Reasons why Mikel Arteta might fail as Arsenal coach – Top 3
Reasons why Mikel Arteta might fail as Arsenal coach? Mikel Arteta has been unveiled as the head coach of Arsenal soon after the Gunners reached an agreement with Manchester City to release him.
However, the Spaniard faces a massive rebuilding task ahead of him at the Emirates, with the team currently in tenth place in the league. But could it end up being too big of a challenge for him? We take a look at the Top 3 reasons why Mikel Arteta might fail as Arsenal coach.
Top 3 reasons why Mikel Arteta might fail as Arsenal coach
3. Mental fragility
Arsenal’s season so far has provided a unique perspective on their woes. While it is unimaginable for a “top six” club to find themselves so low in the table with half the season gone, there is a lingering feeling that this was long overdue. The Gunners, while a European-spot contender in name, haven’t really challenged the status quo for some years. They have declined and declined, while those below them have caught up.
The board, the managers, and the lack of spending are all to blame for it. Nevertheless, the biggest evil of all has been the mentality within the club. Arsenal don’t think like a winning club anymore, and as a result, they don’t act like one. Despite moments of promise both on and off the pitch, once the Gunners fall into a rut, they remain in it for months.
Mikel Arteta will come face-to-face with this problem soon enough. The Spaniard is inheriting a team which is on the downward slope. As a result, the ex-player will have to fix his players mentally at first, instilling in them the fact that they play for one of the most succesful clubs in the country. The failure to arrest their mental slump could prove fatal for him, as it did for his predecessor Unai Emery.
2. Manchester City experience
Pep Guardiola took Mikel Arteta with him to Manchester when he arrived in England. For the last three years, the Spaniard has worked with his compatriot closely to build one of the most fearsome sides in Europe. For a coach born and bred in the money-laden palaces of Manchester City, Arsenal will provide a different challenge altogether.
At present, whatever we know of Arteta the coach comes from his time at the Etihad Stadium, along with past videos of him detailing his ideology. While the second factor we will witness up-close in the coming weeks, it is the first – his City heritage – which we must adhere to when trying to determine his coaching knowledge.
Manchester City is a completely different kind of football club when compared to Arsenal. The Citizens aren’t shy of spending huge sums of money and replacing players who could not take to the system quickly. As much was evident when Guardiola demanded full-backs in his second season and the club spent close to £150 Million in fulfilling his wishes.
Arteta, as mentioned previously, developed in this system, where those who could not adapt were disposed of. That is a strategy which he cannot afford to take at Arsenal for strictly financial reasons. The Gunners have restrained themselves over the years in the transfer market, and even if recent deals for Nicolas Pepe and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang suggest otherwise, it is unlikely that they delve into the free-spending spirit attached with the blue half of Manchester.
1. Inefficient board
Arsenal fans have long blamed majority stakeholder Stan Kroenke for the club’s decline. The American has attracted a lot of heat since his arrival in 2007, as have the board members who served during this period.
Fans’ anger is not fully misplaced either. In reality, the Arsenal board over the years has acted inefficiently, the result of which has been visible on the pitch. Whether it is Arsene Wenger’s delayed termination or the appointment of a new manager, the club hierarchy has indeed made several glaring errors in the past decade. Their most recent one was not having a replacement ready before sacking Unai Emery, which saw the Gunners go without a permanent head coach for almost a month.
The board’s inefficiencies have plagued the transfer market too. Fans have often criticized senior club members for not bringing in ample reinforcements while also delaying key contract decisions; the latter resulting in the departures of big-name stars such as Robin van Persie and Aaron Ramsey.
In a structure like this, it is difficult for any manager to survive. For Mikel Arteta, meanwhile, it is expected to be an even bigger challenge, with the Spaniard stepping down from a well-oiled machine that is Manchester City.
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