, Saliba, Tierney are a higher calibre of young player than we were previously recruiting. The other thing to be mindful of is that Sanhelli brought in Rijkaard, Guardiola and Luis Enrique to manage at Barca. ALL were just as in-experinced as Arteta and all were successful.
If you are at the bottom, the only way is up. I think he will get a grip on things. I can see us doing a lot of business in January, and I think it was important that we got a new manager in, so that we can shift a few people on, in the window. I can see us trying to move on a lot of people. Everyone over 25 is at risk. And I can see a lot of stars leaving, so that we can accumulate a decent war chest. What he does with that war chest will tell us a lot. In all honesty, we could do with Wenger's economic smarts about now. He always seemed to be able to be able to wheel and deal enough to get a top 4 squad out on the pitch, until the club thought they could do better, and took that role away from him. I would say that was his biggest strength along with motivating the squad. I think perhaps he has been gone long enough now that we can appreciate his strengths, even as we don't forget his weaknesses. Arteta and he are on pretty good terms by all accounts, maybe he will get a few suggestions from the old guy?
I think it's partly that and the fact that the club have said that they want to bring more ex-players back to the club to reinvigorate the Arsenal culture at the club. As you say, it's a head coach position. The other aspects of the club are managed by other people. In Arteta's favour he's been working alongside one of the best for the last couple of years, so he comes with good credentials from a coaching perspective. It remains to be seen whether he can make the step up, but as risky as this appointment is, I think the fans will get behind him. I don't think we should expect too much this season, I just want to see us play in a more organised way and cut out the stupid mistakes. If we can do that, then we can build from there.
It will be interesting to see what backroom staff set up we have under Arteta. I read a rumour that he is bringing Tim Cahill with him. He's a strong character and I'd welcome that. Apparently he also wanted to bring Xabi Alonso too, but he's committed to Real Sociedad currently.
All managers get my faith, and for as long as they manage/coach the team to compete and play good football. look on the bright side it ain’t Moyes or Fat Sam
A thread on Arteta's influence at Man City and why we have been so interested in having him as manager:
? It's a serious thread Piskie lol. I don't know if you have Twitter, but if you do, click on it and you'll see the points that City fan makes. It's a compelling argument.
I didn't see the thread, just the gif of Arteta giving those instructions and I thought it was based on that I'll have a look at the thread in a bit. Personally, whilst I think this is a bit of an underwhelming appt, Arteta has obviously got very good coaching skills. Pep must have seen that when he left Arsenal, to make him his no2 straight off the bat tells you a lot.
My only fear is he gets off to a terrible start (like losing his next 4 league games - which is not that crazy). How would the fan base react at that point? Would we still be “patient”? Or would we already get nervous that we botched this appointment big time?
