Arsenal is still a massive club & it too big a jump too soon for Arteta. He's talented but to manage Arsenal, you need experience. His entire career is 3 yrs as an asst. Arsenal isn't where you learn management 101. The PR designed to give him confidence backfiring doesnt help.
The blame should fall as much on Arsenal as anyone else. They trusted him, built a narrative around him that they've found the next Pep, placed insane expectations on him to reinvent football and with no experience of handling such pressure, he's now understandably panicking.
It's clear Arteta is a good coach, but that's 10% of being a manager, especially at a big club. Can he handle the red tape above him, the politics beside him, can he handle the media narratives, the player expectations & pressure, the million other intangibles that he needs to?
It's always better to learn your craft at a smaller club, where you can start with a smaller set of responsibilities, master it and then move to a slightly bigger club to take on slightly more responsibilities and so on. Taking on 1000 responsibilities as your 1st job isn't wise.
Also Arsenal were planning for a massive rebuild, the job Arteta took on would have been difficult for most managers let alone inexperienced ones. It's poor planning.

Arsenal now have 2 options, stick with him & let him learn on the job or cut their losses — no easy choice.
This is where Ole's experience helps. He's taken a club to its 1st title in 100 years & faced relegation with another. He's seen the ups & downs of management. He's learned not to get carried away by success & not to crumble under pressure - two things Arteta is struggling with.
To wrap up, I feel for Arteta. Immature decisions abv him, insane expectations & the fan's need for a prophecy to come true has contributed to his situation more than his own 'inability'. Can still be good if given the time, but whether it should be Arsenal's remains to be seen.
PS: I dont usually talk abt other clubs bc I clearly wouldnt know them as well as I do mine. This is me elaborating on what we feel as outsiders — a good coach, rushed into a high pressure managers job unnecessarily early.

I could be missing things, so do keep that in mind.

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More from @SensibleUtd

23 Nov
Thread:

*A Case in Congestion*

The current season is by far the shortest in a long while at just 246* days, but the number of games remain relatively the same.

But just how congested is this season as compared to a regular season? And how is it affecting us?

Let's dive in: 👇
This is a long read where we'll dicuss

1. Comparing this season to previous seasons
— by season's total length
— by no of rest days between games
— by gap between seasons

2. How it's affecting players

3. How #mufc are combating it

4. Final thoughts

Let's go!
1. Comparing this season to previous seasons:

On average United play anywhere between 50 to 65 games a season depending on how far we go into each competition.

Let's take a look at how long previous seasons were and how many we played in each.
Read 25 tweets
21 Nov
No of changes #mufc make to the starting XI from game to game:

2. Luton — 10
3. Brighton — 9
4. Brighton — 10
5. Tottenham — 10
6. Newcastle — 5
7. PSG — 3
8. Chelsea — 3
9. RB Leipzig — 5
10. Arsenal — 3
11. Istanbul — 5
12. Everton — 4

Congested season ➡️ lots of rotations
Diving deeper:

1st 5 games ➡️ heavy rotations

United were basically playing a new 11 back to back for the 1st 5 games, they we're treating it as the pre-season that they missed

From then on thanks to the tight schedule United have continued to make an avg of 4 rotations a game
Pros:
- we've not accumulated any long term injuries
- we've been able to keep a fresh squad

Cons:
- need more time to breed consistency w/o a fixed XI
- mins being shared around (not a big con actually)
Read 5 tweets
5 Nov
Thread:

#mufc's squad has 2 primary issues that need solving

1. Midfield Balance
2. Depth vs Balance

Let's take a look at each:

Before I start — this is NOT an 'excuse'

1. Mufc ARE unbalanced
2. Mufc should STILL have won yday

BOTH of these can & is true

Now let's dive in:
1. Midfield Balance

A balanced midfield should:

- dictate play
- maintain tempo
- hold def shape
- press/counter press
- create
+ Lot more

Our options

Pogba, Bruno, VDB, Matic, Fred, McT

No 3 man combo from this can do all of that
Only a 4 man mid can but 💎 has flaws (FBs)
This is bc we've many mids who offer very similar or the same thing

The diff btwn Fred/Matic/McT are evident BUT for each of them to work, you need to start one of the other two at least. Exact same case with Pogba, Bruno, VDB.

They're different but not complimentary - issue
Read 14 tweets
4 Nov
Mini Thread:

Situation

- no RW in squad
- #9 banned for 3 PL games

Solutions

1. Play makeshift RW + lone ST
2. Play system(s) not needing either

Response: Utd used both

Solution 1: vs Castle
Solution 2: vs Chelsea (3412) & Arsenal (💎)

Result: 1W, 1D, 1L

Let me explain:
This is NOT an excuse
I'm not even saying this is exactly why we lost

So what exactly am I trying to say here then?

This is a litle excercise that I do that helps me *make sense* of bad results — let me explain further
As a writer in real life, this is a little exercise I do if I'm struggling to crack something — a plot point/character etc

I look for pre-existing conditions & then ask — could those have an impact on why I'm not liking the final result — it usually does
Read 7 tweets
29 Oct
Thread:

*The Pogba Reintroduction*

Ole admitted he was wrong to start Pogba early on in the season as he had misjudged his recovery from covid.

But ever since realising his mistake, the way he's handled Pogba's Reintroduction has been spot on.

Let's take a look 👇
Background:

- Pogba tested +ve on Aug 27th
- ManUtd played their first game on Sept 19th
- Pogba had just 3 weeks to recover
- Pogba had barely 2 days of training

But Ole felt he needed to start Pogba as he was his best player - he was wrong.
Pogba has played 8 games for United this season and this can be easily split through the middle into 2 different sets:

- First 4 games when he was still recovering
- Last 4 games when he was being reintroduced

Let's look at both one by one:
Read 12 tweets
26 Oct
Thread:

*The Donny van de Beek Non-Issue*

Over the last few weeks, the constant chatter has been VDB's playing time.

United have played 8 games so far and Donny has featured in 7. Only Rashford has featured in more.

Either way let's dive in & tackle this non-issue👇
One of United's biggest issue last season was the lack of creativity on the bench. Ole was criticized for not making substitutions when the game wasn't going our way.

Against Seville in the EL Semi's we didn't make a sub until the 87th min - clear sign Ole didn't trust his bench
This season, the first thing he addressed was this issue

- Donny van de Beek for £35m

Donny has primarily played as an AM at Ajax but has also featured at CM and very rarely at DM too.

But Ole didn't sign him to be a CM/DM, Ole signed him to be a back up 10 as is clear below👇
Read 20 tweets

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