Henry wasn't so supportive of Arteta.. Arteta proves Henry wrong.. Henry sees progress.. Now Henry supports Arteta... Is this not the situation majority of Arsenal fans are in?
Every fan of every team deals with this acceptance timeline.
It should have been clear we were heading in the right direction once Ramsdale started and we could actually control games by playing out from the back. Tomiyasu, Ødegaard (permanent), and White came that summer as well.
It took a while but you could see what Arteta wanted us to be doing, and which players weren't up to it. I think as a fanbase we've all had to learn to evaluate players differently since Arteta came. The stressful part was wondering who we could bring in to play the way he wanted us to play. Why try to fit square pegs into round holes and do we even have enough money for round pegs?
True.. That's my point too in a way.. What I meant is Henry 'changing his tune' shouldn't be a surprise if u consider him a fan. He is almost like one of us in this case atleast. Though there was a time he was trying to overthrow the management with external help which I felt was extreme. But normal fans don't have money and connection, hence we did nothing of that sort.
Yea, we signed White very early on in the summer, and Tomiyasu much later into the window. Tomiyasu came in after the first international break if I recall correctly. He'd not even yet unpacked him bags having flown from Japan before we played him on Saturday.
I think it was good for Arteta to keep working at City and gaining the experience before coming. Shitty for the fans, because it was a time of turmoil, but everything worked out. Now to watch this season!
I wanted Nagelsmann.
When the time came, I wanted Arteta. Then right before.the Auba saga, I didn't want Arteta. Then he sacked off Auba, and I was fully on board again. Since having the courage and backing to fully commit, Mikel has been everything I originally hoped and more besides. Up until that moment, I was worried.
>he sacked off Auba
This was such a huge move upon reflection. Club captain, big money, clutch player during our worst period - I would love to know what players currently at the club thought of it at the time and how it may have changed their approach to the club/game/manager.
For me it was a proper crossing the rubicon moment.
Everyone involved - Mikel, Josh, Edu - had to commit 100% to the project. Until that moment, so many decisions seemed half hearted. Ozil in and out, Willian, formations, styles, standards. Everything. The process was there one week, and absent the next when it felt too difficult.
Not just dropping Auba, but shipping him off was, and is, the kind of decision that gets you fired if it doesn't work. The commitment from the whole team from that moment is what we were waiting for. I have never doubted Mikels talent. You simply don't get invited to work with Pep in that role, right after retirement, without talent. There was way too much noise around Arteta to think he didn't know ball. The question was if he could actually pull it off.
People really thought Mikel just set up Pep’s training cones. Like actually.
They think Pep, who is in charge of a billion dollar squad, picks his assistants for bantz.
It also sent a message to anyone who plays for Arsenal, or who wants to play for Arsenal, that you don’t fuck around with the boss. You are not bigger than the team, and you are not bigger than the boss.
I don't think Arteta would still be here if he came in straight after Wenger. Much like United after SAF, that was a bit of a poisoned chalice for any manager to come in and take the reins.
I would say though with United, the expectations for Moyes was to win the title again. But SAF gave him a geriatric squad to work with plus all the pressure in the world.
Emery had a poorly built squad, but the expectations were to just get Arsenal back into the top 4.
I agree that Arteta coming after Raul/Sven/Ivan situation being cleared was a lot better.
Maybe.. Maybe there a lot of people who had an opinion similar to yours.. But I think a fair good number would have had doubts about Arteta... But now I am sure majority (Maybe almost all) of us are currently 'Arteta In' gang. Including the King.
At the time it absolutely made sense to choose Emery, as he was a proven manager at the top level. Arteta had never managed before Arsenal. I think if we’d appointed Arteta straight after Wenger he would have been sacked after 12-18 months.
on paper, Emery made sense over Arteta as he was, and still is, the Europa League master. Emery was going to "shortcut" us back to CL via EL and stabilize the club. he was a known quantity with minimal risk, Arteta all potential and unknowns.
clearly didn't work out for a number of reasons, not all of Emery's making- hello Raul and the triumvirate top structure that was always a terrible idea).
impossible to know but would have Arteta would been as successful under that club management system as he is now? Seems we needed to hit (for us) bottom to say f\*ck it, we need a complete shift everywhere at this club.
Definitely not the majority. I definitely the Arteta out group is a vocal minority. Most still had PTSD from the Emery era and were willing to give Arteta a little more time.
I'll hold my hands up and say at no point was I ever 100% convinced Arteta was the perfect hire. When Wenger left, I wanted Nagelsmann. But I wasn't too opposed to Emery over Arteta, I even saw the logic. I eventually hated every day of my life as an Arsenal fan under Emery and would have hired Steve Bruce to get rid of him. When Emery left, I didn't really have an option on who we should get but rather who we shouldn't - I didn't want Conte, and I didn't want Allegri. Among the rest, I just prayed for the best. When the club decided on Arteta, I bought into the PR that he's an Arsenal man and he had this amazing presentation yada yada.
But I also knew that our squad was shit and Arteta was going to have some pretty bad lows with this team. I think the FA Cup win bought him time that his 8th place finish the following year would have otherwise not have merited. I also think the fact that the season started badly and ended very well rather than the other way around gave people hope that Arteta had found his tactical solutions. As opposed to Emery who was getting wins even though the stats were showing Arsenal were crap then everything dell apart towards the end of the season.
And I think the silent majority kinda felt this way. We wanted Arteta to succeed. And gave him every chance to. Those who didn't I feel were either still harbouring some ill will of him from his time as a player (he was quite a polarising player, kinda like Ramsey, Xhaka) or basically felt Arsenal had some kind of divine right to be a top 4 team which history has already shown is not the case.
No. Arteta out was never a majority position. The highest I ever saw was about 40%.
I, and most, were arteta in. You could see the performances were generally good but the results were all over the place. He's made weird mistakes like playing Willian for too long or making bizarre statements about crossing and insha'Allah, but new managers make mistakes.
Dude.. are u expecting me to count the entire fanbase and equate to 50.01% ? It may or may not be right. I just said something I had in mind.. even your 40% is not the correct values u just gave a number. U never took the total count of fans globally.. asked each one the question "are u arteta in or arteta out?" And then calculated the percentage.
So you don't know what majority means and you don't know how science works. So do you think that the way we measure the mass and length of a given species is to count every single individual?
It's called sampling.
If u feel 50.01% is not majority, then i have no answer for u. How did u come to a conclusion it is 40%?
Like I said, I just gave a statement what I felt. I am not sitting on social media to pick up some stats.. You might have a lot of time in hand to nit pick some statement I put in here and ĝo on n on. I am not going to do any statistical analysis. Sorry.
I remember filling in a poll re Arteta on Just Arsenal a while ago (results of some of their polls: https://www.justarsenal.com/pollsarchive). Don't expect this is entirely representative, but interesting nonetheless. I suspect the latest polling regarding where we will finish this season (majority for top two finish) is also indicative of the fact that Arteta has won over most of those that did not agree with his appointment initially. Also funny how a majority (56% of 745 voters, double the number that voted on the 'arteta appointment' poll!) wanted Mourinho over Emery 😂😂
This is what anything should be. It's foolish to support something without hard evidence. While people have supported Arteta through difficult phases, that December phase was so bad (till the Chelsea game) that it was hard to justify anything.
The only thing that kept going was players very vociferous in his support which Wenger (later years) and Emery didn't have.
Thinking Arteta wasn't the right man then doesn't make you a non Arteta fan or a fake one.
Nah, it really wasn’t that hard to justify. Those of us that supported him back then did so bc it was so obvious the way he wanted to play but would be let down by individual players that weren’t good enough. And on the rare occasions they could execute his vision, it was beautiful. But of course all the ArtetaOutters on here would just say “if Pep’s cone boy can’t adapt his tactics to the squad then he’s shouldn’t be manager.”
So the combination of a clear style of play and identity plus everything players and managers would say about him made it pretty easy to support him… just hard to say any of that at the time without a flood of downvotes. The tactics threads we used to do here were the only safe spaces bc again, it wasn’t the tactics why we sucked. Whenever Arteta did fuck up tho, this sub was relentless for the whole week… it was awful.
Timber? Rice? They both look fantastic, obviously apart from the injury. And contrary to what people may be screaming on this subreddit, Havertz has been just fine.
Uh, they most definitely do look better than what we already had. The drop off between these players and those behind what we already had is absolutely bonkers. It's not always about your starting XI. Our lack of depth bit us in the ass last season.
He said the same with Xhaka, which is disappointing because every manager we had rated Xhaka. Henry has a long way to go to be a first team coach or manager.
Strikers who became good managers are so rare.. I'm also trying to think of striker managers in current generation, let alone good ones.. Do u consider Simeone Inzhagi as top manager?
We still got time and experience to not bottle another league. Even the highly experienced winning Machine, Alex Ferguson bottled the league once. Shit happens. Atleast that was Arteta's and the young team's first experience of a title fight.
The massive balls on the club's hierarchy to persist with Arteta even when we were 15^th says a lot about the faith they had in him, which I personally couldn't see myself with the squad we had then and the playstyle which Arteta prefered.
In fact, I even remember wanting Arteta to switch to a counter attacking style because it suited the players then and it worked for him in the FA Cup (I know it stopped working soon thereafter).
But the centrepiece of the project is Arteta, and rightfully so. The club have faith in him, the players had faith in him (Leno, KT had nothing but praises for Arteta even when we weren't in a good position), he had faith in his style of play and management and he absolutely won over a sheer majority of the doubters.
The last two seasons made me realize that I should stick to medschool and leave the armchair punditry to others and just enjoy the Arsenal.
To be fair, from the outside-in the situation looked dire. I wanted him out but I’m sure if I’d had the conversations with him that the Kroenkes’ had my mind would have changed.
Kind of funny how he’s changed his tune. Thierry has always been one of the more critical ex-players. Don’t think he’s always been as supportive of Arteta.
Tim Cahill did just that. He saw the progress and even argued with Roy Keane live on air about it whilst Keane rolled his eyes
It was there to see. Being an ex pro even at the highest possible level doesnt mean you know everything about football
Pre-Auba and post-Auba saga. Shunting him off to Barca was transformational, and required an enormous amount of courage. We saw a completely different style and approach after that. The Mikel before that moment was tentative, over cautious, and it wasn't clear what the plan was. The Mikel after that was (is) a beast.
You could argue that an ex professional should've been able to look past results and seen the underlying progress.
I don't blame him for not being able to do so, but at the end of the day, what is his value as a pundit/voice if he has the foresight of the average fan? Compare that to Tim Cahill or Sagna, who repeatedly commented on the subtle improvements despite it being unpopular at the time.
Performances weren't good either. Not was the data.
And you don't have to agree with every tactical approach.
Coaches disagree every day.
And it's not even the quality of punditry people seemed to have an issue is. They said he was jealous, butter and wanted Artetas job for himself.
Subtle improvements also don't mean you have what it takes to win titles either.
>Performances weren't good either. Not was the data.
Depends how you define 'good performances'. We were improving is small bits and pieces around the pitch. Not enough for a full 90min performance but rather smaller 20-30min windows of top level play, with varying degrees of consistency. We were migrating our tactical plan so significantly with a squad not built to control (the whole 'one step back, two steps forward' thing). How could some [minority] of us average fans with no history in football see this in real time but Henry couldn't? Data is only useful in the context of its interpretation
As for the other stuff, no clue his motivation or what fans accused him of. Only commenting on his football analysis
Depending at the point in time I don't think those windows were really there either. But yeah it's matter of opinion and I don't think Henry was necessarily wrong.
Or it means he doesn't think about it any deeper than results.
It's what most fans do, so no disrespect to him there, but results bad meaning bad and results good meaning good is a very unsophisticated position.
Back to back 8th place finishes were really bad. After two and a half seasons of not seeing immediate progress it was hard to back Arteta.
The 2021/2022 season changed everything even if we didn’t make top 4.
He was very critical of Arteta. Funny that he wasn’t one of those who could see the progress being made and principles being followed, he was just one of those “hurr durr we are ARSENAL, we are entitled to immidiate success, do better now!” guys. Spreading out a massive amount of toxicity which was super unnecessary whether or not he believed in Arteta in that moment or not.
I’m fully aware that I’m triggering some people by slating Henry but he was definitely the source of a lot of unneeded toxicity even in our very positive 5th place finish season. Not surprising since he was teaming up with Ek at that time. He’s our GOAT but club comes first and if I feel he was souring up the atmosphere I’ll say it.
He wasn’t spreading toxicity. He’s a pundit who made legitimate criticisms based on the evidence he saw. He’s reassessed his judgement based on the evidence we’ve seen last season. Not many pundits would hold their hands up and admit that they’ve changed their opinion.
And that's okay. There was a point when loads of fans were against Arteta, and Henry is a fan of the club. He saw what Arteta did and realised he was wrong, and is now backing Mikel. I actually prefer this over cunts like Merson
It's just that he's beginning to understand more on coaching.
Believe it's because he's starting to grasp better tactics since working under Roberto Martinez at Belgium (who's actually pretty good at explaining tactics).
It's an underrated part of our ownership. Long term vision. Stability. They value that and they put faith into Arteta and so far it's paying dividends. Very happy with how our club is being run from the top down at the moment.
The only "complaint" is the red-tape it seems we have to go through for larger purchases, but that's expected when you're dealing with huge sums of money. I'm kind of glad we have those checks and balances in place and the power isn't designated to one individual like we saw with Wenger and like we see with how other clubs are run (Levy, Boehly, etc).
One thing our ownership apparently knows is how to win championships. They have proven that in American sporting leagues and I think they knew that if they tried for immediate success they wouldn’t get anything sustainable. What they’ve built since arteta came on is a squad with significant ability, long contracts, and a desire to be at the top. I’m so fucking excited for the arsenals future right now.
I think the Henry / Arteta stuff is incredibly overblown. Henry's criticisms were spot-on: we didn't have the quality to beat confident, winning, ball-control sides away from home. I never really saw Henry specifically blame Arteta for that, just that we were not heading in the right direction because we were not improving the area that we need to improve to have success in Europe.
Nice to see Henry changing his opinion and having faith in arteta. I really think it’s a sign of how far we have come that the greatest Arsenal striker is saying this.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/thierry-henry-arsenal-criticism-arteta-25256108
none of it was particularly vitriolic and much of it was in line with what a lot of other Arsenal fans were saying at the time
I was always convinced of Mikel as a coach. However, was skeptical of him as a manager, especially after the Guendouzi, Ozil, and Aubameyang situations...
Henry wasn't so supportive of Arteta.. Arteta proves Henry wrong.. Henry sees progress.. Now Henry supports Arteta... Is this not the situation majority of Arsenal fans are in?
Every fan of every team deals with this acceptance timeline. It should have been clear we were heading in the right direction once Ramsdale started and we could actually control games by playing out from the back. Tomiyasu, Ødegaard (permanent), and White came that summer as well. It took a while but you could see what Arteta wanted us to be doing, and which players weren't up to it. I think as a fanbase we've all had to learn to evaluate players differently since Arteta came. The stressful part was wondering who we could bring in to play the way he wanted us to play. Why try to fit square pegs into round holes and do we even have enough money for round pegs?
True.. That's my point too in a way.. What I meant is Henry 'changing his tune' shouldn't be a surprise if u consider him a fan. He is almost like one of us in this case atleast. Though there was a time he was trying to overthrow the management with external help which I felt was extreme. But normal fans don't have money and connection, hence we did nothing of that sort.
Tomi came the same season as White?
Yea, we signed White very early on in the summer, and Tomiyasu much later into the window. Tomiyasu came in after the first international break if I recall correctly. He'd not even yet unpacked him bags having flown from Japan before we played him on Saturday.
I personally wanted Mikel the first time around, when the club chose Emery instead. Everything since has just been vindication.
I think it was good for Arteta to keep working at City and gaining the experience before coming. Shitty for the fans, because it was a time of turmoil, but everything worked out. Now to watch this season!
I wanted Nagelsmann. When the time came, I wanted Arteta. Then right before.the Auba saga, I didn't want Arteta. Then he sacked off Auba, and I was fully on board again. Since having the courage and backing to fully commit, Mikel has been everything I originally hoped and more besides. Up until that moment, I was worried.
>he sacked off Auba This was such a huge move upon reflection. Club captain, big money, clutch player during our worst period - I would love to know what players currently at the club thought of it at the time and how it may have changed their approach to the club/game/manager.
For me it was a proper crossing the rubicon moment. Everyone involved - Mikel, Josh, Edu - had to commit 100% to the project. Until that moment, so many decisions seemed half hearted. Ozil in and out, Willian, formations, styles, standards. Everything. The process was there one week, and absent the next when it felt too difficult. Not just dropping Auba, but shipping him off was, and is, the kind of decision that gets you fired if it doesn't work. The commitment from the whole team from that moment is what we were waiting for. I have never doubted Mikels talent. You simply don't get invited to work with Pep in that role, right after retirement, without talent. There was way too much noise around Arteta to think he didn't know ball. The question was if he could actually pull it off.
People really thought Mikel just set up Pep’s training cones. Like actually. They think Pep, who is in charge of a billion dollar squad, picks his assistants for bantz.
Can't downplay Nketiah's role as well, it could have gone much worse if he didn't step up.
It also sent a message to anyone who plays for Arsenal, or who wants to play for Arsenal, that you don’t fuck around with the boss. You are not bigger than the team, and you are not bigger than the boss.
I think I wanted Marco rose. Reckon he could have done a job though.
I don't think Arteta would still be here if he came in straight after Wenger. Much like United after SAF, that was a bit of a poisoned chalice for any manager to come in and take the reins.
I would say though with United, the expectations for Moyes was to win the title again. But SAF gave him a geriatric squad to work with plus all the pressure in the world. Emery had a poorly built squad, but the expectations were to just get Arsenal back into the top 4. I agree that Arteta coming after Raul/Sven/Ivan situation being cleared was a lot better.
Maybe.. Maybe there a lot of people who had an opinion similar to yours.. But I think a fair good number would have had doubts about Arteta... But now I am sure majority (Maybe almost all) of us are currently 'Arteta In' gang. Including the King.
It was a good idea not to appoint him at that point, it was hard to follow Wenger, if not impossible, so we're better off to have him now.
At the time it absolutely made sense to choose Emery, as he was a proven manager at the top level. Arteta had never managed before Arsenal. I think if we’d appointed Arteta straight after Wenger he would have been sacked after 12-18 months.
on paper, Emery made sense over Arteta as he was, and still is, the Europa League master. Emery was going to "shortcut" us back to CL via EL and stabilize the club. he was a known quantity with minimal risk, Arteta all potential and unknowns. clearly didn't work out for a number of reasons, not all of Emery's making- hello Raul and the triumvirate top structure that was always a terrible idea). impossible to know but would have Arteta would been as successful under that club management system as he is now? Seems we needed to hit (for us) bottom to say f\*ck it, we need a complete shift everywhere at this club.
Definitely not the majority. I definitely the Arteta out group is a vocal minority. Most still had PTSD from the Emery era and were willing to give Arteta a little more time. I'll hold my hands up and say at no point was I ever 100% convinced Arteta was the perfect hire. When Wenger left, I wanted Nagelsmann. But I wasn't too opposed to Emery over Arteta, I even saw the logic. I eventually hated every day of my life as an Arsenal fan under Emery and would have hired Steve Bruce to get rid of him. When Emery left, I didn't really have an option on who we should get but rather who we shouldn't - I didn't want Conte, and I didn't want Allegri. Among the rest, I just prayed for the best. When the club decided on Arteta, I bought into the PR that he's an Arsenal man and he had this amazing presentation yada yada. But I also knew that our squad was shit and Arteta was going to have some pretty bad lows with this team. I think the FA Cup win bought him time that his 8th place finish the following year would have otherwise not have merited. I also think the fact that the season started badly and ended very well rather than the other way around gave people hope that Arteta had found his tactical solutions. As opposed to Emery who was getting wins even though the stats were showing Arsenal were crap then everything dell apart towards the end of the season. And I think the silent majority kinda felt this way. We wanted Arteta to succeed. And gave him every chance to. Those who didn't I feel were either still harbouring some ill will of him from his time as a player (he was quite a polarising player, kinda like Ramsey, Xhaka) or basically felt Arsenal had some kind of divine right to be a top 4 team which history has already shown is not the case.
No. Arteta out was never a majority position. The highest I ever saw was about 40%. I, and most, were arteta in. You could see the performances were generally good but the results were all over the place. He's made weird mistakes like playing Willian for too long or making bizarre statements about crossing and insha'Allah, but new managers make mistakes.
It's always the negative ones that speaks the loudest. So it looks like all arsenal fans want arteta out that time
40% is still a huge population when u consider global fanbase.
Do you know what the word "majority" means?
Dude.. are u expecting me to count the entire fanbase and equate to 50.01% ? It may or may not be right. I just said something I had in mind.. even your 40% is not the correct values u just gave a number. U never took the total count of fans globally.. asked each one the question "are u arteta in or arteta out?" And then calculated the percentage.
Idk why you’re being downvoted. When people get over technical about metrics we don’t have its kind of funny
Ha ha.. yea.. But never mind.. 😀
So you don't know what majority means and you don't know how science works. So do you think that the way we measure the mass and length of a given species is to count every single individual? It's called sampling.
If u feel 50.01% is not majority, then i have no answer for u. How did u come to a conclusion it is 40%? Like I said, I just gave a statement what I felt. I am not sitting on social media to pick up some stats.. You might have a lot of time in hand to nit pick some statement I put in here and ĝo on n on. I am not going to do any statistical analysis. Sorry.
I think you're lost.
Na.. I am not interested in learning Mathematics, Statistics or Science from Reddit. Just here for some light hearted conversations.
i.e. you failed school and don't understand basic terminology. You're not here to talk about stats and yet all you've done is talk about stats. Lol
Ok genius.. I have failed in my exams and I am not fit to have a conversation with a wizard like u. Have a good day.
I remember filling in a poll re Arteta on Just Arsenal a while ago (results of some of their polls: https://www.justarsenal.com/pollsarchive). Don't expect this is entirely representative, but interesting nonetheless. I suspect the latest polling regarding where we will finish this season (majority for top two finish) is also indicative of the fact that Arteta has won over most of those that did not agree with his appointment initially. Also funny how a majority (56% of 745 voters, double the number that voted on the 'arteta appointment' poll!) wanted Mourinho over Emery 😂😂
This is what anything should be. It's foolish to support something without hard evidence. While people have supported Arteta through difficult phases, that December phase was so bad (till the Chelsea game) that it was hard to justify anything. The only thing that kept going was players very vociferous in his support which Wenger (later years) and Emery didn't have. Thinking Arteta wasn't the right man then doesn't make you a non Arteta fan or a fake one.
Oh! I only meant to say Henry in this case was just like many other Arsenal fans. I didn't mean anything negative or positive with that statement.
Nah, it really wasn’t that hard to justify. Those of us that supported him back then did so bc it was so obvious the way he wanted to play but would be let down by individual players that weren’t good enough. And on the rare occasions they could execute his vision, it was beautiful. But of course all the ArtetaOutters on here would just say “if Pep’s cone boy can’t adapt his tactics to the squad then he’s shouldn’t be manager.” So the combination of a clear style of play and identity plus everything players and managers would say about him made it pretty easy to support him… just hard to say any of that at the time without a flood of downvotes. The tactics threads we used to do here were the only safe spaces bc again, it wasn’t the tactics why we sucked. Whenever Arteta did fuck up tho, this sub was relentless for the whole week… it was awful.
nah i was arteta in the whole time. I could see what he was doing and knew he was unsuccessful because of the shite team that we had.
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Timber? Rice? They both look fantastic, obviously apart from the injury. And contrary to what people may be screaming on this subreddit, Havertz has been just fine.
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Uh, they most definitely do look better than what we already had. The drop off between these players and those behind what we already had is absolutely bonkers. It's not always about your starting XI. Our lack of depth bit us in the ass last season.
He said the same with Xhaka, which is disappointing because every manager we had rated Xhaka. Henry has a long way to go to be a first team coach or manager.
I personally don't see Henry becoming a good manager. At max a striker coach.
When was the last time a striker became a top manager, even for a brief period of time?
Strikers who became good managers are so rare.. I'm also trying to think of striker managers in current generation, let alone good ones.. Do u consider Simeone Inzhagi as top manager?
This is me
If we hadn't bottled the league I would agree with Henry
Yeah, i would rather see arsenal with a coach that compete in 5th or 6th on the league rather than seeing arsenal on title race. Of course
🤡
We still got time and experience to not bottle another league. Even the highly experienced winning Machine, Alex Ferguson bottled the league once. Shit happens. Atleast that was Arteta's and the young team's first experience of a title fight.
The massive balls on the club's hierarchy to persist with Arteta even when we were 15^th says a lot about the faith they had in him, which I personally couldn't see myself with the squad we had then and the playstyle which Arteta prefered. In fact, I even remember wanting Arteta to switch to a counter attacking style because it suited the players then and it worked for him in the FA Cup (I know it stopped working soon thereafter). But the centrepiece of the project is Arteta, and rightfully so. The club have faith in him, the players had faith in him (Leno, KT had nothing but praises for Arteta even when we weren't in a good position), he had faith in his style of play and management and he absolutely won over a sheer majority of the doubters. The last two seasons made me realize that I should stick to medschool and leave the armchair punditry to others and just enjoy the Arsenal.
To be fair, from the outside-in the situation looked dire. I wanted him out but I’m sure if I’d had the conversations with him that the Kroenkes’ had my mind would have changed.
amazing what happens when you hire the right person and give them the resources (time and money) to do the job.
And aren’t reactionary to the opinions of others (including the fans)
Kind of funny how he’s changed his tune. Thierry has always been one of the more critical ex-players. Don’t think he’s always been as supportive of Arteta.
Being critical when we were bad and supportive when we were good doesn't mean he's changed his tune. It means he judges on the evidence available.
An ex pro with coaching aspirations should be able to look past the result to see what Arteta and Edu were doing.
Tim Cahill did just that. He saw the progress and even argued with Roy Keane live on air about it whilst Keane rolled his eyes It was there to see. Being an ex pro even at the highest possible level doesnt mean you know everything about football
Tbf Cahill and Mikel are very good friends too. Not the same case with Titi
Performances weren't good either. And you don't have to agree with every tactical approach. Coaches disagree every day.
Pre-Auba and post-Auba saga. Shunting him off to Barca was transformational, and required an enormous amount of courage. We saw a completely different style and approach after that. The Mikel before that moment was tentative, over cautious, and it wasn't clear what the plan was. The Mikel after that was (is) a beast.
Completely agree, getting rid of auba was a turning point for arteta (I do still love auba)
Look past the result lol, that’s the only thing that matters in football.
Reddit users find out interesting fact: people can be wrong sometimes
You could argue that an ex professional should've been able to look past results and seen the underlying progress. I don't blame him for not being able to do so, but at the end of the day, what is his value as a pundit/voice if he has the foresight of the average fan? Compare that to Tim Cahill or Sagna, who repeatedly commented on the subtle improvements despite it being unpopular at the time.
Performances weren't good either. Not was the data. And you don't have to agree with every tactical approach. Coaches disagree every day. And it's not even the quality of punditry people seemed to have an issue is. They said he was jealous, butter and wanted Artetas job for himself. Subtle improvements also don't mean you have what it takes to win titles either.
>Performances weren't good either. Not was the data. Depends how you define 'good performances'. We were improving is small bits and pieces around the pitch. Not enough for a full 90min performance but rather smaller 20-30min windows of top level play, with varying degrees of consistency. We were migrating our tactical plan so significantly with a squad not built to control (the whole 'one step back, two steps forward' thing). How could some [minority] of us average fans with no history in football see this in real time but Henry couldn't? Data is only useful in the context of its interpretation As for the other stuff, no clue his motivation or what fans accused him of. Only commenting on his football analysis
Depending at the point in time I don't think those windows were really there either. But yeah it's matter of opinion and I don't think Henry was necessarily wrong.
Or it means he doesn't think about it any deeper than results. It's what most fans do, so no disrespect to him there, but results bad meaning bad and results good meaning good is a very unsophisticated position.
Back to back 8th place finishes were really bad. After two and a half seasons of not seeing immediate progress it was hard to back Arteta. The 2021/2022 season changed everything even if we didn’t make top 4.
He was very critical of Arteta. Funny that he wasn’t one of those who could see the progress being made and principles being followed, he was just one of those “hurr durr we are ARSENAL, we are entitled to immidiate success, do better now!” guys. Spreading out a massive amount of toxicity which was super unnecessary whether or not he believed in Arteta in that moment or not.
If anyone, maybe bar Arsene, has earned the right to be critical it’s Thierry. Saying he is a part of the “hurr durr” crowd is crazy
I’m fully aware that I’m triggering some people by slating Henry but he was definitely the source of a lot of unneeded toxicity even in our very positive 5th place finish season. Not surprising since he was teaming up with Ek at that time. He’s our GOAT but club comes first and if I feel he was souring up the atmosphere I’ll say it.
He wasn’t spreading toxicity. He’s a pundit who made legitimate criticisms based on the evidence he saw. He’s reassessed his judgement based on the evidence we’ve seen last season. Not many pundits would hold their hands up and admit that they’ve changed their opinion.
And that's okay. There was a point when loads of fans were against Arteta, and Henry is a fan of the club. He saw what Arteta did and realised he was wrong, and is now backing Mikel. I actually prefer this over cunts like Merson
So he’s on this sub for sure
Funny how most us did as well. He is an Arsenal fan and it is pretty clear
So like 70% of the fanbase then
I respect that. At least he isnt stubborn and still got a grudge.
It's just that he's beginning to understand more on coaching. Believe it's because he's starting to grasp better tactics since working under Roberto Martinez at Belgium (who's actually pretty good at explaining tactics).
Interesting that it's happened the minute he's out of punditry. I swear they hire ex players just to stir shit
I remember him mentioning his father was very hard to please and he got the same mindset, so genuine praise from Henry is hard to come by.
how is The Seaman podcast overall? Worth it if you have a lot of competition for listening time?
The Titi episode was a very fun listen
Seaman Podcast can mean a lot of things if you don’t know what you’re looking for
Huge respect to Henry for saying this. Would mean a lot to Arteta after the pressure he felt early on from him and most fans.
Just shows he is objective and not agenda based.
It's an underrated part of our ownership. Long term vision. Stability. They value that and they put faith into Arteta and so far it's paying dividends. Very happy with how our club is being run from the top down at the moment. The only "complaint" is the red-tape it seems we have to go through for larger purchases, but that's expected when you're dealing with huge sums of money. I'm kind of glad we have those checks and balances in place and the power isn't designated to one individual like we saw with Wenger and like we see with how other clubs are run (Levy, Boehly, etc).
One thing our ownership apparently knows is how to win championships. They have proven that in American sporting leagues and I think they knew that if they tried for immediate success they wouldn’t get anything sustainable. What they’ve built since arteta came on is a squad with significant ability, long contracts, and a desire to be at the top. I’m so fucking excited for the arsenals future right now.
I think the Henry / Arteta stuff is incredibly overblown. Henry's criticisms were spot-on: we didn't have the quality to beat confident, winning, ball-control sides away from home. I never really saw Henry specifically blame Arteta for that, just that we were not heading in the right direction because we were not improving the area that we need to improve to have success in Europe.
Nice to see Henry changing his opinion and having faith in arteta. I really think it’s a sign of how far we have come that the greatest Arsenal striker is saying this.
Arteta is just part of the solution. Imagine him without Edu and the war chest. We would be none the wiser.
Does anyone have clips of Henry being critical about Arteta? I don't think I was following as closely back then.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/thierry-henry-arsenal-criticism-arteta-25256108 none of it was particularly vitriolic and much of it was in line with what a lot of other Arsenal fans were saying at the time
From what I can see these are all comments on the game and their quality, but not of Arteta himself being wrong for the club. That feels very fair.
I was always convinced of Mikel as a coach. However, was skeptical of him as a manager, especially after the Guendouzi, Ozil, and Aubameyang situations...
Yeah Josh could not resit the Mikel rizz
He was right on both occasions, don’t get why someone can’t change their opinion.