Penalties for and against. Are Arsenal being hard done by?
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By Tony Attwood
There are several ways you can see Arsenal’s achievements this season.
One is as an absolute failure: the club has run the eventual champions close for two seasons running and with ManC now in a bit of a mess, and those 115 or so charges still hanging over them, and the club playing its final card by running not just one but two major legal cases against the entire Premier League, this could have been the moment. But Arsenal have blown it, coming second again.
Just as people used to say in Wenger’s time, fourth is not a trophy, so nor is second. Artewta should go. He failed to buy a striker when everyone else knew we needed one, and that’s all the evidence you need.
In this view, it is quite clear that irrespective of what happens it is quite clear that the supporters and journalists who don’t work at the club and have never worked in football management understand far more in terms of what should be done than the current management, who are, despite their years of experience in professional football, lazy, inept and stupid. If they were not they would have done what the journalists and supporters say they should have done. Know in advance that the entire forward line could be injured and buy a centre forward.
Another view is that Arsenal have built a superb squad but this season the entire front line and the back-up players have all been injured. And so has Odegaard – very annoyingly on international “duty” which is of course no “duty” at all, but an option. No ordinary club (ie no club without the backing of a state’s finances) could challenge for the top spot in such a season, and the fact that Arsenal are still second shows how brilliant this management is.
However, there is a bit of a problem here because the view of many supporters in most clubs is that they need to get rid of their manager because he is not bringing in the results and achievements that the supporters feel their club merits.
And given that even coming second is now a failure, that means there is only one successful manager each year, suggesting all the others should be sacked. Which if followed through would mean 19 clubs looking for new managers.
(OK we might not expect promoted clubs to win the league, but for them, the definition of success should then be mid-table stability, which still means those managers should go).
Which makes me wonder why we don’t normally see as a headline how many managers were sacked in the Premier League season by season. Which is a shame because in fact, in 2022/23 the answer was 12, with one other moving on by mutual consent without being sacked..So over half of the managers were kicked out.
The clubs that did the deed that it seems some Arsenal supporters think Arsenal should hav done were: Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leeds United, Leicester City, Southampton, Tottenham Hots, and Nottingham Forest.And I am not sure that for all of those clubs things are really going well.
Compared to those figures, last season was almost peaceful
Chelsea moved on Frank Lampard
Tottenham Hots let Ryan Mason go
Bournemouth sacked Gary O’Neill
Wolverhampton Wands let Julen Lopetegui find work elsewhere
Sheffield United sacked Paul Heckingbottom
Nottingham Forest removed Steve Cooper
Roy Hodgson resigned as Crystal Palace manager after getting a load of abuse.
In the current season, clubs, encouraged by journalists who want sackings because it gives them something to write about, have got even more excited with the notion of changing the manager. Those doing the deed so have been
Brighton and Hove Albion
Chelsea
Everton
Leicester City
Liverpool
Manchester United
Southampton
West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers
And indeed we should also note that some of these clubs have managed to get through two or even three managers (although that does include an interim manager or two appointed when no one could be found who would take the job).
And we might even add to the list Leicester City who departed the Premier League last season. Enzo Maresca left in June 2024, Steve Cooper departed in November 2024 and Ben Dawson departed in December 2024. They are currently 19th in the league.
So what do we notice with these clubs that have changed their managers? For Liverpool it has been a great success, but with them the manager was not sacked. He resigned and gave the club plenty of notice.
And at Brighton Fabian Hürzeler was appointed as head coach oin June 2024, replacing Roberto De Zerbi
Brighton are four places higher than where they were at the end of last season, but in most cases, replacing the manager is not leading to success. So why do these journalists and bloggers demand it? Could it be either that they want Arsenal to fail, or maybe they just don’t bother to look at what normally happens. Maybe they don’t remember Arteta’s first two seasons, with Arsenal coming eighth.
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Penalties for and against. Are Arsenal being hard done by?
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