Just a quick post for you this morning as I showered you in two lots of content goodness yesterday.
A few things I wanted to add to the Monchi story.
A few people have rightly raised concerns about the nepotistic new look being sculpted at Raul’s Arsenal.
Firstly, the reason that’s a worry is the same reason it’s a worry at any organisation. You want to build a culture of excellence focused on performance, not who knows who. You don’t want to create dangerous power structures that make it hard for outside voices to be heard, whilst also muddying the waters of true performance accountability.
Arsene Wenger had a counterbalance when he started at Arsenal. David Dein was the more aggressive partner who pushed him to take chances on players. He could do this because he acted as/was seen as an equal. When Dein was pushed out of the club unceremoniously in his attempt to make Arsenal a super club, Wenger assumed full control and no one dared stop him.
He built out an untouchable backroom team that consisted of people who’d dare not challenge his authority, and he hired incompetent folk who were grateful for the underserved prestige job he’d handed out. He even had a say on who the CEO was. Imagine that, letting an underling yay or nay the person who could fire him? No coincidence the type of character he picked.
This approach works when judgment is sound, but it fails spectacularly when things go wrong. When the wheels came off Wenger’s approach and we started to sink, no one had the guts to tell him, and worse, Wenger didn’t have the quality around him to search out solutions even when he eventually wanted them.
Unai Emery has effectively brought in a partner who will make the decision to give him another 3 years, a pay rise, or sack him. Does that sound like history repeating itself? Maybe.
The big question everyone should be asking is this: how ruthless will Monchi be?
Who knows. Ultimately, this will only become a problem if things go wrong. The big hope is the reunion of the band will lead to better days on and off the pitch.
Following on from this, I totally forgot that Monchi hired in Sampaoli. The Argentine manager put on quite the show at Sevilla. He brought an aggressive brand of South American football to the club, he rejuvenated Samir Nasir, ended Zidane’s 40 game unbeaten run, and tapped out by qualifying Sevilla for the Champions League.
This is mostly interesting because it says Monchi is a man of exceptional taste when it comes to the sort of football he wants to see. Exactly what you want from the man hired to set the tone for the footballing style of Arsenal moving forward.
A Gooner friend of mine mentioned that Monchi will act as a counter to Emery’s impulse to purchase older players. I did some digging, overall, I’m not so sure.
I was going to pull the numbers for net spend, but overall, what’s the point? We know the guy is mustard at player churn.
Sifting through his last 6 seasons, it’s clear he’s a huge fan of the loan system. He likes to borrow players not landing minutes at big clubs, and he also likes young kids to get game time by sending them out on loan. Ben Knapper is going to be very busy.
The average age of a Monchi signing (purchases and important loans) over the last 6 season sits at 25.5. It’s clear the man is no Ralph Rangnick who believes players are untrainable after the age of 23 years old.
The coach says that he never signs a player the manager doesn’t want, so I thought it’d be interesting to see the average age of an Emery signing in the 3 successful years they worked together. It’s a little over 25.5, sitting at 25.8. So not quite Mourinho, but smack bang at the start of ‘prime’ football years. Key point here is if we’re looking to make money, utilising this approach means players will be here a maximum of two seasons before being sold on for profit (my thinking here is 28 is the cut-off point before sharp declines in value).
I think the middling twenties number stems from the strategy at Sevilla tending to be geared around players that had lost their way with bigger clubs. Sevilla acted as a second chance for a lot of players. Clearly, Monchi thinks there’s value in the scrap heap and he likes the idea of the ‘chip on the shoulder’ motivation that comes with being shunned.
Worth noting that Wenger also liked to do this when he was the king. He brought in names like Kanu, Overmars and Suker whilst also breathing new life into the clubs legends like Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp, Lee Dixon and Tony Adams. I mean, it’d be fair to say that Thierry and Vieira were also on a scrap heap of sorts, even if they were very young when they moved to us.
The Roma transfer policy has tended to follow a very similar pattern to Sevilla. His first act was to move on Paredes, Salah, Rudiger and Emerson from 135.8m euros. Quite an aggressive move considering their combined average age was only 23.75. He then added 13 players with an average age of 25.6.
The next summer he shifted Strootman, (28) Nainggolan (30), and Alisson (25) for 142m euros which was good business. However, he went full on Sevilla with the replacement signings bringing in Pastore (29) and Nzonzi (29) for 60m euros, not exactly value based signings if you’re thinking about the long-term resale value.
That said, they managed to nab Justin Kluivert (19) and Nicolo Zaniolo (19), who exciting bets for the future.
So in short, we’re hiring a Technical Director who likes to find value at the big clubs for experience, whilst taking chances on kids he can offer more playing time to than the big clubs.
Very, very Raul it would seem. Also very Emery if we think the Suarez deal was all his. Do not be shocked to see us raid Barcelona for Malcolm this summer. Just the right amount of broken if Monchi’s past signings are anything to go by.
Now, your past doesn’t always dictate your future. No one has a clue what the brief is at the minute. But one thing is for sure, I think this summer will be a whirlwind. Over 6 seasons, he’s averaged 13.6 new faces a season. That’s a far cry from Wenger’s mantra of ‘more than 3 signings and training ground will flood.’ Last season at Roma, including loans, 41 faces arrived and 44 left. The season before 52 arrived, 59 left. A lot of loans in that, but it gives you an idea about the amount of fucks given when it comes to shaking things up.
So what have we learned today? Well, I can’t write a short post when I’m interested in something. Whatever happens, this summer will be aggressive, fast-paced and exciting. Like it or lump it, we’ll be looking at a very different group of players when next season starts.
The next chapter begins… (hopefully)
Right, that’s me done, enjoy the Southampton game and we’ll talk more on Monday.
x
Midwest, CG knows the drill now. No personal attacks. I can’t ban someone for thinking Roy Hodgson is an elite manager though.
Interesting how sensitive everyone is to Emery, don’t remember Wenger getting that treatment this time last year when I was deleting unsavoury comments behind the scenes.
Have i been naughty again?
Hey Diss.. I’m doin ok and you? Good to see your still here.. I know things change.. But that what we all wanted right is the ability to have a season that isn’t a Groundhog season… we could finish anywhere from 3rd to 6th… at this point I have no idea.
I’m actually enjoying all of Pedro’s blogs because they aren’t rehashes from 7 years ago.. and ill be honest I don’t read all the comments any more. Don’t have the time.. until lately ..
No CG, just personal attacks on Emery need to lighten up. Attack his approach and his results.
Also, yellow card for hyping Roy Hodgson.
Roy Hodgson is the future of football!
Bennydevito & words on the bog Good performance today , I have a feeling that sokratis may be the key to where we finish this season . If he remains fit then I can see us looking more solid defensively , he seems to give the team a bit of security. We looked sharper in attack ,moved the ball nice and quickly with some nice intricate moves. It probably helped that Southampton have us the space to play in but we still utilised that space well. Football is all about combinations and partnerships. Kolasinac and iwobi do work well together… Read more »
Roy H
Showing us, even at 70- you never stop learning
He is doing A stunning job.
I hope- they win the Cup.
I think – he would make an excellent Tech Director for us…..
Pedro,
Pep’s staff he brought with him to City:
https://www.mancity.com/news/club-news/club-news/2016/july/pep-guardiola-backroom-staff-revealed
Klopp brought a few:
https://www.thisisanfield.com/clubinfo/staff/
About 6 staff joined Man Utd with Mourinho
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/man-utd-coaching-staff-solskjaer-15578527
Poch took his Southampton backroom team with him to Spurs:
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/mauricio-pochettino-lands-spurs-role-on-back-of-developing-saints-team-9442745.html
So many more examples if need be
Bd
Mourinhio/Klopp/ Pep are A raters.
They DEMAND
Emery is a C rater
He is TOLD.
Big big difference..
Woab,
You were there today. Care to tell us all what the attendance was? Any less than usual? Any less than last season under Wenger?
Mourinhio/Klopp/ Pep are A raters.
They DEMAND
Emery is a C rater
He is TOLD.
________
Might want to get your story straight… I thought Emery was telling the Club who to come here in the executive suite and telling them who to target in transfers?
Benny, to reiterate: I said the manager should be allowed to bring 2-3 coaching staff. ‘Pochettino brings with him his backroom staff from St Mary’s in assistant manager Jesus Perez, first-team coach Miguel D’Agostino and goalkeeping coach Toni Jimenez. ‘ Reads like 3 signings that are coaching staff, unless I’m missing something? Mourinho is a superstar manager and he cost £25m in total to exit. David Moyes was the issue because United fired all coaches that knew the club. What happened? Things went to shit. That was compounded by LVG who hired a bunch of shit. Then Mourinho had to… Read more »
Additionally Benny, you know why Poch didn’t take 30 staff with him, because Southampton make the key hires to ensure a manager leaving doesn’t kill them.
Also Mourinho is an A rate… Azzhat..
Bennydevito & danni autos “One of them just listed suarez in a list of our most technical players after weeks of bashing him” I presume you are talking about me . I criticised the signing of Saurez because I couldn’t see how he would get a game due to us having Mhkitaryan,Ozil ,iwobi and Ramsey who can play his position. However, now he is at the club I have said would like to see him get some game time as he is very good technically , has a good First touch and good movement and also appears to want to… Read more »
Alright… Y’all I’m off to watch some A-list Hollywood types make some passionate speeches about stuff they don’t really care about to make themselves look better.
Keep it real… Vote for Pedro!
Mid
Raul is running the show.
His stooge is Emery.
Those 2 leave together( whenever that is)
The Day Gazidas went- Monchi was coming in….. granted Emery chose his mate…
Swen M was serenely ushered out the door to facilitate Monchi ..
So is Rambo.(Very spiteful sub from Emery today- I thought.)
And They will try to oust Ozil
( I am backing Ozil in this civil war)
Three Amigos will wreck carnage at Arsenal.
Benny D
I’ve been to every home match and, perhaps with the exception of a couple of the group stage Europa matches, attendances are up relative to the dismal final Wenger years.
Pedro,
I’m not saying it’s a good thing to do or the right thing to do as it’s worked with Pep, Poch & Klopp, but didn’t work with Mourinho. I’m just saying it is a common practice.
In my mind there should be a strong management structure in place independent of each other and the manager to avoid nepotism, cronyism and complacency and bad habits, and to avoid multiple layouts and turnover of staff each time the manager is changed.
*payouts, not layouts ffs.
Also, It doesn’t look like attendances are on the decline at the Emirates relative to the beginning of the season
“Bd
“””:” independent of each other and the manager to avoid nepotism, cronyism”” “”
If the 3 Amigos Pact is not lazy cronyism- nothing is…
It’s a disgusting state of affairs for a club of our magnitude!
Shameful.. that people support it.
Pedro, your “managerial”critique of Emery, i.e., that he is not “cutting edge” , or that he is lacking in man management skills, or that he’s an empire builder, etc, compared to others may or may not have merit. But it’s really premature, and I feel that sometimes you’re grasping at”evidence” to make your point(s).And that evidence is just easy to rebut. When you made similar points against Wenger, you had a really powerful case, and those trying to set out a counter case looked like trolls,head-in-the-sand ostriches, or weird nostalgic traditionalists. At the moment the guys setting out a counter… Read more »
Charlie GeorgeFebruary 25, 2019 00:35:57 It is little wonder -crowds are plummeting when we have a coach- who favours the geriatric Lich – over the more exciting and potent players like Ozil and PEA. ..( benched >>>>>> Facepalm. It’s called squad rotation after an away match in Europe on Thursday!!! Ozil and PEA aren’t defenders!!!!!!!! Duuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh!!! Also Woab has confirmed he’s been to every home prem game this season and attendances are UP on last season under Wenger. You really need to stop lying. Spiteful substitution? What on earth are you talking about?? You’re pathetic and you’re desperate. According to… Read more »
PedroFebruary 25, 2019 00:36:28 Midwest, CG knows the drill now. No personal attacks. I can’t ban someone for thinking Roy Hodgson is an elite manager though. Interesting how sensitive everyone is to Emery, don’t remember Wenger getting that treatment this time last year when I was deleting unsavoury comments behind the scenes >>>>>> Pedro, I for one didn’t frequent the comments section last year because I was bored of Wenger. I read your posts, shared them on Twitter etc but very rarely read the comments so I myself wouldn’t have seen the unsavoury remarks about Wenger, and if you were… Read more »
fock me, next week the spuds. Can we do a domestic double against them ? I don’t think so, If we lose or draw against spuds, the man utd game becomes a decider. I hope every one at arsenal will be telling the lads what’s expected next weekend.
benny
the funny thing is, why should arsenal fans call each other rude words when we have smug pool fans who act like they have the title in the bag, not to mention the wankers who think london is blue or white.
Why are we not directing our filth towards those cunts ?
ES – Bob N16 – G62 Thought I’d wait until the game and Monchi posts subsided before mentioning the England v Wales game. My gut said we were going to lose this game, and it’s rarely wrong. England got stuck between their attacking kicking and running game and their defensive tactics where their attacking running game line tactics were greatly reduced. I’ve always believed that England’s kicking game has to be at 100% and their penalty count needs to be both below 8 and their opponents for England to win the big games. Wales only had 3 penalties to Englands… Read more »
Monchi Interesting posts on this potential acquisition for TD, but let’s see if Monchi accepts. You never know with Arsenal and it’s getting nearer to season ticket renewal time when the inevitable PR performs its Renew Renew Renew propaganda. If we do get Monchi’s services, I’ll add him to my wait-and-see folder along with Emery and the summer TW window. I prefer to base my thinking on facts. Also why wait until June to get Monchi if he has a £1million buy-out clause? We need a TD or DoF now to plan for the summer TW. Good to get the… Read more »
“Good performance today , I have a feeling that sokratis may be the key to where we finish this season .
If he remains fit then I can see us looking more solid defensively , he seems to give the team a bit of security.”
I could have sworn Dissenter, BennyD, Ishola and a few other have being saying the injuries in defence particularly to Holding when he was hitting his stride affected the team.
Midwest
Good to see you still remember the groove.
From now on, the team should only play 2 CB’s. Against weaker opponents, we’ll play 4-2-3-1 with Torr and Xhaka as 2 DM’s. Against strong opponents, we’ll use Guen as the third CM. He’ll have the freedom of moving up as CAM or moving back as DM. It won’t affect the other nine outfield players. We should keep this identity of the team to minimize confusions.
So I dont know if Overmars is a good option to be honest. But this sounds a lot like the Emery situation. We couldn’t get our first choice, so we go, ok no worries, lets get Monchi.
Surely we can reach agreement over a fee for Overmars to release him from Ajax if that’s the guy we want and he wants to come to us.
Pedro, please calm down. We really enjoy this blog and your articles. But your aggressive stance regarding injuries that should be attributed to Emery are making you look like agenda driven. You are spot on in questioning about Emery’s style of play (which we still have no idea), the absolute mess our defense has been since Rob Holding got injured and shows no sign of coming in a decent shape in the short term. These things are out in the open and even people who are staunch supporters of Emery know this even though they might try to deflect it… Read more »
Funny how the squad left by Wenger was absolutely dross, but here we are 4th. I always said that our squad is the 4th best squad and that top 4 is achievable with little investment. ManUtd, ManCity and Liverpool are ahead of everybody else in term of squad, quality and balance. Out of Chelsea First 11, the only players superior to ours are Kante, Hazard and maybe their goalkeeper. A fit Higuain may edge Lacazette, but right now he is overweight. Same with Spurs, man for man I would only swap for Kane, Christiansen, Vertonghen and maybe Lloris. Today we… Read more »
Nathan Redmond showed why despite his talent no big clubs have taken a punt on him. He will coaching in area of his game where he should already be proficient. He fluffed his big chance at 0-0, because of his technique. Instead of cutting across Mustafi path, he stay on the right. That gave Mustafi the opportunity to slow him down, and Leno to then come forward. If he had cut across, Mustafi would not have been able to interfere without risking a penalty and a straight red card. The rest of his game was the same, great movement off… Read more »
Iwobi development is a strange one. Emery has clearly given him confidence, so he tries more tricks and dribble than before. However I think that his final ball is getting worse. I may be wrong, but I think he has played more than year, but has less assists and less goal scored. He is frustrating because he does a lot of good thing but he tends to not release the ball early enough. Also somebody should spend some shooting sessions with him, his shooting is atrocious. He tries to kick the ball too hard instead of concentrating on hitting the… Read more »
“It is little wonder -crowds are plummeting when we have a coach- who favours the geriatric Lich – over the more exciting and potent players like Ozil and PEA. ..( benched)”
Just look at the things we have to read these days on this blog. Cringe worthy. Ozil should definitely start at RB next match
Marko, good job on Peter yesterday. Everyone saw who deserved an L. But at this point I ask why bother? Everyone knows what the blog has turned into. I would rather make fun of his posts in the most enabling ways from now on if I were you cos this narrative ain’t changing anytime soon
“I may be wrong, but I think he has played more than year, but has less assists and less goal scored.”
Yes Mr Valentin yiu are wrong.
Also I think you might have serious Arsenal – spurs bias. Currently i would take Toby, Vertoghen and Sanchez over Mustafi, Sok (debatable) and Kos. I would also take Son over Iwobi/Miki. That’s in addition to Kane and Erikson
@mysticle, Just checked Iwobi stats and guess what I am right. He had one more assist last year 5 instead of 4 and the same number of goals 3. He has made 2 less appearances 24 instead of 26, but played more minutes overall. Toby is not playing in their first 11. Sanchez who went put under pressure makes mistake. Spurs may be better as a team, that does not make the individual players better. Regarding Son, he is a very good player, but he has license to roam, things that our players do not have. His influence will therefore… Read more »
Tony “Apart from one flick to Auba, Ozil did little to impress me. Ozil’s use of space is awful when trying to narrow opponents passing opportunities. Ozil is both lazy and cowardly where he doesn’t get stuck in to tackles when pressing; Ozil just runs almost casually up to the player with the ball giving said player time to move the ball.One particular moment when watching Ozil’s defensive movements was when Ozil pointed for an Arsenal player to go wide left to narrow the space where there was no Arsenal player anywhere near to do so. Ozil was too lazy… Read more »
Shame that Pedro would quote Valentin on Arsenal but would not show a counter point and quote Marko on it. I don’t care about style , that can come later. Right now this season should be qualifying for UCL . Also with the injuries to ManUtd and instability at Chelsea we should take this advantage. Emery seems to be doing that . I dont get Pedro’s beef with Emery.
Tony I think that England’s fixture schedule had a lot to do with Saturday’s result. We played on paper the three most difficult matches back to back with two away games against Ireland and Wales. All these games were fairly intense affairs. England played to a formula which worked well in first two games, but I think that Wales were well prepared for England’s kicking game. England lost through injury two influential players in Itoje and Mako Vunipola and I think that did have impact on our scrum. Also Wales were able to rotate their squad much better than England,… Read more »
How would you guys of reacted if that situation with Kep happened with Ozil and Emery? Playing devil’s advocate.
Pierre I did not go to yesterday’s game, because of other commitments. So it is difficult for me to express an opinion on how we played. Some have criticised the manager for team selected but realistically I think that he made the right decisions because we are playing 5 games in 10 days and I don’t think that we should play our first choice side all the time. The BAT fixture made selections more difficult, because of our away loss one week previously. Clearly playing Sokratis in key games is a must, because the combination of Mustafi and Koscielny has… Read more »
“How would you guys of reacted if that situation with Kep happened with Ozil and Emery? Playing devil’s advocate.”
I would be ROFL.
“Tony
“””Ozil is here for the money. No one can blame him for that no matter how upsetting that is for the fans”””
He sure is.
And so is Raul and his mates.
Oh- and what about Emerys mates ( alleged coaches) here for?
The love of AFC..
Bizarre thing to say from a bright chap!
Dani, again; great comments! Having just watched MOTD I didn’t see that many empty seats at all and especially none more than last season or the season before for sure.This is a rot that set in long ago under Wenger but as per and is standard in here now, people are trying to blame it on Emery. The fact most of them were die hard cult of Wwngerites and in denial of Wenger’s ineptitude, it’s not surprising Thank you and correctly put @ BennyD Wenger is gone and Arsenal is fourth after 27 games…if we could rewind to last season… Read more »
ES
Makes sense what you say about the fixtures – perhaps Wales dd have an easier run, but in a world cup everyone will have many tough games in a row, so good for England to experience it now and for Jones to look at why we out our momentum and fitness if it was the latter.
To be honest England & 6 Nations’ teams had a week’s rest, so fitness shouldn’t have been a factor.