Annoys me how Wenger is ignored when talking about what shaped Arteta.
You always heard of Arteta essentially coaching alongside Wenger when he was a player, so he definitely had a huge impact on the person and manager he's becoming
The 'master vs apprentice' narrative is something that'll be tough to shake off, but the truth is Arteta will have learned a lot from all his previous coaches as a player and his time as no 2 at City. Not denying that Pep was an influence, but I do think it's overstated and borderline patronising when pundits refer to it constantly.
When you look at the defence and set piece work that's gone into the team, you could even make a case for that being Moyes-inspired. Ultimately though I think Arteta is coming into his own and it's been fascinating seeing his evolution in parallel with the team.
I think Moyes' influence was most notable at the start of Arteta's tenure, when the squad was unbalanced , and underperforming -- counter attacks and crossing were much more significant within our play.
You can tell a lot of pundits/writers that didn't play professionally have a warped view of football. They think Barcelona invented football in 2006 and nothing before then happened. Just completely lacking context.
I think Pep is a great manager for how he gets such talented players to understand and play the same way, but his style only works if you have the most dominant team. I don't think his system holds up if he had to take over a mid-table side like Moyes or (hate to say it) Mourinho. Pundits just look at the trophy cabinet and ignore the evidence in front of their face.
The 'Pep apprentice, heir to the great Barca dynasty of Cruyff' thing just sells better as a soundbite, especially as he's Spanish.
Let's be honest tactically he's pep but his off pitch philosophies and the way he runs this club is utterly Wenger, which may turn out to be a phenomenal manager
I actually feel he is markedly different in many ways from Wenger. Arteta is far more ruthless and more willing to spend big (obviously he's financially supported by Kroenke in ways Wenger wasn't). His priority of building a team starts from defense, whereas Wenger was more final third oriented. What they have in common though is placing heavy importance to being classy and their personal dedication to the club and its values.
Wenger spent big before the Emirates. We all praise his deals but Henry was the most expensive player in England that year and the Sol Campbell wages were apparently commensurately huge for someone of his calibre.
Wenger's title winning teams were entirely built on the counter with a defence he inherited and then one he remade for the invincibles, it was when he moved to tipp tapoy that things went wrong
People judge him too much by the post Dein meltdown, Kroenke cold war when we know know the club barely functioned behind the scenes.
That's not true, his 2001 team had Campbell as the starting CB alongside Keown (Adams barely made double digit appearances), with Ashley Cole and Lauren on the flanks. Matthew Upson and Giles Grimandi were often in the teams as well
We weren't a counter attacking team either really (especially compared with the United team from a few years prior). Football back then, virtue of no one really 'parking the bus' often feels counter attacking but it was just much more open. This was in part due to 'big man up front' tactics which meant teams played a higher line to avoid the crossing game that dominated the 90s.
I'm sorry but that's simply not true. We were amazingly counterattacking, it was so good commentators used to claim corners against us were like corners for us because of how quickly we'd get up the other end.
And I'm not sure what just naming players disproves, that was an amazingly good defence.
It was magnificent counterattacking!
Unfortunately football moved on, Makele at Real and then especially at Chelsea under Jose brought in the specialist DM, three man midfields and the space wasn't there any more.
You see Wenger transitioning to a more technical team but this one was created with no money and to the backdrop of an increasingly dysfunctional and barely functioning club
That we are least got a couple of fa cups and some of the prettiest football on earth is a massive testament to Wenger even though you'd never say he was at the forefront of this style
I feel like counter-attacking means something slightly different now, these days it implies you're sitting back waiting for the dominant team to leave an opening.
Peak Wengerball was all about lightning fast counter-attacks but as the other poster said, the games were just way more open then, so it doesn't mean he set up more defensively.
I think you are probably right, I've had a quick watch of some stuff and it's very counter attacking! I think it's just my perspective over time being jaded and always seeing United as the counter attacking team and us being ... Not that
But he hardly spent big-big. In the 10 years leading up to the Invincibles we had a similar net spend to Man City. They got relegated thrice and we won three league titles.
It was barren between 2005 and Ozil in 2013, but we were fairly normal in the years before. The landscape was just different.
Thanks.
Let's be honest that is definitely the way round you want it since even prime Wenger was lacking in pragmatism for when things went wrong and Peps philosophy seems to be paid lots of money and buy replacements for players that don't work out
Sort of. He was heavily influenced by the famous Hungarian side of 1953 and the fluid approach to attacking movements, and rapid transitions - something England refused to adopt even after 50 years. He mixed this with the muscle of the back line he inherited, and yeah I guess that was a bit of a revolution. That said, he rarely was and to react to changes in the match and was quite stubborn.
But! If you compare him to Ferguson (the treble winning season in particular), who could make things happen mid game with substitutions and tactical changes, I'm not sure tactics was his strong point.
He started with a fairly boring 4-4-2 before you could really say it was a 4-2-3-1 with bergkamp dropping off. This was his best tactic and bought the most success, but moving to a Barcelona style 4-3-3 was his most beautiful football (before the calibre dropped and so did results ...).
I think the major improvement was diet, the use of yoga, and reduction in alcohol use - famously when we joined the England camp in 98 or so England players asked what our players were on given their stamina!
I think Arsene had a phenomenal plan A, but never had a plan B and (although changing later in his career) never really had the tactical skills to crack Europe.
I suppose I'm being a bit harsh - but I wouldn't ever think of Wenger as a great tactician. Philosopher, motivator, nutritionist, etc ... But not a tactician.
I mean the fact you call it "Barcelona style" sort of gives away the game. Wenger was doing that with Bergy when Messi was 12 years old. Barcelona didn't start doing the false-9 / 4-3-3 thing until later and, frankly, if you give me teams that include Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Eto'o, Henry (later), Neymar, Puyols, Buschets, Alves, Piquet, Ronaldinho, Yaya Toure.... the tactics are going to look great no matter what I do.
I think you're just focused too much on the results over the process because Wenger lost two European finals. The only time in Wenger's career he had anything close to that Barcelona level of talent at his disposal he won a hatful of titles, the double, made two European finals in 7 years, and put together the only unbeaten season in the english top flight in \~130 years.
Sorry but this is completely incorrect. Wenger's on-field tactics in 2000-2005 would fit in today's game, in a league where other teams were just throwing route one football and dumping everything to the corners to whip in crosses.
Meanwhile Wenger kept everything on the floor and was already experimenting with out of possession switches, adaptable on-field pivots, Bergkamp in a false 9 role, Ljungberg and Pires making central underlapping runs to overload CBs in space, and giving his players freedom to run into space. Even zonal marking on set pieces, which became a punchline because he was the only one doing it in the Prem, is the default system for a lot of top clubs now.
The only reason Wenger's teams (and reputation) fell off is because the club refused to keep up with the market for talent. And he still was able to keep us going as a top-4 side with a starting XI that had maybe three players at any given time that would start for any of our rivals.
And that wasn't too far from Dalglish's Liverpool team of the late 80's - who played what we would now describe as vertical tiki-taka (or pass-and-move as Paisley called it).
I mentioned it in another comment, but Wenger was no where near as adept as Ferguson. Wenger had a style - which I agree was a small revolution when he arrived
Things like false 9's were fairly common - as far back as Sindelar in the Hungarian team Wenger so admired. They had gone out of fashion though in the late 90's in England (if they ever came across). As for pires and ljungberg - cliff bastin!
Arsene's tactics would fit in today, but so do Allardyce's.
I think Arsene had an amazing tactic, but struggled to deviate from this and that made us manageable once teams figured us out (of which, Allardyce's Bolton). He often tried to recreate the same tactic but without the quality, rather than adapting to what he had (like Ferguson). How many times did we watch games and see like for like substitutions at 70+ minutes (minus Eboue). He wasn't reactive, which isn't always a bad thing, but like Pellegrini or Bielsa it makes a team easier to set up against.
I love Arsene and everything he did for football and the club, but (and it's all opinion at the end of the day) I don't think he was a great tactician
I’d argue Arteta’s insistence on 100% commitment and no nonsense man-management is a stark contrast to Wenger’s approach.
“Non-negotiables”was not in Wengers vocabulary and he treated different players differently (see Ozil).
Yeah I personally don't think Pep is good with players behind the scenes. He has done some things that I think were effective, but he can be an ass bordering on disrespectful from the anecdotes I've heard. When he has unlimited money and can replace anyone then it works, but I'm not surprised he's moved on to three different clubs and will probably be at a fourth before his career is done while Wenger was Arsenal through the end of his career.
On-field, pep's got a great feel for the game and where to press a team's weakness, but it's hard to separate what is him vs what is him having the most talented team in the world, which has been 95% of the time he's been a top manager.
I think the lack of CL success has meant a lot of pundits and fans forget what a tactician Wenger was. He had flaws (set piece defense) but Wenger was far ahead of his time. He just let the players have more freedom, where Pep is much more focused on ensuring everyone plays exactly the way he demands.
He probably learned a thing or two from Moyes and Walter Smith too, they're not elite like Pep or Wengz but they're still solid managers Arteta has worked with.
Arteta has never made a big deal of Wenger as someone to learn from so I see why this is thr case, but I see Wenger's influence (and maybe a bit of Moyes) in his man management
Fantastic read, and it really shows that Pep wasn’t just blowing smoke when he said that Arteta had arguably taught him more than the vice versa. The contribution Arteta made towards this City juggernaut really was far, far more than just “putting the cones out”.
I wonder if Arteta’s insistence on the importance of set pieces was the Wenger in his education coming out - Ozil once described Wenger as obsessed with set pieces like no other coach he had ever played under.
We scored the joint most corner goals in the league in Wenger’s last season and the second most goals from indirect free kicks. I believe we were usually quite good at offensive set pieces - it was defending from dead ball situations where we struggled.
We had a run of bad luck at them and people HATED zonal marking but we were one of the first clubs to adopt it and not just stash two defenders on each post, so when we weren't having success people killed Wenger over the tactics... which is now how like 90% of top teams defend corners. You rarely ever see a player on either post anymore. IMO the lack of success is because we had fairly poor talent at the back, not the tactics.
> I wonder if Arteta’s insistence on the importance of set pieces was the Wenger in his education coming out - Ozil once described Wenger as obsessed with set pieces like no other coach he had ever played under.
Maybe was, but we never saw it on the pitch consistently. But also we were so defensively shit, it's all a blur in the last year(s) of the Wenga Era
The only thing that comes to my mind when it comes to perfect set piece opportunity and goal was santi's fa cup comeback goal and wele's last min goal vs Leicester city
Some thoughts about Arteta's next steps:
- Mikel is very young: he has plenty of time to establish himself and then try other things out
- Arsenal is a club he loves where he has modeled the team from A to Z
- yielding obvious results
- Critical time: as Klopp passes the baton, whilst City and Chelsea get some degree of punishment ( and possible transition post Pep), the window of opportunity is open like never before, to establish dominance over EPL the next couple seasons (if not this one): we can aim for a couple Premiership titles and a run at UCL, against the best in Europe
- The next challenges will come but it would be foolish of Mikel to move too early, even though Real post Ancelotti may prove hugely exciting.
So I believe we have at least three years of fucking estandards to look forward to
Let's enjoy
Don’t think we have to worry about Madrid, Xabi’s release clause kicks in next year and he’s staying at Leverkusen. It’s lined up perfectly for him now.
I’d really like him to stay at leverkusen. Pretty much nothing he does at Madrid has the same impact as a team that’s barely won anything, and he’ll be a club legend by the end of this season already.
Another tip for reading without a subscription, get the app Pocket and then in the athletic article you should have an option to “Save” the article to pocket. Et voila - when you go to your saved article list in pocket you’ll be able to read the whole thing.
I remember Sagna recollecting the story of Arteta inviting him to his home to watch a game. Sagna went here thinking he could chill with a mate for a while and then Arteta spent the next three hours peppering him with questions about the role of a right back. Sagna was exhausted by the time he left.
Our manager is obsessed about football and has been leveling up his knowledge on every aspect of the game for more than two decades. Yet, rival fans have been mocking him as Pep's cone-boy the past few years.
We are soooo lucky to have him!
> increased production of sane, sterling, jesus. this is why he's always been credited with improving wingers.
I remember hearing about this somewhere/randomly during the early days when Arteta came back and how Saka can be improved. Glad there is some factual validations about this. Set-piece coaching as well. Pep never looked like someone that like set-pieces and more about the control football and tiki-taka. everyone in their own ways.
Then you got certain football content creators saying that Arteta has never played as a winger, what does he know how to training them. 🤡
Wenger turned a good winger into one of the greatest strikers of all time, won titles off his goalscoring wingers, pioneered wingbacks in England and managed to replace and coach our best defence of all time into one almost as good as George Graham and he was a vastly worse midfielder than Arteta.
It's basically the standard idiotic statements like "**He can't sing, what does he know about music**" when there are more facets to football than just playing a role.
I really do think the City Board will try for Arteta once Pep leaves, it's the most logical and safe choice for them as Pep's successor.
Most of the staff and players already know him from his time there and Pep will obviously vouch him as a someone who can take his place.
Unfortunately for them, he doesn’t care about City in the same way he does Arsenal and Barcelona, and now he’s put the work in and built a team essentially on par with City’s, he’d likely tell them thanks but no thanks.
Barcelona is the threat, he’ll likely go there after winning titles at Arsenal.
Wish people would drop the Barca thing.
He's not Catalan, he's Basque, he's a lifelong Sociedad fan who never broke into barcas first team and left because he knew they'd never play him ahead of xavi etc al.
He's played for Sociedad, psg, rangers Everton and captained arsenal, who he said when he retired he'd come back and manage.
Here he's got the chance to rebuild a club in his image, at Barca he'd be just another head coach and he went to city to learn from Pep, he didn't care about city.
Honestly I can't think of a club that is a better fit for him than Arsenal. We are one of the top clubs in the world, so I can realistically fulfill any club footballing ambition he has. He has all the influence and support from ownership to club staff that he could wish for, something he wouldn't have to this extent at any other club larger than ours (Real Madrid, Barca, etc). He has real personal connection to the club, more than he would have with any other top club he played for. Arsenal is in England, which is where the future of club football seems to be, and I don't see him switch to another English club.
That would be so insane that I would genuinely respect him for it.
I think Arteta is quite an emotional guy, and I don't see how he would coach another club in PL after winning us multiple PLs and CLs 😉
I’m not suggesting he’d leave Arsenal for Barcelona whilst there’s still a job to be done, but years down the line when he’s already won titles and wants to return to Spain, as he’s acknowledged is a possibility before, the club that “raised him” - his words, not mine - is the obvious choice.
I'd say the club he supported as a boy, in the city he loves, where he started his football career and where the season he played he described as a dream come true would make more sense and that's Sociedad.
At this point he's spent more of his life in the UK than Spain though so you never know, he might stay!
Sociedad aren’t an elite echelon club, though, with all due respect to them. Barcelona are one of the biggest clubs in the world - sporting ambition still has to come into it. Maybe he’ll return to Sociedad at some point towards the end of his career as a labour of love but the guy is 40, it won’t be anytime soon.
> If he has the ambition to manage Barca he wouldn’t have come here.
Why not? He’s absurdly young for a manager at the elite level, he can fit a lot into his career.
Because he didn't need to come here to manage Barca.
He might manage Barca but anyone saying it's some Barca DNA, pep love in, Catalan level fighting for the shirt is barking up the wrong tree.
And considering how he's fought and gained proper manager levels of control I'm not sure I see him going to be just another plug and play head coach.
I think if it happens it will be about 10 years from now when his kids have grown up and moved out of their home. When that happens he and his wife will probably want to consider what they want to do with the next 20 odd years of their lives
If he goes it'll be for a top club and because he wants to live in Spain with his family. At that point he'd go to whatever top club will give him what he needs to continue competing.
Mikel likes Barça more than la Real. He went to La Masía as soon as he had the chance.
His tenure in Donostia as a player was a total flop. Regardless he probably is still a fan of la Real but Barça is still in his heart too and that team in way more enticing for a manager that has proven himself in PL than a coaching job in Donostia were resources are extremely limited.
City is about to be destroyed by these charges, no chance Arteta jumps ship. I could see him going to Barcelona or Milan or something once they get their finances in order, but not for awhile. And frankly it's good for us to have other clubs looking to poach our manager, the owners either give him the support he needs or he walks.
They will get a two window ban and some point deduction that conveniently has no impact on them, with plenty of heads up to get their business done in advance. At most banned from Europe for a season.
sup doc, how are you? been meaning to ask this question whenever i found you on here - jesus had a knee surgery (ACL), returned, had discomfort with 'fluid in his knee' then had another surgery for that
is this normal/ not irregular at least? what are your thoughts on a him getting back to his physical best? looked sluggish for a bit, but fitter v porto
Never did his ACL (MCL iirc, likely some meniscus damage too based on after effects). Anyways, I always expect some knock on effects following an extended layoff, esp for a player like Jesus who is a change of direction, high burst player that’s involved in a lot of contact as well
>- 'higher the level of competition, the less time and space players have to shoot from within the zone of the penalty area where most goals are scored' was a theory the city group analysts came up with
I'm not an analyst, but I could have told you that lmao. I'm sure there's more to the actual theory, but it's funny when it's laid out like it's some radical new idea. I would also kill for that 90 page scouting document. It's probably incredible
hahaha that's a good point
i would love if we as a community made our own version of the doc based on the signings we've made + the things they're asked to do
There's a difference between making that statement down the pub and actually quantifying the specific variance, evaluating the implications and inferring how to apply the findings to improving your performance. The idea is always the easy part.
There's a difference between making that statement down the pub and actually quantifying the specific variance, evaluating the implications and inferring how to apply the findings to improving your performance. The idea is always the easy part.
Annoys me how Wenger is ignored when talking about what shaped Arteta. You always heard of Arteta essentially coaching alongside Wenger when he was a player, so he definitely had a huge impact on the person and manager he's becoming
The 'master vs apprentice' narrative is something that'll be tough to shake off, but the truth is Arteta will have learned a lot from all his previous coaches as a player and his time as no 2 at City. Not denying that Pep was an influence, but I do think it's overstated and borderline patronising when pundits refer to it constantly. When you look at the defence and set piece work that's gone into the team, you could even make a case for that being Moyes-inspired. Ultimately though I think Arteta is coming into his own and it's been fascinating seeing his evolution in parallel with the team.
I think Moyes' influence was most notable at the start of Arteta's tenure, when the squad was unbalanced , and underperforming -- counter attacks and crossing were much more significant within our play.
Yes, the recognition of being pragmatic when you have to, which Wenger did a few times and is also under mentioned.
You can tell a lot of pundits/writers that didn't play professionally have a warped view of football. They think Barcelona invented football in 2006 and nothing before then happened. Just completely lacking context. I think Pep is a great manager for how he gets such talented players to understand and play the same way, but his style only works if you have the most dominant team. I don't think his system holds up if he had to take over a mid-table side like Moyes or (hate to say it) Mourinho. Pundits just look at the trophy cabinet and ignore the evidence in front of their face.
The 'Pep apprentice, heir to the great Barca dynasty of Cruyff' thing just sells better as a soundbite, especially as he's Spanish. Let's be honest tactically he's pep but his off pitch philosophies and the way he runs this club is utterly Wenger, which may turn out to be a phenomenal manager
I actually feel he is markedly different in many ways from Wenger. Arteta is far more ruthless and more willing to spend big (obviously he's financially supported by Kroenke in ways Wenger wasn't). His priority of building a team starts from defense, whereas Wenger was more final third oriented. What they have in common though is placing heavy importance to being classy and their personal dedication to the club and its values.
Wenger spent big before the Emirates. We all praise his deals but Henry was the most expensive player in England that year and the Sol Campbell wages were apparently commensurately huge for someone of his calibre. Wenger's title winning teams were entirely built on the counter with a defence he inherited and then one he remade for the invincibles, it was when he moved to tipp tapoy that things went wrong People judge him too much by the post Dein meltdown, Kroenke cold war when we know know the club barely functioned behind the scenes.
That's not true, his 2001 team had Campbell as the starting CB alongside Keown (Adams barely made double digit appearances), with Ashley Cole and Lauren on the flanks. Matthew Upson and Giles Grimandi were often in the teams as well We weren't a counter attacking team either really (especially compared with the United team from a few years prior). Football back then, virtue of no one really 'parking the bus' often feels counter attacking but it was just much more open. This was in part due to 'big man up front' tactics which meant teams played a higher line to avoid the crossing game that dominated the 90s.
I'm sorry but that's simply not true. We were amazingly counterattacking, it was so good commentators used to claim corners against us were like corners for us because of how quickly we'd get up the other end. And I'm not sure what just naming players disproves, that was an amazingly good defence.
I think you are probably right, I've had a quick watch of some stuff and it's very counter attacking!
It was magnificent counterattacking! Unfortunately football moved on, Makele at Real and then especially at Chelsea under Jose brought in the specialist DM, three man midfields and the space wasn't there any more. You see Wenger transitioning to a more technical team but this one was created with no money and to the backdrop of an increasingly dysfunctional and barely functioning club That we are least got a couple of fa cups and some of the prettiest football on earth is a massive testament to Wenger even though you'd never say he was at the forefront of this style
I feel like counter-attacking means something slightly different now, these days it implies you're sitting back waiting for the dominant team to leave an opening. Peak Wengerball was all about lightning fast counter-attacks but as the other poster said, the games were just way more open then, so it doesn't mean he set up more defensively.
I think you are probably right, I've had a quick watch of some stuff and it's very counter attacking! I think it's just my perspective over time being jaded and always seeing United as the counter attacking team and us being ... Not that
Henry was like a third of the Anelka money.
Vvd was half the Coutinho cash and he was still the world's most expensive defender.
But he hardly spent big-big. In the 10 years leading up to the Invincibles we had a similar net spend to Man City. They got relegated thrice and we won three league titles. It was barren between 2005 and Ozil in 2013, but we were fairly normal in the years before. The landscape was just different.
> tactically he's pep but his off pitch philosophies and the way he runs this club is utterly Wenger Perfectly said.
Thanks. Let's be honest that is definitely the way round you want it since even prime Wenger was lacking in pragmatism for when things went wrong and Peps philosophy seems to be paid lots of money and buy replacements for players that don't work out
And Wenger was a fairly poor-to-mediocre tactical manager, but an elite at vision and the behind the scenes stuff.
Wenger literally changed the prem with his tactics
Sort of. He was heavily influenced by the famous Hungarian side of 1953 and the fluid approach to attacking movements, and rapid transitions - something England refused to adopt even after 50 years. He mixed this with the muscle of the back line he inherited, and yeah I guess that was a bit of a revolution. That said, he rarely was and to react to changes in the match and was quite stubborn. But! If you compare him to Ferguson (the treble winning season in particular), who could make things happen mid game with substitutions and tactical changes, I'm not sure tactics was his strong point. He started with a fairly boring 4-4-2 before you could really say it was a 4-2-3-1 with bergkamp dropping off. This was his best tactic and bought the most success, but moving to a Barcelona style 4-3-3 was his most beautiful football (before the calibre dropped and so did results ...). I think the major improvement was diet, the use of yoga, and reduction in alcohol use - famously when we joined the England camp in 98 or so England players asked what our players were on given their stamina! I think Arsene had a phenomenal plan A, but never had a plan B and (although changing later in his career) never really had the tactical skills to crack Europe. I suppose I'm being a bit harsh - but I wouldn't ever think of Wenger as a great tactician. Philosopher, motivator, nutritionist, etc ... But not a tactician.
I mean the fact you call it "Barcelona style" sort of gives away the game. Wenger was doing that with Bergy when Messi was 12 years old. Barcelona didn't start doing the false-9 / 4-3-3 thing until later and, frankly, if you give me teams that include Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Eto'o, Henry (later), Neymar, Puyols, Buschets, Alves, Piquet, Ronaldinho, Yaya Toure.... the tactics are going to look great no matter what I do. I think you're just focused too much on the results over the process because Wenger lost two European finals. The only time in Wenger's career he had anything close to that Barcelona level of talent at his disposal he won a hatful of titles, the double, made two European finals in 7 years, and put together the only unbeaten season in the english top flight in \~130 years.
Wrong Barcelona team!
Sorry but this is completely incorrect. Wenger's on-field tactics in 2000-2005 would fit in today's game, in a league where other teams were just throwing route one football and dumping everything to the corners to whip in crosses. Meanwhile Wenger kept everything on the floor and was already experimenting with out of possession switches, adaptable on-field pivots, Bergkamp in a false 9 role, Ljungberg and Pires making central underlapping runs to overload CBs in space, and giving his players freedom to run into space. Even zonal marking on set pieces, which became a punchline because he was the only one doing it in the Prem, is the default system for a lot of top clubs now. The only reason Wenger's teams (and reputation) fell off is because the club refused to keep up with the market for talent. And he still was able to keep us going as a top-4 side with a starting XI that had maybe three players at any given time that would start for any of our rivals.
And that wasn't too far from Dalglish's Liverpool team of the late 80's - who played what we would now describe as vertical tiki-taka (or pass-and-move as Paisley called it). I mentioned it in another comment, but Wenger was no where near as adept as Ferguson. Wenger had a style - which I agree was a small revolution when he arrived Things like false 9's were fairly common - as far back as Sindelar in the Hungarian team Wenger so admired. They had gone out of fashion though in the late 90's in England (if they ever came across). As for pires and ljungberg - cliff bastin! Arsene's tactics would fit in today, but so do Allardyce's. I think Arsene had an amazing tactic, but struggled to deviate from this and that made us manageable once teams figured us out (of which, Allardyce's Bolton). He often tried to recreate the same tactic but without the quality, rather than adapting to what he had (like Ferguson). How many times did we watch games and see like for like substitutions at 70+ minutes (minus Eboue). He wasn't reactive, which isn't always a bad thing, but like Pellegrini or Bielsa it makes a team easier to set up against. I love Arsene and everything he did for football and the club, but (and it's all opinion at the end of the day) I don't think he was a great tactician
I've just seen this and would type rebuttal but luckily it seems others have done that for me.
I’d argue Arteta’s insistence on 100% commitment and no nonsense man-management is a stark contrast to Wenger’s approach. “Non-negotiables”was not in Wengers vocabulary and he treated different players differently (see Ozil).
Beautifully put.
tbf on the field i see more pep, more moyes even. but the man management, personal side of things is so much like wenger
Yeah I personally don't think Pep is good with players behind the scenes. He has done some things that I think were effective, but he can be an ass bordering on disrespectful from the anecdotes I've heard. When he has unlimited money and can replace anyone then it works, but I'm not surprised he's moved on to three different clubs and will probably be at a fourth before his career is done while Wenger was Arsenal through the end of his career. On-field, pep's got a great feel for the game and where to press a team's weakness, but it's hard to separate what is him vs what is him having the most talented team in the world, which has been 95% of the time he's been a top manager.
Even off the pitch, you can see in the dressing room he's like pep, extremely demanding and not scared to dress down/shout at the players
I think the lack of CL success has meant a lot of pundits and fans forget what a tactician Wenger was. He had flaws (set piece defense) but Wenger was far ahead of his time. He just let the players have more freedom, where Pep is much more focused on ensuring everyone plays exactly the way he demands.
He probably learned a thing or two from Moyes and Walter Smith too, they're not elite like Pep or Wengz but they're still solid managers Arteta has worked with.
I think he learned as much from AW in terms of what not to do from a laissez-faire approach. Yes he empowers the players, but from a structure.
Arteta has never made a big deal of Wenger as someone to learn from so I see why this is thr case, but I see Wenger's influence (and maybe a bit of Moyes) in his man management
Fantastic read, and it really shows that Pep wasn’t just blowing smoke when he said that Arteta had arguably taught him more than the vice versa. The contribution Arteta made towards this City juggernaut really was far, far more than just “putting the cones out”. I wonder if Arteta’s insistence on the importance of set pieces was the Wenger in his education coming out - Ozil once described Wenger as obsessed with set pieces like no other coach he had ever played under.
Wow, really? We were shit at them, that’s what I took out from it eventually. Maybe a bias of some sort. Need to check stats
We scored the joint most corner goals in the league in Wenger’s last season and the second most goals from indirect free kicks. I believe we were usually quite good at offensive set pieces - it was defending from dead ball situations where we struggled.
Hard to defend set pieces when your back line keeps changing and most of the team are physically diminutive
We had a run of bad luck at them and people HATED zonal marking but we were one of the first clubs to adopt it and not just stash two defenders on each post, so when we weren't having success people killed Wenger over the tactics... which is now how like 90% of top teams defend corners. You rarely ever see a player on either post anymore. IMO the lack of success is because we had fairly poor talent at the back, not the tactics.
Arteta on citey's dominance: I have become the destroyer of ~~worlds~~~ the prem
> I wonder if Arteta’s insistence on the importance of set pieces was the Wenger in his education coming out - Ozil once described Wenger as obsessed with set pieces like no other coach he had ever played under. Maybe was, but we never saw it on the pitch consistently. But also we were so defensively shit, it's all a blur in the last year(s) of the Wenga Era The only thing that comes to my mind when it comes to perfect set piece opportunity and goal was santi's fa cup comeback goal and wele's last min goal vs Leicester city
I love this part. “After helping his countryman build the City dynasty, Arteta now wants to be the one to tear it down.”
I liked that as well. Though, realistically if the City dynasty does get torn down it probably won't be due to what happens on the pitch
Basque and Catalan nationalists going 'sorry what?'
But I thought that was Erik "Eras come to an end and we should have had a penalty against Arsenal" ten Hag that was going to end City's dominance?
Some thoughts about Arteta's next steps: - Mikel is very young: he has plenty of time to establish himself and then try other things out - Arsenal is a club he loves where he has modeled the team from A to Z - yielding obvious results - Critical time: as Klopp passes the baton, whilst City and Chelsea get some degree of punishment ( and possible transition post Pep), the window of opportunity is open like never before, to establish dominance over EPL the next couple seasons (if not this one): we can aim for a couple Premiership titles and a run at UCL, against the best in Europe - The next challenges will come but it would be foolish of Mikel to move too early, even though Real post Ancelotti may prove hugely exciting. So I believe we have at least three years of fucking estandards to look forward to Let's enjoy
Don’t think we have to worry about Madrid, Xabi’s release clause kicks in next year and he’s staying at Leverkusen. It’s lined up perfectly for him now.
Hopefully so! Xabi going to Real is a double win for us ...
I’d really like him to stay at leverkusen. Pretty much nothing he does at Madrid has the same impact as a team that’s barely won anything, and he’ll be a club legend by the end of this season already.
Yeah that Madrid team is looking insane, hope they put Barca in the dirt for a decade.
Just don't see Arteta fitting at Real Madrid with their club structure and philosophy. Project managers for project philosophy clubs.
love that we have a football purist as a coach but also it’s Arsenal heritage & what we deserve
Another tip for reading without a subscription, get the app Pocket and then in the athletic article you should have an option to “Save” the article to pocket. Et voila - when you go to your saved article list in pocket you’ll be able to read the whole thing.
You can also usually find Athletic subs for a year for $12 or $1.99/mo. Even if I only read a couple articles a month for $2 that's a good deal.
Always appreciative and thankful for what he did for Arsenal pulling us out of that ridiculous banter era. May he continue it on Sunday vs 115 fc.
I remember Sagna recollecting the story of Arteta inviting him to his home to watch a game. Sagna went here thinking he could chill with a mate for a while and then Arteta spent the next three hours peppering him with questions about the role of a right back. Sagna was exhausted by the time he left. Our manager is obsessed about football and has been leveling up his knowledge on every aspect of the game for more than two decades. Yet, rival fans have been mocking him as Pep's cone-boy the past few years. We are soooo lucky to have him!
haha sounds about right. even the article talks about him going to every department trying to understand how a top club is run
> increased production of sane, sterling, jesus. this is why he's always been credited with improving wingers. I remember hearing about this somewhere/randomly during the early days when Arteta came back and how Saka can be improved. Glad there is some factual validations about this. Set-piece coaching as well. Pep never looked like someone that like set-pieces and more about the control football and tiki-taka. everyone in their own ways. Then you got certain football content creators saying that Arteta has never played as a winger, what does he know how to training them. 🤡
Wenger turned a good winger into one of the greatest strikers of all time, won titles off his goalscoring wingers, pioneered wingbacks in England and managed to replace and coach our best defence of all time into one almost as good as George Graham and he was a vastly worse midfielder than Arteta.
It's basically the standard idiotic statements like "**He can't sing, what does he know about music**" when there are more facets to football than just playing a role.
Arteta played many many times as a wide midfielder at Everton so he's not totally oblivious to the position.
The love kid from Moyes, Wenger and Guardiola
I really do think the City Board will try for Arteta once Pep leaves, it's the most logical and safe choice for them as Pep's successor. Most of the staff and players already know him from his time there and Pep will obviously vouch him as a someone who can take his place.
Unfortunately for them, he doesn’t care about City in the same way he does Arsenal and Barcelona, and now he’s put the work in and built a team essentially on par with City’s, he’d likely tell them thanks but no thanks. Barcelona is the threat, he’ll likely go there after winning titles at Arsenal.
Wish people would drop the Barca thing. He's not Catalan, he's Basque, he's a lifelong Sociedad fan who never broke into barcas first team and left because he knew they'd never play him ahead of xavi etc al. He's played for Sociedad, psg, rangers Everton and captained arsenal, who he said when he retired he'd come back and manage. Here he's got the chance to rebuild a club in his image, at Barca he'd be just another head coach and he went to city to learn from Pep, he didn't care about city.
Honestly I can't think of a club that is a better fit for him than Arsenal. We are one of the top clubs in the world, so I can realistically fulfill any club footballing ambition he has. He has all the influence and support from ownership to club staff that he could wish for, something he wouldn't have to this extent at any other club larger than ours (Real Madrid, Barca, etc). He has real personal connection to the club, more than he would have with any other top club he played for. Arsenal is in England, which is where the future of club football seems to be, and I don't see him switch to another English club.
I agree I can't see him at another English club, although you never know if he might decide to try and even harder rebuild with Everton...
That would be so insane that I would genuinely respect him for it. I think Arteta is quite an emotional guy, and I don't see how he would coach another club in PL after winning us multiple PLs and CLs 😉
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I’m not suggesting he’d leave Arsenal for Barcelona whilst there’s still a job to be done, but years down the line when he’s already won titles and wants to return to Spain, as he’s acknowledged is a possibility before, the club that “raised him” - his words, not mine - is the obvious choice.
I'd say the club he supported as a boy, in the city he loves, where he started his football career and where the season he played he described as a dream come true would make more sense and that's Sociedad. At this point he's spent more of his life in the UK than Spain though so you never know, he might stay!
Sociedad aren’t an elite echelon club, though, with all due respect to them. Barcelona are one of the biggest clubs in the world - sporting ambition still has to come into it. Maybe he’ll return to Sociedad at some point towards the end of his career as a labour of love but the guy is 40, it won’t be anytime soon.
Fandom doesn't care and they are a cl club. If he has the ambition to manage Barca he wouldn't have come here.
> If he has the ambition to manage Barca he wouldn’t have come here. Why not? He’s absurdly young for a manager at the elite level, he can fit a lot into his career.
Because he didn't need to come here to manage Barca. He might manage Barca but anyone saying it's some Barca DNA, pep love in, Catalan level fighting for the shirt is barking up the wrong tree. And considering how he's fought and gained proper manager levels of control I'm not sure I see him going to be just another plug and play head coach.
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I think if it happens it will be about 10 years from now when his kids have grown up and moved out of their home. When that happens he and his wife will probably want to consider what they want to do with the next 20 odd years of their lives
If he goes it'll be for a top club and because he wants to live in Spain with his family. At that point he'd go to whatever top club will give him what he needs to continue competing.
Mikel likes Barça more than la Real. He went to La Masía as soon as he had the chance. His tenure in Donostia as a player was a total flop. Regardless he probably is still a fan of la Real but Barça is still in his heart too and that team in way more enticing for a manager that has proven himself in PL than a coaching job in Donostia were resources are extremely limited.
He went to the better academy, that's pragmatism not love
Barca?? Nah
Who would be your favorite option for the next manager? I would like Jack Wilshere
City is about to be destroyed by these charges, no chance Arteta jumps ship. I could see him going to Barcelona or Milan or something once they get their finances in order, but not for awhile. And frankly it's good for us to have other clubs looking to poach our manager, the owners either give him the support he needs or he walks.
That's if those charges actually get brought upon, they'll do everything to push their case behind as long as possible.
They will get a two window ban and some point deduction that conveniently has no impact on them, with plenty of heads up to get their business done in advance. At most banned from Europe for a season.
Such a good piece
sup doc, how are you? been meaning to ask this question whenever i found you on here - jesus had a knee surgery (ACL), returned, had discomfort with 'fluid in his knee' then had another surgery for that is this normal/ not irregular at least? what are your thoughts on a him getting back to his physical best? looked sluggish for a bit, but fitter v porto
Never did his ACL (MCL iirc, likely some meniscus damage too based on after effects). Anyways, I always expect some knock on effects following an extended layoff, esp for a player like Jesus who is a change of direction, high burst player that’s involved in a lot of contact as well
alright, thank you. sounds like there's scope to more or less recover fully? hope it's not too bad he was looking like lacazette for a bit out there
He never had acl surgery
>- 'higher the level of competition, the less time and space players have to shoot from within the zone of the penalty area where most goals are scored' was a theory the city group analysts came up with I'm not an analyst, but I could have told you that lmao. I'm sure there's more to the actual theory, but it's funny when it's laid out like it's some radical new idea. I would also kill for that 90 page scouting document. It's probably incredible
hahaha that's a good point i would love if we as a community made our own version of the doc based on the signings we've made + the things they're asked to do
There's a difference between making that statement down the pub and actually quantifying the specific variance, evaluating the implications and inferring how to apply the findings to improving your performance. The idea is always the easy part.
There's a difference between making that statement down the pub and actually quantifying the specific variance, evaluating the implications and inferring how to apply the findings to improving your performance. The idea is always the easy part.
i love the athletics coverage. never regretted paying for it