The score is 19-13: Which players are for Arteta?

Matt Stead

The Arsenal dressing-room seems split on Mikel Arteta. We don’t quite have it even but he has plenty of supporters and detractors from what we know…

 

Bernd Leno – FOR ARTETA
“I really have belief in Bernd. I know what he can give us. We have to adapt to the circumstances; we can’t do everything we want in the market and we have players with value. We had two fantastic goalkeepers and they were both performing really well but we had to make decisions.”

That was Arteta’s explanation for deciding to back Leno by selling Emiliano Martinez to Aston Villa in September. The goalkeeper surely realises that he owes his manager a debt of gratitude.

 

Runar Alex Runarsson – FOR ARTETA
He was hardly mustard at Dijon before Arteta plucked him from the obscurity of a bottom-half Ligue Un side’s bench in the summer. Runarsson has been a member of every Arsenal matchday squad since joining and has no obvious reason to resent the boss.

 

Matt Macey – FOR ARTETA
Although there will be understandable frustration at a lack of opportunities, Macey recently noted that Arteta “blew everyone away” when he was appointed as he brought in “a new way of coaching that I had never seen before”. It’s strange to think a 6ft 6ins goalkeeper had never previously experienced a bombardment of crosses in training.

 

Hector Bellerin – FOR ARTETA
There will be no Spanish civil war at Arsenal. Bellerin absolutely loves Arteta, who “adopted me when I arrived” at Arsenal and “was like a father to me”. And children never disagree with their parents.

 

Kieran Tierney – FOR ARTETA
When you work under Ronny Deila and Neil Lennon it probably imbues you with a little more perspective. Tierney plays pretty much whenever he is fit and available and strikes us as the kind of person who has muted every WhatsApp group involving David Luiz.

 

William Saliba – AGAINST ARTETA
Perhaps Saliba holds no grudges with Arteta over his lack of chances at Arsenal, but it would not be difficult whatsoever to sway him against the Spaniard. Reckon it would take one shandy and a throwaway joke about non-negotiables for him to launch into an uninterrupted 12-minute rant about his Lego hair.

 

Sokratis – AGAINST ARTETA
Well yeah.

 

Gabriel – FOR ARTETA
He will support the manager who signed him and starts him for now, but his outlook depends entirely on where he sits on the team bus going forward. It’s too soon for Gabriel to have been turned against Arteta yet.

 

Rob Holding – FOR ARTETA
There might be some anger at Arteta preventing him from leaving for a team three places and four points higher in the summer, but Holding cannot ignore that he is playing actual football games.

 

Cedric Soares – FOR ARTETA
There might be some anger at Arteta preventing him from challenging for the Premier League title, but Cedric cannot pretend that he would play actual meaningful football games for Southampton either. Plus a four-year contract at 28 engenders a great deal of loyalty.

 

Shkodran Mustafi – FOR ARTETA
One of the players brought back in from the perennial cold by Arteta is unlikely to turn against him so easily. Although there is every chance he sides with a certain former international teammate.

 

Calum Chambers – AGAINST ARTETA
Has played just three games under the Spaniard, even if that is mainly down to a knee injury sustained soon after his arrival.

 

Pablo Mari – FOR ARTETA
“The first thing is that I think that quick manager changes are not the right thing to do,” he said this month. “I go with Mikel until the end of the world.” Sounds pretty supportive.

 

David Luiz – AGAINST ARTETA
He will protest his innocence and issue public denials but Pepperidge Farm – and Frank Lampard’s five or so immediate Chelsea predecessors – remembers.

 

Sead Kolasinac – AGAINST ARTETA
He’s barely playing and is close friends with the club’s unofficial live matchday social media expert. If knife-wielding attackers are not enough to dissuade him from protecting Ozil then the Spanish Tim Sherwood poses no threat.

 

Bukayo Saka – FOR ARTETA
The progression and development might have come naturally regardless but Saka is an England international and Premier League regular at 19 thanks largely to Arteta’s influence.

 

Dani Ceballos – FOR ARTETA
He cited the coaching of Arteta as one of the motivating factors behind his return to Arsenal, and does play more often than most.

 

Mesut Ozil – AGAINST ARTETA
Hahaha. Tough one.

 

Ainsley Maitland-Niles – AGAINST ARTETA
It’s been a tumultuous relationship to say the least. Arteta reintegrated Maitland-Niles as a first-team option after he was ignored by Unai Emery, then froze him out shortly before lockdown. Upon football’s return he slowly established himself as a valuable squad member again but was widely reported to be up for sale in the summer. Arteta then changed his mind, kept him, fed him a diet almost exclusively comprised of Europa League minutes and only let him stretch his legs intermittently at right or left-back.

 

Thomas Partey – FOR ARTETA
New kid. Happy to stay on side of both teacher and beleaguered students. Being pushed back onto the pitch and immediately exacerbating an injury is the kind of flashpoint that could see the tide slowly turn.

 

Mohamed Elneny – FOR ARTETA
How in dick’s name was that wonderful performance in victory over Manchester United just a month and a half ago? There aren’t many teammates playing more regularly.

 

Joe Willock – AGAINST ARTETA
It can’t be fun watching this shite from the bench. It’s even worse now there’s no Europa League for a while to take out those frustrations.

 

Emile Smith Rowe – AGAINST ARTETA
As above.

 

Granit Xhaka – AGAINST ARTETA
The latest claim is that Xhaka ‘was already not happy at the club after being used in a variety of different roles since Arteta took over’. Coming from someone who had been booed out of the stadium and looked certain to leave before the Spaniard took over and helped rehabilitate his image, that’s a bit rich. Arteta was suitably annoyed with his abdication of duty against Burnley. Thierry Henry will be able to turn his widescreen on again soon – although he should probably watch what he says if Patrice Evra receives another invitation round.

 

Alexandre Lacazette – FOR ARTETA
Is this the biggest example of an Arsenal player who owes Arteta his support? Many managers would have given up on Lacazette long before now but this one continues to tweak his system in the hope of getting as much as possible out of the Frenchman. He is hardly reciprocating that faith on the pitch so one can only assume he is doing so off it.

 

Willian – FOR ARTETA
Scratch that: if anyone should be knocking on doors around north London, asking for five minutes to speak about the Church of Mikel, it’s Willian. Arteta sanctioned his three-year contract on silly wages, excused his flouting of obvious rules in a global pandemic and continues to overlook shoddy performances when others are dropped and exiled for far, far less. He and David Luiz must have had some difficult conversations, like when your dad brings up how he actually quite likes the cut of Boris Johnson’s shudder-inducing jib.

 

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – FOR ARTETA
Now this one is tough. It was three months ago that Aubameyang extended his contract because “I believe in Arsenal” as “we have something exciting here” and “the best is to come”. Much of that was down to the short-term impact Arteta had at the club. But this season has brought as many Premier League goals in open play for Arsenal as own goals against them as the manager continues to fiddle with a system that is failing to get the best out of one of the continent’s best strikers. Arteta has built up enough goodwill with his captain but that only lasts for so long.

 

Nicolas Pepe – AGAINST ARTETA
The unwitting poster boy for apparent dressing-room unrest has kept his own counsel but it is not outlandish to suggest that two Premier League starts all season might lead to a degree of quiet vexation. Pepe would probably be one of the leaders of any revolution if the manager is to be overthrown.

 

Reiss Nelson – AGAINST ARTETA
A total of 70 Premier League minutes across two substitute appearances is probably not what Nelson had in mind this season. The senior players ahead of him in attacking positions have set the bar incredibly low yet Arteta is not interested in watching Nelson clear it.

 

Eddie Nketiah – AGAINST ARTETA
Whether he is The Answer or not, it must be pretty ball-achingly dispiriting to become your club’s top goalscorer for the season on a Thursday and be given eight minutes to change the course of an entire game the following Sunday.

 

Gabriel Martinelli – FOR ARTETA
Unless David Luiz has got in his lovely ear, Martinelli has no real reason to side against Arteta. The Spaniard has managed him pretty well and would surely have relied on him if injuries had not been a factor. It doesn’t particularly matter who the manager is when you’re destined to become the greatest player ever anyway.

 

Folarin Balogun – FOR ARTETA
He has no real horse in this race. Why would he care who manages Arsenal when he’s going to be at Bayern Munich by next year?

 

F365 Features David Luiz

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