In the past it was all about managers who had won the league and to some or other extent had a major impact on football, the way it was played and the success of their clubs. Thus when journalists had no more players to talk about they would “discuss” Klopp, Guardiola, Wenger, Ferguson, or Mourinho. But now they can’t as they have gone.
For Arteta has very much been something different. His run of finishing positions for one thing caused journalists a lot of concern, not because they were worried about the well-being of Arsenal (of course not) because he wasn’t being sacked. His opening seasons finishing of 8th, 8th, 5th would have been enough for Tottenham to get through six managers – probably more to come. And as we saw, the second three seasons each with a second-place finish should also have resulted in marching orders, but didn’t.
Which leaves a problem: if clubs give their managers time to sort things out, what on earth will the media write about?
Of course, Arsenal’s two eighth placed finishes under Arteta were not the same as Tottenham’s 17th place finishes. For Tottenham had its 8th placed finish and then its 5th place finish in 2022/23 and 2023/24 respectively, except after that they went down to the 17ths instead of up to the seconds.
Their view however appears to be that to pull themselves out of the mire they have to do more of what them in the mire – change managers and by players.
Perhaps part of the difference between the way Arsenal came through the bad seasons (the two 8th placed finishes, which in Tottenham terms are presumably now seen as a glory-glory years) was that Arsenal built on self-belief. All the players who didn’t believe in Arteta and his process were quickly moved on, and Arteta friendly players were brought in.
That might seem an obvious way forward, but the headline, “Liverpool players’ pathetic squabbling reveals a culture that has soured” from the Telegraph tells us how the club is being seen beyond the bounds of the training ground. (And in case you are interested that was a “Row over captain’s armband between Curtis Jones, Dominik Szoboszlai and Kostas Tsimikas” which we are told “exposes lack of leaders at Anfield.
Now there used to be times when all we could read about in the papers concerning Arsenal was internal feuding and the need to get rid of troublemakers. It wasn’t true of course, but was a story introduced to pain Arsenal in a bad light.
In fact what recent years have revealed is that the media need to be given a positive story by a club if they want to get the media away from the negatives. As the Daily Mail revealed of late with, “Christos Tzolis steals the show, Max Dowman CAN establish himself in the first team and two stars play key role despite heading for the exit.”
Indeed the media in general were mentioning not just the players still missing because of the so-called “international duty” (Saka, Raya), but those who were there (Havertz, Gyokeres). And just to prove the change of attitude the sentence, “Dowman weaves his magic and new signing shines as Arsenal hit ground running” was actually published. Mind you, they can turn to negatives just as quickly.
But there was something else in the Mail which acted as a reminder of just how things are developing: “With all the talk surrounding Vinicius Junior, Arsenal’s signing of Christos Tzolis had gone under the radar. The £34million winger has been the Gunners’ main acquisition of the window thus far, adding to Illan Meslier’s arrival and the loan of Piero Hincapie converted into a permanent deal.” And the Mail feel that Arsenal see Tzolis as a forward, which is rather encouraging.
That might just be newspaper talk, but the fact is, it is positive newspaper talk, and with Arsenal we don’t generally get that. Consider this, and remember the age of the player the journalist is writing about…. “At times, Max Dowman was the spearhead of Arsenal’s attack, controlling the tempo with an ease of a player beyond his 16 years of age.”
Of course we still don’t know which players are being given a run around so that agents and managers from other clubs can contemplate loaning or buying them, and it is more than likely that some of our lesser used players will move on elsewhere (although Arsenal did not take up all 25 places in their squad last season). But it is good to know we have bought in at least one potential replacement already.
