One Mailboxer reckons the Arsenal board would be ‘complete morons’ to sack Mikel Arteta in the summer if they failed to win the Premier League or Champions League.
While we see the world through the bleeding eyes of an Arsenal fan, all the most successful teams played bloody good football and plenty more views on the Gunners’ style of play.
Watch the football this weekend and send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com…
Arteta sack?
I’m writing this on my phone, so bear with me here. I just have some thoughts on the whole debate of will Arsenal or won’t Arsenal sack Arteta if they finish the season potless.
People arguing for his sacking, I need to ask them something. Are you mad? Are you mad? We will at worst finish second and reach the semi-finals of the Champions League, the two biggest competitions we have been entered into. Yes, the football has been crap this season but the attacking players have been crap. If you’re attack is crap, you change the attack, not the manager. Yes, it is his job to get the attack firing and they’re his players but are they really his players? How much of say did he get in those transfers? You know he didn’t fancy the big Swedish lad up front and we all know why. Just watching Kane on the ball against Bayern, was an eye opener for me. There’s the big English clogger (he’s Irish I’ll have you know), tidy and neat with the ball at his feet and always in control. Gyokeres is clumsy and I don’t think that can be trained out of him at this stage. He’s an uncomfortable watch at times.
But anyway, I am starting to forget what the point of this email is. What a risky step it would be to get rid of Arteta. Arsenal mathematically qualified for the Champions League weeks ago and there wasn’t a single news article about it. A couple of years ago that was our top target. That’s how far Arsenal have come. We’ve earned £100 million this year in the Champions League alone. Arsenal can pay for and attract the best players now, let the man who is responsible for that keep going. He’s learning on the job and has earned the right to keep going.
Arsenal will not sack him, unless complete morons are running the club. Why is this even a debate? We need better attacking players but the market is thin at the moment. There isn’t that many top tier players coming through. I blame TikTok and the likes, as kids just aren’t reaching their potential. All the top players have one thing in common. Thousands of hours, at an early age playing football. That is missing now. They’re all messing around on their devices, like the rest of us, when they should be down the playing fields with their mates.
Anyway, I doubt Arteta is under any pressure about his job because walking around the halls of the Emirates and London Colney he is the man. Probably high fiving the executives and having the banter with anyone and everyone. Times are good for us gunners, win something or not, just enjoy it.
Seamus, Sweden (PS. A quick question. Is reading about football more enjoyable than watching it? I think so. As mad as that sounds.)
The “Why”
Surprising to see a bit of unexpected talk today around the ever-under-the-radar, incognito, Arsenal Football Club, and I see it mentioned that with better players, it’s strange Arteta is leaning into the “fine margins” skid.
Is it, tho?
2022/23 – Buy well as an unfavoured transfer destination, run out of the traps at 100mph, be top for an unprecedented 1,287 gameweeks, ride your luck after a mid-season world cup, start to burnout with a low-depth, immature, squad, as the sky blue tortoise overtakes the hare – Fall Short.
2023/24 – Start much slower, as mild public derision starts, begin opening up your football, mixed results before a season defining back-to-back losses from two matches over Christmas where you have a combined 43 shots, 13 shots on target, and an average 67% across both games – finish out your season with record breaking results, scoring over 4 goals a game in like 48 results – Fall Agonisingly Short.
2024/25 – Go again, this time though you’re never in the race, the handbrake never comes off and at seasons end. Fall Very short. but on reflection, what’s this? You’ve drawn 734 games sure but you’ve only lost 4 all while only conceding only 34 goals along the way – surely a few goals added to your not-so-secret weapon would have turned the tide? Right?
Summer 2025 – you go after two of the best strikers in Europe
2025/26 – Neither striker really works in their first season spectacularly, and the one you chose carries on as prior 9’s in prior seasons have for you and the output is low – but you’re winning more games and conceding even less goals – and your not-so-secret weapon is both potent and has the benefit of upsetting Mary Whitehouse, Maud Flanders, and that fella from Game of Thrones (Xaro Xhoan Daxos of Qarth – thanks) and before long you’re top of the league, and deep into every tournament and having to “fend off” Quadruple talk
So – I actually do get it and while I personally haven’t thought many of Arsenal’s games this season have particularly scintillated (shocking, I know), it’s a fact that in pretty much every metric, they are LITERALLY better off than the season before, more goals scored, less conceded, more points, more wins, so in conclusion, that’s probably why Arteta has done it and if they win either of the pots they’re swinging for… I agree gang, he has done very well indeed
Harold Exequial Hooler
P.S – the bump for Arsenal is that win or lose, this time next year, their absolutely jacobsed team which we all see burning out, is likely going to have a very tough time following a wrld cup in which most of their outfield players are expected to play a minimum 5 more competitive games over the summer in sauna conditions.
READ: Big Weekend: Manchester City v Arsenal, Enzo Fernandez, Roberto De Zerbi, Everton
All the best, most successful teams played bloody good football
As ever, the morning mailbox is full of disparaging comments about Arsenal’s style of football – for good reason. It’s been hard to watch, though effective right up to the business end of the season. Certainly their players are capable of more, though that’s not the point I’m going to make here.
The comparison is made – negatively of course – with the likes of PSG, Barcelona, Bayern etc and the type of football they play. Watch the two games on Wednesday and you’ll get all the proof you need as to which was easier on the eye.
Pep Guardiola is often described as a footballing purist as was Cruyff before him. But he wasn’t really, whatever the myth. His sides played the way they did because he believed that was the best way to *win matches * His record would seem to back up that argument pretty solidly.
He’s often described as a chequebook manager, anyone could do it with his kind of money blah blah. Total crap. Arsenal have spent over £1 billion and won f**k all. United spent a King’s fortune to win …oh yes, f**k all. And we ( Liverpool ) spent nearly half a billion this season to go swiftly backwards and win, yes, f**k all.
It’s the style of football he plays *and* players good enough to play it that’s got him the success he’s had. Arteta could have a bunch of League 1 cloggers if all he wants is to keep the game close and only score at set pieces. If his team played to the best of their ability then this bottlemageddon would not be happening.
Shame he never got to work with Pep and learn these lessons….oh wait. Clearly he wasn’t paying as much attention as he might have been. All the best, most successful teams played bloody good football. Pep’s Barca side, the United of Tevez, Rooney and Ronaldo, the Liverpool side of the late 1980’s, and on and on it goes.
Arsenal may yet clog their way to the League, they’re still in pole position and everything depends on Sunday. But I think not. And will anyone look happily back at the 2026 Arsenal side who played crap football, fell apart at the key moments and won nothing?
Only to laugh at them.
James, Liverpool
The bleeding eyes of an Arsenal fan
Arsenal are a tough watch. It’s been that way for pretty much all of 2026. We are slow and methodical, risk-averse and obsessed with control over everything else. I’m not saying we need to be balls to the wall playing out 3-2 wins every match into the latter stages of 3 or 4 competitions every year, but I do think there’s somewhat of a duty to display a product on the pitch that the fans can be excited about. Excited – that’s key. If fans are forking out thousands in season ticket costs, and £90 quid odd to come watch a one off match, I find myself asking why. Why do fans even watch? This is supposed to be entertainment after all. Here’s my take:
- Mostly, because fans enjoy football in its most raw form. They played in the local park growing up, maybe in school, some even at lower league levels and it was part of their identity for a long long time. It was primitive. Me vs you. Us against them. Exciting. They like the competitive nature, and appreciate the skill it takes to play the game at a high level. The highest level even.
- They associate the game they watch at the top of the pyramid with the aspirations they had as a young player. Maybe this is just me, but when I watch a match Im reminded of younger me playing growing up – the 3 vs 3 matches in the street until dark, the smashed windows in the neighborhood when trying to replicate the latest MOTD goal of the month winner with an old, patchless Nike Geo ball. The overseas cup run we went on at u14 that was a core memory for me and a handful of lifelong friends who were then just teammates. It’s the “imagine that was me” connection between watching your favorite team as an adult and fighting the inner child whose shouting “well if you didn’t eat so many packets of McCoys and drank water instead of cans of Vimto, you could have given it a crack!”.
- Let’s do a quick exercise. In your head, name your favorite player ever from the team you support. Recount some of their key actions that made them your favorite player. Was it a big double save for the Schmeichel fans? Maybe it was Zola dicing people and dinking keepers. Maybe it was KDB finding an opening through the eye of a needle and getting people off their seats with sheer invention. One thing is for sure, it was exciting, and the action (or counter action) needed risk for it to be exciting. Big John Terry block at the edge of the box? needs a goal-bound shot to happen. Big Les Ferdinand commanding header into the top corner? needs someone beating a man and whipping in a cross to ask the question. Iniesta and xavi creatively picking locks at the top of the opposition box to mesmerizing effect? they too needed interchange, and the risk of losing possession and positional discipline in pursuit of creating that advantage. Simply put, the best players ever – regardless of position – thrived on risk.
We have none of that.
I don’t recall 12 year-old me ever thinking: “I can’t wait to watch Vieira intercept a pass on the halfway line, have the opportunity to gallop into space and attack 4 vs 4, but instead wait for the opposition to get all 11 behind the ball while he settles for taking 3 negative touches and giving it to Martin Keown to create something from 35 yards deeper”.
Sad.
Rocastle7 (We’ll beat Atletico. Only team that relies on structure more than us is them. Bayern to beat us in the final 3-0, which is same score line we’ll lose to City by on Sunday).
Arsenal need to stop hiding in a cupboard
Paul K is dead on. And so is Shunt. I wrote in ages ago during Arteta’s tenure that he and his players needed to win a huge game versus a direct rival at a critical juncture. I think I used the Pep-Klopp PL rivalry as my example – they regularly went at each other in huge games like Bayern and Real did the other night, win or bust, do or die – not hide in a cupboard like Arsenal. I still can’t think of a game where Arteta and his players have done this yet. Beating Bayern well in the group stages, or the great victory of making Pep supposedly park the bus when his team were taking a rare fallow period to sort their shit out earlier in the season don’t count either before the soppier Gooner elements start BTL. There are two opportunities to do this in the near future, Arteta and his team need to show some balls rather than die wondering. Still not sure they can do that, let alone whether Arteta is willing to do that. Shunt says Rangers, I said Real Sociedad back then, but the point stands, no other elite team is giving Arteta this much time or money for nowt. This is pivotal for his career.
RHT/TS x
Whatever it takes…
Just in regards to Shunt’s email re. Arsenal – without trying to sound overly defensive, the key difference between us and the other European giants that he mentions, is that we are quite obviously inexperienced and nervous when it comes to closing out… Bayern, Real and City can rely on their know-how and muscle memory to turn it on when it counts and they have the confidence to express themselves and play open, entertaining football in these big games. I have no doubt in my mind that should Arsenal get themselves over the line this season, you’ll see a different team next year – confident, fluid and playing our best ‘classic Arsenal’ football again. For now, we seem shattered physically and nervous mentally, hence the regression to ‘don’t lose’ over ‘go and out and play’. I think that comes from Arteta (despite the ‘fire’) AND the players.
I’m sure it makes for painful viewing for non-Arsenal fans and probably isn’t the way the majority of us Gooners would like to see the team win, but we have been here before and we will 100% take a scrappy, exhausted collapse over the line rather than another glorious failure.
Maybe save the pot shots for City, who despite ‘knowing how to approach games’ have been chasing our shadow all season… OK, maybe I am a bit defensive.
Cheers,
Al (Timber and Dowman down the right for the game on Sunday would be tasty…)
Arsenal obsession
The obsession with Arsenal is absolutely mental in the mailbox lately. Who is saying Raya is the best GK in the world. He’s been their best player alongside Gabriel this season. They’re top of the Premier League and haven’t lost in the CL yet. The teams best attribute is their defence. Raya, Timber, Gabriel and Saliba have been playing at a very high level for a few years now. Why are you shocked that people are eating them highly?
They’re quite obviously among the best in their position. Who do you think is the best CB in the world? It subjective but they’re obviously all around the top 5. I’m someone who hates the way we play. I also never agreed that it doesn’t matter as long as we win. It’s not sustainable. I said it last summer that if we play this boring, pragmatic way again it will not work. The only positive is that it’s making lads like you in tears. We’ve played some good football in the CL this year, beating Bayern 3-1 and thumping Atletico 4-0 (there’s no H). I have no faith that we will do it but I will never understand why you’re so arsed and invested in it? Surely you should be happy at how shit we are because it will end in no trophies. I couldn’t imagine caring that much about another team, especially when they’re not a rival. Like Ben moaning about Declan Rice’s interviews. You do realise football players are PR trained. He’s hardly going to come out and say “Ah we are in shit form, don’t think we have enough to beat City”.
“I wonder if Rodri and Bernado Silva are talking in similar punch drunk cliches or maybe they are actually THINKING about how they can control the midfield tactically and technically”
That’s not how it works. Doing an interview after a game doesn’t mean you can’t train on tactics the day after. Stop being daft.
Dion
The reason Arsenal can’t get over the line
If Mikel Arteta wins the Premier League with Arsenal, he would be the first manager ever to win the Premier League as his first ever league title. Every other Premier League winning manager had already won a domestic league title elsewhere before lifting the Premier League.
Arne Slot — Eredivisie before Liverpool
Pep Guardiola — La Liga & Bundesliga before Man City
Jurgen Klopp — Bundesliga before Liverpool
Antonio Conte — Serie A before Chelsea
Claudio Ranieri — Serie B, C1 and Ligue 2 before Leicester
José Mourinho — Portuguese Liga before Chelsea
Manuel Pellegrini — Liga MX & Ecuador Serie A before Man City
Roberto Mancini — Serie A before Man City
Carlo Ancelotti — Serie A before Chelsea
Arsène Wenger — Ligue 1 before Arsenal
Kenny Dalglish — English First Division before Blackburn
If he does not manage to get them over the line, I wonder if the lack of experience of ever having done this anywhere may be part of the reason…
Cheers,
Paul K, London
Pep and Arteta
Imagine working with Pep for all those years, then producing the brand of football Arteta has. Remarkable stuff.
Simon S, NUFC, Cheshire
What’s in a name?
This is totally unrelated to any of the topics currently occupying the football universe but I thought a bit of levity was in order…
I recently caught Rio on a podcast saying that he used to call Scholes “SatNav” because of the accuracy of his passing. Whilst complimentary and slightly whimsical, I doubt he was ever shouting “SatNav, man on” during a game. When I was growing up, a nickname was based on either something you did not like or some peccadillo (e.g. “Curly” for no hair, of Lofty, etc.).
In the world of football however, nicknames seem to be (unimaginably!) based almost solely on your name. So, if your name has one syllable, your nickname as two (e.g. Wazza, Scholsey, Giggsy, etc.) but if your name has more than one, the nickname is just one (e.g. Lamps, Gaz, etc.). I realize that football players are not the most educated and there is a certain need for brevity on the football field but, I’m struggling to recall any nicknames that have a touch of wit that are not directly associated with the name, like naval aviators.
Does anyone know any nicknames of players that are both witty and actually used?
Adidasmufc (I used to play with a forward whom we nicknamed “muff” because… well obviously!)
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