We thought there might be some fan mail for James, Liverpool’s withering assessment of Mikel Arteta, and sure enough there is a fair bit of just that.
Elsewhere there is some cautious Man United and Liverpool optimism.
As ever, get your mails in to theeditor@football365.com…
Sit Down, James
My response to reading James, Liverpool’s email on Arteta being lucky and not a very nice human were threefold:
1. Licking my lips at the taste of those salty tears
2. Thinking about suggesting that he stop eating whatever the trolling media feed him – but then realizing that his continued annoyance and misery is part of the deal for those that can’t take responsibility for getting all the facts, being reasonable, avoiding staggering confirmation bias and making an actual opinion of their own (I have regularly found that the reasons that Pool fans hate Arteta are either unknown to them or are a list of character traits that Klopp had in abundance – and that I was very glad Arsenal finally decided to hire as they are needed).
3. Politely agree that Arteta is very lucky. Lucky to be employed by a club that appears to have come through some very dodgy years and under the 100pct ownership of KSE has actually become run at an elite level. The owners see a winner that needs support and as long as he is improving the value of the assets that they have purchased then they have given him time (under Arteta the market a
Value of Arsenal has risen nearly 3bn). The fact that he was so young when hired wasn’t a bug – it was a feature. They did the same with McVeigh at the LA Rams. (The two have become quite close apparently and support each other btw).
The reality is that Arsenal have rebuilt the club land its reputation legally and on its budget (yes that’s a lot of money but then we are one of the top 3 clubs in England.).
They totally revolutionized the club off the field and are now a commercial juggernaut. They just had over a million fans take over London a day after a heartbreaking ECL loss to celebrate the team they love – and they are printing money like there is no tomorrow.
In the field they have built the team on a solid defence with the best goalkeeper (and no, Arsenal fans had no idea either ) and the best CB partnership in world football for a total 83m quid. No we haven’t spent 400 mio on two spindly wingers with chopsticks for legs, a number 10 that has all the physical presence of a groom on the top of wedding cake and a couple of full backs that aren’t tall enough to get on the EPL ride – but I guess we will just have to cope. The fact is whoever decided to buy those 5 last summer got slot fired. Perhaps that was Arne himself. Dunno. (I do know that Klopp’s and Paisley’s incredible teams were built on VVD and Hansen and I was dead jealous at the time.)
The history of Arsenal is that we tend to spurn our chance for total domination of the domestic game too quickly when it arrives. And we are crap in Europe. That’s why we’ve always been put in our place by Pool fans et al.
It’s possible that this time is different. Just possible. We have a young – but battle-hardened – coach who has been described as a “steely fucxxxer” by insiders and are we owned by a professional sports team ownership group that has won 4 championships in 4 different sports in the last 4 years. And yes that is true. Look it up.
Perhaps other fans are afraid. Perhaps they should be. I’m not putting any money on it but it would be delicious.
Johnno.
…Oh James, I naively imagined that the Arsenal PL win last season would finally put some of the more nonsense narratives to Arteta to bed, but it looks like some fools find it hard to move on.
As ever, the point about Arteta getting the most money spent for not winning X was nonsense even before he did win the PL – he’s not competing against other managers across history in isolation, he’s competing against other clubs in this current period. Many of whom spent more and already had more established managers with a track record of success, but he beat them anyway.
The more sensible way to view his tenure has been him taking a team from 8th to 1st with the 5th highest spend over that period – entirely necessary in this big money era (which conveniently also means bigger numbers get put next to his name than 99% of other PL managers automatically) – which, by all measures is exceptional success.
That path hasn’t been linear of course and in fact there have been some big bumps where you could say he is ‘lucky’ he didn’t manage a club like Chelsea who have no qualms binning an underperforming coach.
But the truth is, the reason he did survive those is because of his remarkable talent – everyone in the club could see what he was doing and could do (exceptional for a first time coach at a club in disarray when he arrived which had already eaten a coach many now view as borderline elite in Emery) so they backed him through thick and thin until… well he delivered.
That he did so and is so highly regarded by his peers really should be enough for a fair minded person, but given you’re the sort to talk about a stranger’s face as punchable this seems unlikely.
Tom (as ever, gross spend, because net spend is nonsense/meaningless) Leyton
TL;DR
The season hasn’t even started yet and James, Liverpool with the saltiest email of 26/27 already. Brilliant.
Redrawing all the boundaries now since we have won the title.
What a muppet.
Hats
Ferraris >>> unicycles
Bit surprised to see Somerset Dave predicting 6th for Liverpool. What’s the point of following football if you’re not optimistic before a ball has been kicked?
For what it’s worth I think there’s a few things to be positive about;
Konate was inconsistent, at best. Hopefully Jacquet and Araujo will be better. Plus that’s two replacements for one position.
Leoni to come back from a long term injury and hopefully play more than 45 minutes of football this season.
Isak to be better. Wirtz to be better. Szoboslai has looked beastly in preseason. New leaders can step out this season (a bit like Hendo did post Gerrard).
Nyoni to get a chance. Same for Harvey Elliott. These kids can play but got zero chances under Slot. Our youth team is bursting with talent. Ngumoha barely got game time last season whilst we all died inside watching Gakpo fail to cut inside.
Ekitike comes back in January which is great timing; gives the team a boost after the Christmas slog.
If, in the midst of all this, Bradley can come back and play some games and maybe Gomez manages a game a fortnight then we have some decent options all over and players who can rotate in and out.
We might also sell Gakpo and replace him with Barcola which would be like upgrading from a unicycle to a Ferrari.
Minty, LFC
United punt
Based on the gentle improvement and some interesting signings , I am going to predict the early front runners as Man United .
Mid September they host City in the derby and might do that from top of the pile.
The nous of Southgate’s ex right hand man and few players exhausted from last season’s record low games/World Cup exploits they can spread their wings and fly.
Good keeper, decent defensive depth + any new signings, pretty good midfield depth and options. Amad, Mbuemo, Benny Sesko and Cunha up top with captain marvel leading them on.
Perhaps AFC could play the kids in both domestic cups to prioritize a la United last season, But that is highly unlikely sadly.
Peter, Andalucia
