Let’s go through few incidents under Mikel Arteta’s regime.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Auba has left Arsenal by mutual consent to join Barcelona. In his first interview, this is what he had to say.
“My last few months at Arsenal were complicated, that’s football sometimes. For my part, I never wanted to do anything wrong. My problem was only with Arteta. I can’t say much more, I wasn’t happy. It was just him and he made that decision. He wasn’t happy, I can’t tell you more. He wasn’t very happy, I was very calm. Those were difficult months. This is football. I’ve never wanted to do anything wrong, it’s the past and I want to think about the present.”
Willian
Another high profile signing under Arteta was Willian. Although we got him on a free transfer, he was surely in the top earners and was given a 3 year deal at the age of 32. Things didn’t go well for him and he was willing to tear up the contract after a year. In an interview with Rio Ferdinand, he talked about the reasons without going into much details.
I wasn’t happy. That’s why I didn’t perform. I don’t want to go into the details. When I arrived there I was happy, from the beginning I was motivated, I wanted to do well – new club, new mates, new project. But after three months, I said to my agent – Please I want to go. I don’t want to speak bad about the club, because it is a big club. Arsenal has a history.
Matteo Guendouzi
We had a 19-year old midfielder starting almost every match under Emery (and even Arteta). Though his game was a bit raw, he had potential and we were proud to have a gem in our hand. You may claim that you knew he was just an average player in hindsight, but I’m sure most of the fans had the same feeling about him which we have for ESR, Martinelli and White i.e. one for the future.
However, the player clashed with Neal Maupay of Brighton in a game in a heated moment, who had risked an injury to Leno. He was then excluded from trainings and was sent to reserves, subsequently loaned out to Hertha Berlin and now plays for Marseille. Not only we devalued him, we then had to splash some cash to buy a similar profile player in Lokonga.
Willian Saliba
We paid 27m for a player, only to loan him out for third season. I’m okay with the fact that Arteta wanted a ball playing CB and brought in White. It won’t seem harsh if I don’t tell you we had to play Mustafi and Kolasinac as CB and he wasn’t considered suitable enough to play in group stages against teams you believe our U-23 will win against.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles
AMN wasn’t featuring much for us last season. Wolves and Everton were interested for him, however Arteta wanted to keep him and promised more game time. He hardly played and was loaned to Roma eventually last month. With Partey off to AFCON, we were short and could have used him.
We are now left with a player who is not happy and will be entering into his last year of contract in summer. He was valued around 20m but I’m not sure if we are going to get it.
P.S. – I am leaving out Martinelli from the list, but I’m sure not many were happy with how he was treated.
Where I’m going with all this?
Mikel needs to be lenient with players. At the very least, he should have a ‘forgiven’ clause in his non-negotiables. I could be wrong and all these players got what they deserve but if you start ostracizing every player just to treat them a lesson, we would be left with yes-sirs – a culture which is never healthy.
Again, I’m not saying to let players get away with anything but there could be a better way to handle things. Tuchel benched Lukaku after his interview, made him apologize and integrated him back in the team. Pep benched Grealish and Foden without devaluing them.
We are poor in player management. Not only we are handing big fat contracts to 30 year olds, we have devalued some of the players. I believe we could have used the services of Saliba, AMN and Guendouzi but if we don’t, at least we could have made some fortune.
Chelsea sold 35-year old Giroud to AC Milan in a million euro. We got nothing for a player who was winning golden boot couple years ago and won us a FA Cup.
We went against selling AMN for 20m+ only to not use his services. Marseille will probably make Guen move permanent in 9m, a player who was valued 40m couple of years back starting for a top 6 team in one of the toughest league on planet.
I hope we learn. See you in the comments.
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I guess you missed out Nelson, Pepe and Willock treatment.
Mb,
It’s bizarre really that a man who works in a position which requires such people skills and a psychological insight into the minds of sportsmen, seems to be so lacking in any form of empathy. If you look at ferguson you can point at breakdowns in his relationships with players,leighton,Ince and Stam immediately come to mind. Yet you can also point to his ability to understand and get the best from characters such as Rooney,tevez,Keane and of course Cantona. Where are the examples that lead us to believe we have a manager capable of working with talented yet flawed players? Arsenal is too big a club, with far too large a gap to close, to facilitate a manager who can’t operate with talented players if they don’t behave like choir boys. He’s a football manager, hence he should be able to manage football players. It’s in his title for gods sake. Some day someone will put a figure to the money he has cost us in player devaluation and it won’t be pretty!
Every manager should expect to fall out with players over the course of their careers.
Having said that, Arteta’s career hasn’t been that long and he’s already had a number of issues around his man management.
At a certain point, while it may seem easier to put the blame on the players Arteta fell out with, it’s more logical to blame it on the one constant in all this, Arteta
Aitcho,
That’s the thing isn’t it? If you see it from that perspective you can’t help but worry. In Martinelli,ESR and Saka he has 3 tremendous young talents, our best in a decade. But do you trust him with them? If you don’t (and I don’t) then you want him gone asap. The people who talk about giving him more time are ignoring this or simply haven’t considered it.
Exactly, if Alex F had problems with a few, he knew how to manage hot headed/ problematic players. He hated Pogba but without devaluing him.
I guess Edu has to share some blame, as DoF he should have kept a tab of players whom we can have shifted out for money.