When Mikel Arteta arrived at the club, he came armed with a vision for how he wanted to play, and a remit to change the culture at the club. As it stands, it looks like he’s failing on both fronts.
Building a culture is about establishing a unifying set of standards that everyone can exist in. There are things you can do to reinforce culture. Armies have exacting standards over uniform, Toussaint Louverture, the Haitian general that led a revolution against France, decked out his free slaves in uniform to make them feel worthy and give them visual structure (they successfully drove Napoleon out of Haiti). Facebook created a ‘break stuff fast’ mentality to ensure they were ahead of the curve, and to let employees know that breaking stuff wasn’t a career-ender (that risk-taking approach had to change when they reached a certain scale). Apple has built a machine so focused on elite design, if you work them as an agency, you have to hire a world-class deck designer because the smallest error can throw a meeting.
Culture is important. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. Understand the rules that make a place tick gives everyone a very basic common grounding. Again, going back to the army, time is hugely important. If you are 10 seconds late, you’ll be punished. Why? Because in battle, those ten seconds could be the difference between life and death.
Arteta had a list of non-negotiables that he brought to the club and it all made sense. We knew Ozil would fall foul of them because he’d been drumming to his own beat for years. We knew Matteo wouldn’t be able to hack it and he was one of the first talented casualties of the regime. This is standard stuff, Netflix, a company I often write about, has a no assholes policy. Why? Because when people are behaving badly, others gossip, and office gossip leads to a lack of focus, lowered morale, and inefficiency.
Culture is hard though. It’s very easy to punish weak links because you don’t need them. It’s much harder to hold everyone to the same standard because not everyone delivers to the same level. But you simply have to bite the bullet and do it. You know the wheels are coming off an organisation when bad behaviour goes unpunished and standards are allowed to drop because it is easier to let things slide. Another sign of a culture failing is when leadership starts to treat people differently. When justice is arbitrary and equality is not sensed by all… you get problems.
I had a no assholes policy in my London job. The worst I’ve ever felt is when someone very young on my team told me his boss was being awful, I glossed over it because that boss was driving revenue… and this person pulled me on it and said they were disappointed. I’d made concessions for money. That was wrong and I have tried never to do that again.
Mikel Arteta is all over the place. There is no clarity in his system which is starting to look like an irrational authoritarian dictatorship.
Let’s look at some of the things that have gone on:
Willian breaks covid protocol to go to Dubai, isn’t dropped
Shocking performances are rarely punished unless you are Martinelli who was bombed for 10 games after a bad 60 mins versus Aston Villa
Nico was chastised for a stupid red (correct) and apologised. Granit Xhaka drops a horrible challenge, takes a red, kills the game, gets a pat on the back, and does not apologise.
William Saliba has a great loan spell in France, doesn’t get the chance to compete for his place in this seasons squad despite fitting the exact profile we look for in a defender (and being told he’d be given a chance) > Kolasinac, who was told to f*ck off in January, had a shite loan that saw his team relegated, was accused of being part of a coup on Christian Gross, keeps his place in the squad, then gets a start in central defence.
Cedric Soares is just bang average, everyone knows it, he’s basically our worst right back, but he starts against City. Ainsley, who is the right profile we are looking at for signings, has had MoTM performances in big games, apparently tells Arteta he will play full-back, gets banished to the bench and told to f*ck off by Arteta.
You can sometimes survive this sort of behaviour if you are at the very top of your game, but even then, at some point, the players get bored of you and you lose the dressing room. Just look at the Conte or Jose cycle, it’s usually a 3-year limit. Arteta doesn’t have the credibility to be this inconsistent, malicious, and wrong.
The story today is Eddie will not be moving this summer. Palace are looking to Edouard because we’re looking for too much money. So what do we have here? My suspicion if this stays the same is we’ve realised Balogun is too far off the pace to be a 3rd choice striker, so we’re going to hang on to Eddie as a stop-gap. So what of Eddie? Does anyone think the treatment he’s had over the last year has been enjoyable? Is he going to show for Arteta? Will he feel loved?
Unlikely. Wenger was many things, but he was never malicious and he had a laser focus on making people feel wanted. To his detriment, because we were basically a creche.
I covered off how overall leadership at the club has been absolutely dire. But here we have the story of what happens when you aren’t disciplined. This is the output of vindictive behaviour. This is what happens when you let a narcissist run riot without controls.
None of these problems can be isolated. They are all interlinked. This is what dysfunction looks like.
Something needs to change because this isn’t a bad luck aberration now, this is who we are, and there’s no experience to sort it all out.
Tune into the weekends content. We’ll be back tomorrow with a very big podcast to assess where we are right now.
“These reports true , arteta chasing another centre back ? The man is certifiably mad’
Do we really want him to spend a single penny further?
All jokes asides and being serious , ignoring all the negatives for a moment and is there an actual reason to keep arteta ?
Sundger
”””Maybe AMN needs Pen Farthing to get him out of there, if his talents apply to wantaway RBs and well as they do animals”””’
By the sounds of it, the Taleban have taken over the AFC training ground too.
maybe Mikel needs them to keep the ‘non negoats’ in check?
AMN is absolutely not the solution for us long term.
Is he better than the players Arteta decided to play ahead of him? Yes.
The rest doesn’t matter.
Arteta is absolutely responsible for our horrible play and our players can do far more with a manager who knows what he is doing. But Arteta has made shocking overall decisions on who to lay his trust.
The likes of Chambers, Holding, Mari, Kolasinac and Xhaka should not start EPL games. Especially not like 1st choices.
Pepe got an absolute bollocking from Arteta for a red card whereas Xhaka got a pat on the back.
Arteta is the type of manager you fire in a brutal manner
I suspect that the post -Arteta bounce will be similar to what United got after they fired Mourhino.
Arsenal in talks to sign defender Takehiro Tomiyasu from Bologna as Bellerin finalises his loan move to Betis.
Diss
I have no doubts arteta is going to go down like one of mourinho’s grubby dirty laundry sackings . All sort of shit will come out . It just has that feeling
Almuniasaynomore – Hilarious, you are a very talented individual!
My favourite bit –
“TL: Of course Mikel I haven’t……….I’m sorry but what are you doing? (Unobserved by everyone Steve Round had climbed under the table and was attempting to polish Lewis’ shoes with a napkin)
SR: Just giving them a quick shine guvnor, I’m mighty useful like that. Can turn my hand to anything, anything at all sir.”
LOOOOL fantastic!
Radio Raheem
Anyone know about Tomiyasu?
Arsenal need now to put a hold on all incoming transfer business and bring in someone to take a close look at the “leadership and football management” side of business.
That is now a priority over all else at the club.
Like Pierre just wrote, Arteta played a central midfield of one against city and even when Xhaka was sent off, he didn’t have the nous yo know he had to do something immediately
No wonder Pedro thinks he’s intentionally throwing games to prove a point.
Or maybe he’s just so incompetent.
Arsenal fans made their feelings known on Twitter, with some describing him as “brain dead” and that would appear to be a view shared by Arteta who looked decidedly unhappy with his player during his post-game interview with Sky Sports. “It is unacceptable,” Arteta said. “I’ve spoken to him; it is unacceptable.” Arteta concluded his interview by saying Pepe had left his team-mates in the lurch. “I really like the personality of the team,” Arteta said. “When Pepe let the team down, how we suffered together and stuck to what we had to do.” Arteta has suggested Pepe may have… Read more »
Stroller
I think they need to bring in the men in white coats for arteta
Tomiyasu is 6’2. Looks pretty decent on Football manager. 23 years old. Can’t surely be worse than Soares, Chambers or Bellerin?
Another defender, lol you cannot make it up. I might throw a mini party of one when Arteta is shown the door. Terrible manager, and seemingly has questionable character traits to go with it.
GX is playing Arteta and it’s sickening to watch.
We all know that Xhaka is not a leader and a genuine person. It proves just how poor a judge of character Arteta is.
Jesus, it is so obvious. All the players know. As fans, we also see it.
Bloody hell Pedro, can you not see it?
Mee
I can’t say I know a lot of Tomi despite all the football I watch. Bologna aren’t that sort of team people watch a lot of.
My guess is he’ll come in, start well and in a few weeks/months will start to look shit as that Mikel dust seeps through his pores.
RR
””’Arsenal in talks to sign defender Takehiro Tomiyasu from Bologna as Bellerin finalises his loan move to Betis.”””
6ft 2, slender, body shape of a whippet.
So taller than Benjamin White and Ramsdale the R.
Body dimensions of a center defender not a right back to me.(Although the great Viv Anderson broke the mould for these types.)
Tomiyasu, from what I have read, should be a nice piece of business.
Leftside
What about the people authorizing these deals.
We need to see them as enablers.
I know arteta’s plan now ,he wants a ball playing right centre back for cover for white if injured . He’s seen the gigantic hole left after whites covid (protection from maulings ) . Generational !!
TR7
Don’t like to say it but could Arteta be………………gulp!……..a racist?
From Luke Griffin: “Although Tomiyasu is the right back in a 4–2–3–1 most of the time, they use an asymmetrical system. Tomiyasu joins the centre halves the make a back three in possession but they defend in a back four, similar to Spurs uner Jose Mourinho. In the image, I’ve used the lines to show the lines of the 4–2–3–1 and the left back is in possession. This is really effective and works well for Tomiyasu. The natural centre half is elegant on the ball in buildup and comfortable on the ball with the makings of a modern defender. But,… Read more »
Diss,
Of course, I make Edu, Garlick and Vinai just as culpable, although I believe the most problematic is our insecure autocrat Mikel. When he is shown the door there will still need to be much changed behind the scenes but I’m sure we won’t be breaking records negatively and performing as poorly on the field as we have been.
If Bellerin and AMN both move, it makes sense to bring in a right back.
Seems like he can play defensive Right Back. His stats for crossing are dire although he can defend and is pretty fast. Really a head-scratcher this one. Might play RCB with Arteta’s trial and error combinations.
Fans are to blame not the Owners. A more robust and committed fanbase would have seen off the Owners years ago.
Arsenal football club allowed Arteta to disrespect the club’s players and now they are paying the price. Arteta being involved in the salary cut was the first mistake as it caused a rift between him and Ozil who questioned the cut….he never played for the club again As it happens, Ozil questioning the wage cut was jistified when you consider how events have unfolded with millions being wasted on wages and failed signings.. Arteta was then allowed to disrespect Guendouzi for showing passion and a will to win, he mever played for the club again . All subsequent events are… Read more »
Pekobill
You may be right, but I don’t think that sacking Arteta alone is a solution to our current problems.
There is no expertise on the Board. Venkat the CEO has been many years at the club, but his
background was finance and sponsorship.
The management on the football side of the business is clearly struggling. Someone needs
to come in and evaluate the current situation and make some difficult decisions.
I think that Arteta will be sacked or leave soon, but that is not the only decision that needs to
be made.
Graham
Wouldn’t speculate on that but for sure Arteta is a petty insecure man. If a dozen players fall out with someone in 18 months then it’s safe to say he is not a likeable person.
Ozil should be in the dock for taking money under false pretenses.
.
Pierre
Do you believe seriously that it was Arteta’s idea that the players should take a paycut? He
was the messenger.
I am pretty sure that decisions taken to make redundancies, furloughs and wage cuts were
taken above Arteta’s pay grade.
There have to be central midfielders available for a late foray, instead we are going for. a RB, less than 24 hrs after telling AMN he’s going nowhere.
From Twitter
Mikel Arteta has the ego of Jose Mourinho, the play style of Sam Allardyce, and the managerial ability of Tim Sherwood. Total shambles.
Pierre
Arteta inherited a disjointed, overpaid, uncommitted, aged squad.
Emiratesstroller
You can speed up the decision process by getting off your lazy backside and protesting.
David_Ornstein: “Ainsley Maitland-Niles is planning to meet with Mikel Arteta this afternoon & request he is allowed to join Everton.”
Stroller Totally agree with you , I’ve been saying for over a year I’d raze the lot on the footballing side and get Rangnick in to build the right team all the way through . He’s more than capable and it would leave the kronke’s hands off / lack of knowledge moot . They need to stop the rot now though quick with arteta because I’m sure your aware coupled with arsenals horrific start this international break has come at fatal time for arteta . Reporters are smelling blood , they’ve only got tonight to write about transfers and they… Read more »
Romano : Takehiro Tomiyasu to Arsenal, agreement reached and here we go! Personal terms agreed and Bologna will receive €20m plus €3m add ons. ⚪️🔴🇯🇵 #AFC #DeadlineDay
Medical during the afternoon and then official announcement. Here-we-go.
Arsenal FC; we sell low and we buy high
RecycledOldStock
Protest is not my style. I leave it to people like you.
Brighton sign Cucurella from Getafe.
Watch out for this one. I like the player quite tenacious and good on the ball in midfield. You’ll certainly notice his hair.
Mid-level to bottom teams is his level.
I just like hearing his name.
Its reaching boiling point at London Colney.
Tr7
“”David_Ornstein: “Ainsley Maitland-Niles is planning to meet with Mikel Arteta this afternoon & request he is allowed to join Everton.”
I hope they are filming it!
Emiratesstroller
All talk no action is your style.
Tomiyasu was on the brink of signing for Skids last month.
Bombing off Saliba is proving more myopic by the minute. We really are a shambles aremt we!
Tomiyasu for 20 million par the course considering what we have been paying. Let’s see how he fares vs Norwich
Peckobill
The whole football world is smelling blood. Arteta is a dead man walking, but sacking Arteta is “a sticking plaster” solution.
Arsenal’s business model is not the same as when Arsene Wenger arrived at the club. Arsenal was a cottage industry with a small “hands on board of directors and management team”.
It is today a relatively large operation and it is very clear that the football side of business is
not functioning properly.
So we’ve got Chambers, AMN, Soares and any academy product Mikel can’t coax a performance out of at right back.
How many defenders will we buy? The defence will always feel pressured if we can’t hold it up upfront. What we need are players that can keep the ball and put the opposition on the back foot.
ESR, Odegaard and Saka decent prospects but as their stats show what we need are a couple of similar players further down the line in their development.
Aside from his bonkers training method, it used to be very difficult for Felix Magath to win games in the Bundesliga, because teams were full of his former players. Most were so motivated to beat him, they inspired their team to fight till the bitter end for a victory over his team.
Soon, Arteta will be in the same predicament. He will have falling out with more players than footballers have had one night stands.
What is the point in giving the basque blagger anymore money to piss away. Be honest, how long will it be before Arteta pisses him off.
Why are they letting him spend more money
Is Tomiyasu good?
Bellerin outbound is only a loan. AMN outbound probably will be a loan.
Apart from Nelson who will apparently sign a bee contract (so his loan can be seen as an attempt at developing him for us) I’m not sure what the point of all these other loans are. We are so bad at sales compared with a club like Chelsea
If Chelsea had our squad players they’d have racked up 40-50m in sales by now at least
Oh fuck me, forgot about Felix Magath, the rub a block of cheese on an injury and you’ll be good to go manager. My god just how shit does Arteta have to be to be below felix lol
Recycled Old Sock
What do you do?
Again more money on the defence and literally no attacking threat added to our worst attacking input from last season. Comedy stuff really
Our transfer policy this summer has been completely haphazard. None of it has any semblance of planning.
Also now coming up to what 150 odd million spent on the squad and we’d be lucky to score 50 goals this season at this rate
Another panic buy.
And that’s before we come to the fact that the manager literally doesn’t know how to do his actual job of coaching.
Edu has to be bonkers too to be giving Bologna anything more than 10 million for him. They need the money more than we need the player considering we could have found a manager who’d manage to extract more from AMN and Cedric while we sort out the attacking positions
A few years ago bellerin was already gash but nobody had noticed and he was being talked of as a 40-50m player who Barca and psg wanted
I’ve been saying for years just sell him before people notice he’s gash.
We’ve waited and waited and waited
Loan with an OPTION to buy to BETIS
Generational
Anyway again the manager has been backed, all the structure nonsense while a bit valid, you can’t deny that the manager hasn’t been supported financially.
Stroller
“Do you believe seriously that it was Arteta’s idea that the players should take a paycut? He
was the messenger.”
I didn’t say it was his idea, be got involved in something that wasn’t his business and it cost him his relationship with Ozil who had been an integral part of the team, who were doung rather well up until then.
Spending £160m should be challenging for the title not propping up the table.
The key driver of Willian to Arsenal was Mikel Arteta.
Bat
“”””Again more money on the defence and literally no attacking threat added to our worst attacking input from last season. Comedy stuff really””””
Is it me, all the other clubs seem to spend the majority of their resources on attacking players who score goals but A&E do the exact opposite?
Another £20 million out the door and another player who don’ t score.
WHO WILL SCORE THE GOALS FOR ARSENAL IN SEASON 21/22?( And we cant play WBA teenagers every week)
#dogsdinnertransferwindow#
“Mikel Arteta has the ego of Jose Mourinho, the play style of Sam Allardyce, and the managerial ability of Tim Sherwood. Total shambles.”
That comment is a massive slap in the face to fat Sam
Tomiasu might be good. His transfermarkt valuation is 20m euro which is pretty high and it’s not as far from what we’re paying them. You’d expect the price to be lower in this market but if the player is good, 5m overpaying isn’t a huge deal. The thing that bothers me. He played over half of the games last season as CB. I don’t feel good about players that are versatile like that. They use to be jack-of-all-trades when we need a specialist RB and not another Chambers. He might be good though. As I said, quite a high valuation… Read more »
Arteta loves his defenders.
Moron of unimaginable proportion.
We have seen the falsehood of thinking we have a good defence from last season. Getting players behind the ball in numbers and filtering back deep is not a truly good defensive side and of course this affected our offense. A truly good defensive side defends from the front and with much more pressing than we see from Arsenal. And Arteta knew he had to advance from just putting players deep behind the ball because it is very basic and as said before has a bad affect offensively. Until this midfield is sorted out completely this downward spiral will continue… Read more »
Englandbest
“Arteta inherited a disjointed, overpaid, uncommitted, aged squad.”
I’m not sure this was the opinion up until the first lockdown when we were the only undefeated team in Europe domestically in 2020…
No goalscoring issues
No creativity issues
No personality issues.
In fact i believe the vast majority of fans were happy with the direction we were taking.
raptora
So know Arteta realized White was a midget and decided to get a lanky CB. Wow! you couldn’t make this shit up. I thought he was an out and out RB
Someone needs to step in and save Arteta (and the club) from himself!
Is this Takehiro guy any good? I haven’t seen him play. There wasblits of links to spurs. I would have preferred Mazraoui but at least we are getting a RB. CM will be shit this season too. Arteta loves his defenders though. And I don’t like the fact that we weren’t linked with him all summer and now he is signing for us. It looks like a panic buy. But if it works out it will be a good move. But panic day deadline signings don’t seem to go very well for us most of the time.
Spurs trying to sign moriba
Article about how well Saliba and Guendozi are doing at their respective clubs
https://apple.news/AolkCcmasQTGn2NtPJ59w6Q
An aspect of having no european football is that the team can’t get in a groove of getting confidence in terms of getting a significant run of results together. If you look back at Emery’s stint and Arteta’s prior to this season having games against weaker opposition in the early stages of Europa helped in getting some momentum in gaining confidence in results going into the EPL fixtures but there is none of that this season. It is just game after game in the much more competitive EPL. Too hot for Arteta you would think. I wouldn’t count League Cup… Read more »
We’re going to play a short CB in 182 White and a tall RB in 188 cm Tomiyasu to make up for it.
I shared a similar idea a month ago when 189 cm Dumfries was available.
It’s an obvious option to help White.
Thing is why do we have to go through this nonsense just to fit in a 50m short CB…
Was some links*
China
Moriba is already gone Lepzig. He will be a 50 mil midfielder. Just watch. We are so bad at spotting talent.
FFS
gone to Lepzig *
Arsenal have spent £240m in just 12 months and we are worser than ever which is all down to the manager.
If we’re going to spend anymore money I hope it’s on a striker rather than another attacking midfielder. Where are we going to play them all? A proper central midfielder to who isn’t injured all the time would be good. Should have bought Bissouma smh.
9 goals conceded 0 scored even after buying 6000 defenders. So what does he do….. buys another fucking defender. Does he know that usually a first eleven consists of
Goalkeeper
4 defenders
4 midfield
2 forwards. That’s the basic layout.
I’ve yet to see a team made of 11 defenders win a title or any trophy
Another defender??? What is going on at Arsenal…. Please tell me Aouar is coming too! We look awful going forward and I am not sure the Japan’s answer to Calum Chambers is going to improve that.
Raptora
How is that going to help unless the RB stays behind afraid to leave White at the mercy of the likes of CR7 and Wood? So our attack continues to be Tierney whipping crosses for shorties like Laca.
Look we REALLY need a quality rb
If this guy is good then he’s a smart signing
Still need a CM tho
Me it will help on set pieces
China1
The signing is not offensively good. He is more of a CB than a RB.
When you play attacking fullbacks you need your centre mids to be fast and mobile to cut off the space left when the fbs push up. We have zero midfielders capable of doing that. Every team we play exploits this space and Arteta thinks buying White will fix this. It won’t.
I dunno the player
I’m literally just hoping
TDD, I am actually so fucking excited lads! What players will we not sign today?
Salomon Kalou is a free agent.
A look at the Deloitte FML 2021 shows how we managed to grow commercial revenues very fast in 2020. Considering that the broadcast and matchday revenues will be on the positive ascendancy as well, the revenue growth for 2021-22 will be quite healthy. I suspect Vinai is evaluated by the board on these metrics. Also, an absentee owner would hold a similar view about the Club too – a healthy revenue growth, above par growth in commercial revenue during tough covid times – it’s all hunky dory. Throwing a few 100mil on the back of a strong revenue growth would… Read more »
With revenue down maybe we signed this guy to sell shirts in Japan like all our other Asian signings 🤔
Ramsdale
Runarsson
Soares
Mari
Gabriel
Partey
White
Lokonga
Tavares
Takehiro
10 defensive signings since taking over but nothing to show for it.
Arteta might be thinking of playing white as a RB. 188 cm right back who played most of last season as a CB doesn’t make sense. They are trying to cover their mistake with playing white as a RB. He has all the tools but he has never played there consistently before.
Wow that’s in just 18 months tr7!!!!!
Stroller, Arteta decided to get involved because that have him clout in the eyes of the Kroenke’s. It made him like a team player upon which they can rely on. Another one of his famed nose browning moves. Most people who have been involved in management could see that it would backfire. You stay clear of controversial decisions above your pay grade. Özil and 3 others (remember that it was not just Özil who refused the pay cut) demanded to have a plan for the pay cut and guarantee that they were not going to make people redundant for a… Read more »