Paul Merson has a lot of faith in Arteta’s skills as the Arsenal boss and he has given some pretty great points on why Arteta will succeed massively.
This is Arteta’s first time being the head coach of any club – and the fact that the first club is Arsenal – is definitely a huge pressure on Arteta. When he replaced Unai Emery, everyone wondered whether he would fail or succeed. So far, Arteta’s approach to training the team has paid off.
“Every manager is different. I’ve worked under some great coaches who weren’t good managers, and I’ve worked under some great managers who weren’t good coaches,” he told Sky Sports. “You need the team around you, the coaches around you to challenge you. When you have a coaching staff around you who don’t, and are just yes men, that can be a problem.
“But I think this situation helps someone like Mikel Arteta. Arsenal need such an overhaul of players that it’s actually almost impossible to get that many players in. There’s now an opportunity for him to work with the current crop, and I think it actually takes the pressure off of Arteta, and now anything is a bonus.
“Arsenal’s expectations will be nowhere near as high as they were a few months ago. I think he’ll now be given loads and loads of time to build. He’s young, he’s enthusiastic, and he’ll want to work with younger players.
“He’s not a Mourinho or Pep Guardiola, who I’d call your Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroys, they’re just dealing in majors, nothing else! Arteta is the type who might work from the ground up with lesser players.”
