Arsenal and Mikel Arteta accused of being ‘fake’ but fans claim criticism is ‘tedious’

Arsenal and Mikel Arteta continue to come under fire but some fans want to know where all this ‘immature’ criticism comes from…

Send your views – on Arsenal but also Man Utd/Spurs after their Europa League games – to theeditor@football365.com

The big question
So who has had the better season – United/Spurs finishing 15th and winning the Europa League, or Arsenal finishing 2nd/3rd with no trophies again…?
RQT (MUFC)

Heavy is the head that wears the Lego
My guy Arteta said ‘Arsenal were 100% the best side in the Champs League…’

So either that’s as fanciful as a Joey Barton peace offering, or you’ve just xposed yourself as the manager who failed to win it with the best side in the competition.

Either way, not a great look, Mikel, is it?
Sesh Juan

At Arsenal, it’s all fake
After 5½ years in charge, and nearly £700 million spent, Arteta has a solitary FA Cup and a single title race to his name. Yet, if you turn on the radio, listen to TV commentary, or speak to Arsenal fans, you’d think he was one of the greats.

Sorry, he’s a good manager who’s done an OK job. Nothing more.

There are only a few ways to win in sport. You can throw money at it; The Yankees started it when they bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox. Jack Walker did it at Blackburn, Abramovich at Chelsea, and now Manchester (115) City. Or you build a team, Ferguson, Wenger, and Klopp did it over time. And then, sometimes, you’re simply in the right place at the right time, see Leicester City.

Over the last 14 years, Manchester United have been the antithesis of all three. And that, frankly, has been funny. If they’d had a decent sporting operation running the club rather than bozo the clown they’d have won a dozen more trophies.

The problem isn’t just that Arsenal haven’t won, trophies are hard to win. It’s the way they act. A few years ago, when they started the trend of over-celebrating every minor victory, a narrative formed. One view was they were a young team bonding. The flip side: why celebrate like that after beating Everton at home in February? What exactly had they won?

There was Ødegaard photographing the photographer after a win against Liverpool. The classless way they handled the Man City “stay humble” game. The constant complaining, the obfuscation, the baseless excuses for why they didn’t win, for example injuries and VAR. And no, the Invincibles season still only counts as one trophy.

Last Tuesday was the club’s biggest night since 2009, and how did they try to unify the fans? With a Tifo that looked like it was designed by a primary school child, and a cringeworthy “call to arms” video from Arteta. No wonder the crowd was flat. Contrast that with Anfield in 2005, when Liverpool played Chelsea in the Champions League semi-final, the atmosphere came through the TV. Chelsea players have since admitted it affected them.

Two years later, Chelsea tried to recreate it with small plastic flags. It didn’t work. Even Pep, Ferguson, and Wenger have all said a Champions League night at Anfield is different. In the 2024 League Cup Final, when Liverpool’s youngsters needed support in extra time, the fans lifted them with a roaring rendition of Allez Allez Allez. That’s my favourite Klopp-era memory. Last week, when PSG went one up, the Emirates went silent when the team needed them the most. Where’s their Barca, or Olympiacos games? You can’t write a legacy. You can’t buy it. You can’t manufacture it. It must be built.

Which leads me to why I believe this iteration of Arsenal will never win anything major: The club is fake.

“North London Forever” – fake. The atmosphere – fake. The over-celebrating – fake. And most damningly, the manager – fake.

Best regards.
Ian H

MORE ARSENAL COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Mikel Arteta ‘openly disliked by staff’ as report reveals Liverpool nonsense ‘didn’t go down brilliantly’
👉 Arsenal: French press slam ‘3/10’ trio with reason given for Arteta ‘failing’ – ‘so unremarkable’
👉 Arsenal: Gary Lineker suggests Mikel Arteta’s decision vs PSG shows he doesn’t trust one Gunners star

Arteta is Benitez
I thought I’d throw in my unwanted two pennies in on the Arteta debate.

He reminds me of Benitez. I’m a Liverpool fan, I love Rafa, he’s a club legend, author of one of the greatest moments in the club’s history and I expect he never has to buy a drink in Liverpool. But. He was a defensive coach first and foremost. Great at the cups, great at being hard to beat, but never looked like winning the league cause his side too often got bogged down and couldn’t convert draws into wins. Sound familiar?

Arteta’s teams have scored 56 (his first year and covid), 61, 69, 84, 89. The points total that won the league in those seasons are 99, 86, 93, 89, 91. He has once put together a season which you might say he was unlucky not to win, but really 89 seems the minimum level if you want the chance to win a title at the moment. I don’t buy the argument that he’s been unlucky.

I do absolutely give him credit for the new solution to an old problem. The issue that confronts all wannabe contenders is how to deal with a team sitting deep and counter attacking. Pep and Klopp solved it with an extended high press – it worked, but you could see how much it drained players over the course of the season, possibly leading to both sides’ comparative failure in Europe. Slot dealt with it by mixing an occasional high press with a baited press, where he’d lure teams into pressing them in their defensive half and then use his midfielders to play the ball through the heart of the press to counter attack. It remains to be seen if this will work twice, sides might just refuse the gambit next season. Arteta instead uses size and set piece mastery. It has almost worked, and has the advantage that you can’t refuse to engage with it.

He’s also evidently an excellent defensive and structural coach, he’s successfully used and developed Arsenal’s academy players, and he’s got new levels out of a lot of great players.

But, my overall impression of Arteta is that he’s an excellent coach who’s been great for Arsenal, but might not be able to get them over the line himself.
Dan, Plastic LFC

Let’s get Kroenked up
Seeing as though you need to write about Arsenal to get it at the moment, I thought I’d throw a topic into the mixer Pulis Style!

Now I’m not an Arsenal fan, United in fact but I am an avid NBA fan and on the topic of Arteta being either the best manager ever or utter shite, I’d like to bring to attention what Arsenal’s owners have done across the pond this season in the NBA.

So the Kroenke’s own both Denver Nuggets and Arsenal, this season in unprecedented fashion, they fired the most successful coach in Nuggets history and his staff mere moments before the playoffs began. Never before happened and this is a Coach that won their only ever title in 2023, and is the winningest (lol americanisms) in Nuggets History.

They just papped him off into the sunset because they didn’t want to waste the squad they had and this window of opportunity before a rebuild (which he had a hand in building well via drafts and good trades alongside the GM obviously)!

So whether Lego Pulis is the chosen one or not, I reckon he’s gotta win something next year before they send him off to the glue factory as well.
Moses

Mourinho a winner? Not anymore
In the Mailbox, somebody suggested Arsenal should get Mourinho in because ‘at least he wins things’. In the past 8 years he has won the European Conference League. Impressive. Please appoint him Arsenal, then the nonsense that my team – the Mighty Whites – are interested in him, God forbid, will stop.
G Thomas, Breda

A little bit of balance please
I do wonder about some of the people writing in this morning. Are they Arsenal fans? Did they watch the miserable mess we were at the end of the Wenger era?

Whatever Arteta’s failings (and all managers have them), in my opinion he has done a great job of turning that around. Yes, we lost a Champions League Semi-Final, but at least we were in it (and we did not lose by an aggregate score of 10-2).

And yes Arteta does make some ham-fisted comments (in his second language) but he also frequently gets misquoted. He did say he was proud of Arsenal’s performance “against, probably one of the best, if not the best team in Europe”. If that’s not complimenting PSG, I am not sure what is.

We now have an experienced Director of Football whose knowledge and contacts extend beyond South America. And who is also not going to be distracted by his next job. So I am hopeful we will do what needs to be done this summer and looking forward to what that may bring.
Carolyn, (I am beginning to feel we have taken Millwall’s mantle as the most hated club), South London Gooner

…Neutral here, no skin in the game. But while it’s tempting to jump on the Arteta out bandwagon, and Lord knows he doesn’t help himself with some of his comments – we can all remember when Arsenal were just a bunch of tika-taka merchants who were bullied by stoke, and lost their best players to City every summer.

Arteta has made them a tough, streetwise side who are just missing one or two players to be world beaters. I can’t stand the football they play or the excuses Arteta uses, but they’re part of the conversation, which is a long way from the end days of Wenger and the ‘Round of Arsenal’. Keep the faith, Gooners.
Dan, London

…I’d like to pose a salty question to the mailbox contributors finding so much joy in Arsenal’s defeat. How did your team get on in their Champions League semi final tie this week? Or their quarter-final last season?

Being demonstrably the best English team in the competition in the period Arteta’s actually been in it seems a strange old stick to beat him with.
James, Kent

…This is very tedious now, but hopefully you can all get it out your system.

Will, Rice is not making excuses for anything, nor has he be ‘brainwashed‘ – he’s been absolutely slogging through a tough season (he himself played through a broken toe) and watched some of his closest friends suffer significant injuries. He can say through that adversity he has been proud of how everything has pulled together and played for each other.

You are allowed to read about how Tomiyasu has really struggled with his long term injuries from a psychological perspective (yeh, great job for taking the piss) or empathise with players who have just lost a massive game with huge emotional stakes and give them the smallest bit of leeway on what they say rather than being a miserable pedant.

In the light of day, sure Arteta was a sore loser last night, I’m certain when he next speaks to the press he’ll be more circumspect, but you’ll already be on to find the next stick to beat him with.

There just seems to be too much glee in the narrative of Arteta as the failed mental manipulator – a sort of Mailbox hysteria that has spread to your newsroom – so of course we have another article on that rather than taking a beat to reflect on the hypocrisy of touting player mental health and then kicking people when they’re down.

I’ve been thinking for a while what word I would use to describe the tone of coverage of this season in particular here and I’m leaning towards ‘immaturity’. As someone who has been coming to these pages since maybe the website’s inception, the juvenile nature of the mailbox has always been part of the appeal, but the tone of articles has massively dropped off (I do not believe a decent editor would allow such a prevalence of terms like ‘Spursiness’, ‘bottling’ or the like, that’s lowest common denominator ‘banter merchant’ drivel).

You could say more fool me for reading, but I, like all of us poor saps here, are basically addicts for this stuff so we’re not going anywhere. But F365 used to be the pathway for young football journalists to move up to the broadsheets and established football media world and one presumes there remains that ambition.

Not writing like this you won’t.
Tom, Leyton

MORE ARSENAL COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Mikel Arteta ‘openly disliked by staff’ as report reveals Liverpool nonsense ‘didn’t go down brilliantly’
👉 Arsenal: French press slam ‘3/10’ trio with reason given for Arteta ‘failing’ – ‘so unremarkable’
👉 Arsenal: Gary Lineker suggests Mikel Arteta’s decision vs PSG shows he doesn’t trust one Gunners star

PSG to reign for a long time
I’m sure there will be a lot of anti Arsenal/Arteta stuff today (much of it such as the lack of forward options correct) but I’d like to focus on PSG and what could be, as the Americans like to say, the start of a dynasty.

I think they are an incredible team and IMHO will be way too good for Inter (who are clearly an excellent team, just not on their level). But the point really is that they feel like a group of youngsters like Monaco 2016/17, Porto 2004 or even Ajax 90’s. However the difference here is, no one is going to wander in with a wallet full of cash and take them all away as PSG’s pockets are pretty much limitless. Real Madrid may be able to get into the odd ear as they do, but essentially PSG’s hand is very strong in keeping this young core together for years. While at the same time having a big enough budget to keep purchasing the best of Europe’s youngsters (mainly France and Portugal seems to be working for them at the moment) with the odd larger purchase but keeping away from the Neymar’s of the world.

Obviously I could be completely wrong and they lose to Inter and revert to their form of the early CL campaign, but there seems to be something scarily long term and effective in this current team.

In the rare circumstances where a club has been rich enough to keep a team of talented youngsters together like Fergie’s United and the La Masia kids, it hasn’t worked out badly.
James, Wales
(Donnarumma is still 26?!)