Arsenal face ‘extreme’ Arteta sack call as ex-CEO urges Gunners to learn from Wenger ‘lesson’
Mikel Arteta may well be sacked if Arsenal have learned a “lesson” from the Arsene Wenger era at the Emirates, according to the club’s former CEO.
The Gunners couldn’t find a way past Nottingham Forest on Wednesday and the goalless draw means they’re now a whopping 13 points behind league-leaders Liverpool, who beat Newcastle 2-0 at Anfield.
Arteta’s side will now surely fail once again to win the Premier League title having finished second to Manchester City in the previous two campaigns.
Doubts have been raised over Arteta’s ability to lead his side in that last step and Keith Edelman – Arsenal’s ex-managing director and CEO between 2000 and 2008 – believes that while sacking the Spaniard would be “extreme”, the club may well have learned lessons from the period of stagnation under Wenger.
When asked about fans calling for Arteta to be sacked, Edelman said: “I think it’s a bit extreme. My feeling is Arteta is not responsible for the recruitment of new players and bringing a new squad in, that’s not what his role is.
“He’s not a director of football and it’s probably quite unkind [to call for the sack] if you’re not given the tools for the trade. You can’t cut the sandwich without a knife after all.”
He added: “I haven’t met him, but I’ve watched his football. I think he’s taken the club a long way, but they need to step up to the last one, which is to win the Premier League. That’s always the challenge.
“I’ll never forget, one of the very best CEOs turned around to me when I was at Arsenal and said ‘if Arsene doesn’t win the league this year, you ought to get rid of him because it’s no good coming second all the time’. I was quite taken aback because Arsene had won the league before.
“There is a lesson in that, though. You’ve got to get someone that’s going to take you to the pinnacle, not someone that gets you close to it and doesn’t get there. To repeat that [finishing second] season after season, you’ve got to sit back and wonder ‘well there’s something going wrong?’ Is it recruitment, is it the squad build, who is responsible for what?”
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Arsenal lost their technical director Edu Gaspar in November, who’s currently on gardening leave before taking up a post under Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, agreeing to deal to oversee his network of clubs.
And Edelman pinned the blame on Arsenal’s hierarchy for failing to get their transfer strategy right, with the lack of a “world class No.9” particularly damning.
“They don’t seem to have the strategy right for how they’re going to build the squad in terms of delivering the transfers they need,” he added. “I think they’ve failed in developing that strategy for bringing players in. The title challenge is withering out and they haven’t got a [fit] striker.
“When we used to build teams with Arsene, it was a strategic formula of how we would build the squad, and one of those was a world-class forward. If you look at all of their forwards, or a No. 9 equivalent, I don’t think they’ve got anyone world-class in that area.
“That’s one of the things they’re making a mistake on, you’ve got to use your money quite wisely, it’s a scarce resource. You’ve got to build a squad that works and they’ve got too many people in the squad who I wouldn’t have in there because they’re not young enough and they’re not world-class, or of that calibre.”
