Jump to content

Arsenal, Pt. X: Boom-Xhaka-Laca!


Dr LBC

Recommended Posts

Updating the latest from the Ornacle (ducked back to earlier this week to be thorough):

Still not seeing Jardim's name which is a shade disappointing to me, but ultimately not that surprising.  I don't mind Allegri because, while I fear how well his preferred style of play really fits with the personnel we have, he brings discipline and accountability which is something this side needs desperately.  However, I can very easily see Allegri drawing out over a long time and ultimately settling on Chelsea over us, oddly reminiscent of a number of our transfer windows under Arsene, leaving us to scramble in an already truncated transfer window (thanks, FA...) to get our business done.

I genuinely believe that Arteta will eventually come good as a quality manager, I'm just not convinced he's ready yet (or that one year under Pep is enough to pick up on a lot of the intricacies of Pep's system and meticulousness).

That said, I'm incredibly relieved to hear that there's no legs to the Brendan Rodgers stuff.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just more rumblings of what I've heard (not necessarily from ITK's - most of what I hear, if I'm actually going to even bother talking about it or bringing it up, is just stuff I've heard through discussion with people I trust to be at least informed and able to separate "traditionally more dependable sources" from "crap rags"), is that Arteta/Buvac may be a package deal.  The later being Zeljko Buvac, who has been Klopp's #2 since they were both at Mainz, and who is said to be the one who was the driving force behind getting Klopp to really emphasize the more Bielsa-esque pressing-style of defense with Liverpool.  Would certainly put a little ease as to Arteta's relative inexperience, given that Buvac has over 700 matches as an assistant under his belt, and another 66 as manager of SC Neukirchen as a player/manager.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, The LBC said:

Just more rumblings of what I've heard (not necessarily from ITK's - most of what I hear, if I'm actually going to even bother talking about it or bringing it up, is just stuff I've heard through discussion with people I trust to be at least informed and able to separate "traditionally more dependable sources" from "crap rags"), is that Arteta/Buvac may be a package deal.  The later being Zeljko Buvac, who has been Klopp's #2 since they were both at Mainz, and who is said to be the one who was the driving force behind getting Klopp to really emphasize the more Bielsa-esque pressing-style of defense with Liverpool.  Would certainly put a little ease as to Arteta's relative inexperience, given that Buvac has over 700 matches as an assistant under his belt, and another 66 as manager of SC Neukirchen as a player/manager.

Any Arteta appointment would have to come with the experience on his team.

I'd hazard a quest he would still hold a lot of respect in the building at Arsenal, it would really surprise if we went with a first time manager though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, The LBC said:

Just more rumblings of what I've heard (not necessarily from ITK's - most of what I hear, if I'm actually going to even bother talking about it or bringing it up, is just stuff I've heard through discussion with people I trust to be at least informed and able to separate "traditionally more dependable sources" from "crap rags"), is that Arteta/Buvac may be a package deal.  The later being Zeljko Buvac, who has been Klopp's #2 since they were both at Mainz, and who is said to be the one who was the driving force behind getting Klopp to really emphasize the more Bielsa-esque pressing-style of defense with Liverpool.  Would certainly put a little ease as to Arteta's relative inexperience, given that Buvac has over 700 matches as an assistant under his belt, and another 66 as manager of SC Neukirchen as a player/manager.

When the Buvac connections first came up I thought that might be the case, that they were keen on Arteta but wanted to make sure they had an experienced #2 coming with him as well.

Jardim or Sarri have been my top choices for the job and I'm bummed we seemingly haven't really shown any interest in either. It seems that they're laying the groundwork in the press now for Arteta to be the guy though. It's a risky choice for sure but it's one I think I can get behind. He's someone who even going back to when he was a player was someone who was always tipped to be a top future manager and the fact that Guardiola and Pochettino both valued him so highly does speak volumes as well. But still, he hasn't even managed a single game before. It's not that it's impossible for him succeed under those circumstances (I'm not going to pretend a year of managing a B team somewhere like Zidane or Guardiola did would all of a sudden tick the experience boxes) but you wonder whether this will just be a bit too much too soon.

It's high risk, very high reward if it pans out. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

But still, he hasn't even managed a single game before.

Actually not true.  One game isn't very much more than none, but it's still a game... against us... that they won.

 

Also, per Ornstein, Colin Lewin our long-time physio has been sacked.  Was honestly a long time coming - though I do feel like the constant re-aggravating of simple soft tissue injuries were more down to Arsene rushing some of the players like Ramsey back into training before they should have been.  What still hilarious is how little Twitter knows about even the simplest of medical matters (e.g. "allowed simple injuries to turn into players missing months at a time" - sorry, but any injury that results in a month-plus layoff is not simple, these aren't the injuries these guys suffer playing pub league and a pulled groin/hamstring/hip-flexor would probably have them on their couches moaning about how they're going to get back to bed).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All roads lead to Arteta. Nothing to do but get behind the new boss I guess, but he's going to need to bring in a strong coaching team around him for sure. 

Bigger red flag here is that 50 million pound transfer budget. It's not an exaggeration to say that in today's EPL that is the budget a midtable club would expect to work with, not a would-be top 4 contender. Without Wenger to shield them from blame it's going to be Gazidis, Kroenke, the board, etc. owning the blame now moving forward. The fact that they're responding to that by penny pinching wherever possible isn't a good sign. 

I suspect we're going to have some significant outgoings this summer - Ramsey and Bellerin,  maybe Lacazette as well if they decide a 2 striker system isn't going to work - so the overall spend will be higher than 50 million, but knowing that we need to really step things up to get back into the top 4 if we're only financing our additions by selling our best players, we're not going to get that much closer to Liverpool and Spurs unless Arteta turns out to be Pep 2.0. 

Edited by BaltimoreTerp
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

All roads lead to Arteta. Nothing to do but get behind the new boss I guess, but he's going to need to bring in a strong coaching team around him for sure. 

Bigger red flag here is that 50 million pound transfer budget. It's not an exaggeration to say that in today's EPL that is the budget a midtable club would expect to work with, not a would-be top 4 contender. Without Wenger to shield them from blame it's going to be Gazidis, Kroenke, the board, etc. owning the blame now moving forward. The fact that they're responding to that by penny pinching wherever possible isn't a good sign. 

I suspect we're going to have some significant outgoings this summer - Ramsey and Bellerin,  maybe Lacazette as well if they decide a 2 striker system isn't going to work - so the overall spend will be higher than 50 million, but knowing that we need to really step things up to get back into the top 4 if we're only financing our additions by selling our best players, we're not going to get that much closer to Liverpool and Spurs unless Arteta turns out to be Pep 2.0. 

Unless Bellerin either gets unsettled (won't surprise me) by Barca players on the Spanish side this summer or we get offered an utterly ridiculous sum for him, I don't think he's going anywhere this summer.  Assuming Arteta is the guy actually strengthens that position for me because Bellerin is the ideal type of RB for the style of play we can (probably safely) assume Arteta will want to play, and the two have a (publicly recognized) pretty strong relationship.  Ramsey I could see being the sacrificial lamb just due to his age and the likelihood that he would want to actually challenge for league and CL titles, and that we really can't begrudge him that after the years of service he's given to the club.  The only big drawback I can see in that is that the most interest in him is likely to come from other PL clubs and the idea of strengthening a rival side doesn't do us favors.

I do honestly think that we're going to see a fair amount of Mavropanos type signings for the next couple windows, more or less lottery tickets from Mislintat's scouting due diligence that can either develop into quality players or be flipped for substantial profit - and at worst require minimal investment to acquire.  We're not coming off a season (or even going to have the benefit of him being able to recover via a strong WC performance) but it's possible they try to recover some funds out of Mustafi, just because I'm not sure he fits the "defend-through-possession" model I assume Arteta will push - whereas Holding and Chambers do and, IMHO, Bielik does as well.  Further, there are a couple guys (I don't know who specifically, simply that they are ones who reports came out didn't get on with Mikel after he'd left to be Pep's assistant, citing that he was trying to interfere with decisions the manager made via his captaincy and that he was extremely demanding on the pitch (these don't strike me as bad qualities of a captain), who Arteta could (or may already have, if he's been tabbed as the guy from the get-go and the club is just going through the motions to try to appease fans that there was an exhaustive recruitment carried out) want out of the dressing room just for sake of less drama and greater continuity.

Just another aside, if Arteta is the new manager I won't be surprised in the slightest if Monreal is our next captain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

 

Uhhh what.

I guess Arteta was just a smokescreen? 

Nope.  Feels like Gadzidis caved to the pressure from fans who - let's be real - like to pretend they know as much about running a football club as people who have been immersed in the sport as high levels since youth and were never going to be happy with any hire because they were expecting/"demanding" managers to bail on CL-qualified clubs to come here to dig us out of Europa on a less-competitive budget compared to major rivals.  So he went with a "safe hire."

I can't help but feel like we hired the managerial equivalent of Pat Shurmur - someone who can keep you mildly competitive but who you're never going to perceive as a title-winning coach because he just lacks the gusto.

Gadzidis also better pray to whatever God he believes in that Arteta doesn't turn out to be a quality manager if and when he finally does get an appointment (fairly confident at this point it will be whenever Pep hits his usual burnout wall and vacates the post at City; if Arteta doesn't turn right around now and take over NYCFC with Vieira taking the Nice job), because pulling out in the 11th hour like this will have well and truly burned that bridge between us and Mikel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...