Almost five years to the day he was hired as Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta has done some good things, but he's also generally promised more than he's delivered. It's time genuine pressure was applied on the Arsenal boss to make good on all the grand talk about projects and revolutions.
When the 2024/25 season is wrapped up for Arsenal, however it goes, Mikel Arteta will have been in charge for five-and-a-half years. Surely enough time to adequately judge the manager and decide if he deserves to be under any pressure to meet expectations?
Well, you would think so, but the issue isn't clear-cut. Not when blogs previously heralded as a place where fans could criticise the manager freely, back in the days of Arsene Wenger, have turned into barely more than promotional vehicles and cheerleading havens for the cult of Arteta.
Not when Arteta operates in a bubble. A force-field that makes him a protected species. Every victory is lauded as proof of his generational talent and elite tactical command. Every defeat is merely a reminder the sacred 'project' needs more time before going bang.
It's a cushy number. Arteta has had more time and money than 10 other managers in a similar position could've expected to receive.
So why hasn't he delivered more?
Arteta is providing Arsenal with a mediocre return
What are reasonable expectations for Arteta almost midway through his fifth full campaign at the helm? It'd be crazy to rule Arsenal out of the Premier League title race, despite recent setbacks.
The Gunners will stay in the thick of the race because Manchester City's apparent blip has turned into a crater. Pep Guardiola sounds increasingly clueless about how to escape. Liverpool are still vulnerable enough defensively to fall short again, while Chelsea look a little undercooked to be part of this season's main course.
A league title is there if Arteta can take it. That's a big if when his increasingly conservative brand of football is costing Arsenal precious points.
Perhaps the UEFA Champions League, with its new format few fully understand and even fewer care about, represents a more realistic prize. It will eventually revert to a cup schedule, and knockout football is where Arsenal's edge with set-pieces can prove decisive.
Arsenal leading Europe's major leagues for goals from corners ⚽ pic.twitter.com/K9AILXqeo8
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) December 7, 2024
The problem with that line of thinking is Arsenal have floundered in tournament football since Arteta won the 2020 FA Cup as an interim boss. Maybe that changes this season, although the less-prestigious Carabao Cup looks like a more attainable trophy thanks to some soft draws.
Would winning a second domestic cup in five-plus years represent an adequate return on Arsenal's considerable investment in Arteta? An investment of faith, time and money. Oodles and oodles of each.
Arteta was given the keys to the kingdom with little justification. This wasn't like the second half of the Wenger era when the great man was able, not unreasonably, to trade in on the cache of his trophy-laden early years at the tiller.
Winning the Double twice and building 'The Invincibles' would buy any manager some goodwill. So would the oft-downplayed but still significant mitigating factor of being saddled with Emirates Stadium debt.
Arteta has no such back catalogue of success, nor external constraint. Nor has he had to deal with a bloated bureaucracy like the one Ivan Gazidis put between Wenger's successor Unai Emery and the decision-making process.
Emery was rarely allowed to call his own shot in the barely 18 months he was "head coach." Arteta, by contrast, has had free rein and over three times longer to make and remake his squad.
Want to sign multiple goalkeepers, despite inheriting Emil Martinez? Sure, thing Mikel. Here's £30 million for Aaron Ramsdale, plus roughly the same again for David Raya a couple of years later.
Spent £45 million on Thomas Partey, but need another £105m for Declan Rice? How about £40-odd million to acquire Jorginho and Mikel Merino? Sure, thing boss. Dropped £45 million on Gabriel Jesus, but want another £65 million for Kai Havertz? How about more funds to sign Riccardo Calafiori to replace Oleksandr Zinchenko? Or Jurrien Timber money to eventually oust £50 million worth of Ben White?
No problem, gaffer. What's a few hundred million between friends?
Turns out it's quite a lot when the money's bought a more physical, defensive-minded team able to grind out a point or two in big games, but woefully bereft of quality against lesser lights.
If you can't win, at least entertain
Arsenal have sacrificed creativity in pursuit of defensive solidity. The latter is a necessary and effective trait, but a team with nothing else is a very dull watch. Otherwise known as 2024/25 Arsenal.
A certain type of fan will champion a defensive team. Earn a point at City with 10 men and these fans will swarm to social media to post thinly-veiled shots at an attacking purist like Wenger and tell you they long for the days of George Graham (course they do).
Honestly, most supporters will sit through a carousel of overly cautious, unambitious football if their club is winning the big prizes. Being bored for months is a small price to pay to own bragging rights on a sunny day in May.
The problem is if you're so defensive, or better yet, bland in attacking areas, you can't overpower Fulham and Everton. Arsenal are no longer great entertainers because Arteta has long prized a dourer approach to the Beautiful Game.
It's summed up by the alarming lack of creativity and end product from open play, something tallied by James Benge of CBS Sports.
Arsenal have created an open play expected goal in one of their last eight Premier League matches. Across the season as a whole it's three of 15. They rank 13th in the Premier League for open play xG.
— James Benge (@jamesbenge) December 8, 2024
Those depressing numbers are the result of safety-first tactics. Arteta's risk-averse assessment of the lack of attacking urgency against the Toffees spoke volumes, per Arsenal.com:
"We have to manage the frustration. If nobody start to speed up the game, or there is no room to speed it up and we start to watch the game, we need to understand that nobody starts to force [the opponent] to make mistakes and to lose a grab of the game. We have to say very far away from that."
Mikel Arteta, Arsenal.com
Measured control is important, but Arteta has steadily skewed Arsenal's risk-reward ratio. This summer's transfer policy is proof.
Arteta signed Calafiori, another inverted left-back, to go with Merino, a Spanish midfielder known for winning aerial duels rather than technical excellence. How does a defender and another overtly physical midfielder overhaul a City side with creators the caliber of Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden supplying a striker as ruthless as Erling Haaland?
How do those signings push Arsenal above a Liverpool side winning with a loaded forward line led by Mohamed Salah and supplemented by Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo?
Consider the contrast to when Alex Ferguson used to routinely add top strikers to already prolific Manchester United attacks. Signing Carlos Tevez after Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney won the league in 2006/07. Adding Dimitar Berbatov following Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez retaining the title in 2007/08. Or addressing his team missing out in hilarious fashion in 2012 by snatching a certain Robin van Persie.
Ferguson knew a few immutable truths about football that haven't changed, no matter how much Arteta has allegedly 'galaxy-brained' the sport. Namely, how a strong defence gives you a chance, hard work off the ball keeps you in games, but it's those creative passers and clinical strikers who will earn the points to secure league titles.
Adding instead to the stronger defensive foundation Arteta, to his credit, built only made Arsenal more functional and less inspired. So did offloading attacking midfielders Emile Smith Rowe and Fabio Vieira, leaving the Gunners Martin Odegaard or bust in the creative department.
When the entire creative process is pressing and width, Arsenal become predictably one-sided. As Sam Dean of The Daily Telegraph showed.
Arsenal's attack has become increasingly right-sided over the past few years. Which makes sense, as their three best players all operate on that flank.
But when opposition teams are targeting Saka & Odegaard, #AFC need much more end product and quality from their left wingers. pic.twitter.com/c6OaOA1VWj
— Sam Dean (@SamJDean) December 9, 2024
Featuring Bukayo Saka, the burgeoning world-class talent Arteta was lucky to inherit, makes sense. What doesn't is the lack of an alternative. Nor the absence of positional fluidity and imagination in the final third.
That's on the manager who's had complete freedom to construct this squad. He's chosen to be conservative but forgotten a timely lesson.
If you're going to be dull, you'd better win the top prizes. If Arteta can't, then it's thanks for steadying the ship, but Arsenal might need a reset.
READ ALL THE LATEST ARSENAL NEWS HERE