Thread by @nonewthing

People often ask me why I am so willing to defend Arteta like he's the second coming of Christ.

Today, I will answer this.

This is why I believe Mikel Arteta is the best appointment Arsenal have made since we hired Arsene Wenger from Japan over 20 years.

(a massive thread)

Just look at some of the signings we've made at his behest:

—Gabriel
—Partey
—Tomiyasu
—Lokonga
—Odegaard

I have no words to describe how transformative these signings are. No words or I'm going to be writing poetry. This is extremely good talent ID, especially with the state

of the club when Arteta arrived. We LACKED technical ability. We couldn't keep the ball in any phase of the game. Up front, we had Pepe and Aubameyang. At the back we had Sokratis and Holding.

This is why Emery resorted to a 3-4-2-1 knock it down football. It was TERRIBLE.

Arteta has came in, identified the problem, and over 2 major windows, FIXED it.

Why do you think we spent so much on Ben White, a centerback who I regard as a T3 ball-handler in his position in the league?

This is only the start.

Let's go on to the next point.

For years we have dealt with a discipline and culture problem that even Arsene Wenger was unable to control.

You could see how it affected results. Players downed tools, mocked their coaches, showed up for training late or not at all etc. We had become a joke of an institution.

Arteta came in with big guns firing. He knew what was wrong. He knew about the massive attitude and behavioral issues—he was captain only a few years ago.

All he was talking about when he was hired was the need for a new culture. Either you are in or you are out. We needed that.

Fans don't get it. They do not see these things and so do not know how it affects stuff. But you can get an idea of it if you have ever tried to lead a troublesome group of people before.

Even if only 1 is antagonistic, the goals of the group become really difficult to achieve.

At Arsenal, it was the very best players, the stars, the influential ones, that created this culture. Alexis Sanchez. Mesut Ozil. It was why Papa Wenger couldn't get an handle on it. These two players dealt with the club in every possible way. It was terrible.

It is this terrible club culture that Mikel Arteta has took on as a rookie coach. We should be so much more grateful for it. The likes of Mourinho, Conte and Pep couldn't do much better than what Arteta has done.

You can almost tell who has a good attitude by who is playing.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles was playing really well until suddenly he couldn't get in ahead of Bellerin anymore.

We didn't understand it until this window. That was when it made sense. AMN had been antagonizing the project, looking out only for himself. I did a thread on it recently.

People find it easy to make judgments from the outside. Have you ever tried managing 30 professional football players + over a dozen members of the technical staff + hundreds of other non-technical staff as well as the executives? Keeping everything together? Have you ever tried?

Management is exceedingly complex and fans usually do not have access to enough information and context to make simple judgments in the moment. Maybe over time you can read in between the lines and make isolated deductions but you can never really tell.

Fans lack this humility.

Look at the 'AMN is banished and would never train for Arsenal anymore' news when it came out. Everywhere was on fire.

Only later did it became clear that it was for a week or something and meant to be a temporary punishment, which was later reduced to days.

Why rush to judge?

In any case, look at the types of players Arteta has signed since he came in:

Partey, a consummate good boy and player. Odegaard—captain for his country. White—hardworking boy who made his way up from the bottom. Tomiyasu—consummate professional. Lokonga—captain material at 21.

Ramsdale—leader and happy-go-lucky young man.

Arteta not only fixed our technical issues, he also fixed our attitude issues in one stroke through his signings. It is, for the lack of a better word, genius.

My job as AI is to recognize these things faster than most people.

The next reason why I utterly support Arteta is that he is a genuine top coach and tactician. He reminds me very strongly of a young Thomas Tuchel.

Let me show you, too.

Players who have CLEARLY IMPROVED since Arteta walked in the door.

Rob Holding
David Luiz
Emi Martinez

Shkrodran Mustafi
Granit Xhaka
Ainsley Maitland-Niles
Nicolas Pepe
Bukayo Saka
Gabriel Martinelli
Eddie Nketiah
Emile Smith-Rowe

All of these players did better than they ever did under Unai Emery. Even the likes of Holding and Mustafi.

It is nothing short of magnificent.

Of course, Arteta has already been praised since he was at City for improving top players like Sterling and Sane. We know that he is a good coach. And based on his work at Arsenal, he is clearly a great one.

Tactics are another area where I hugely admire Mikel Arteta.

I have made a previous thread on Juego De Posicion football and made previous tweets about how, in this age and day, to win anything against the big boys, you must have a stable possession system capable of dominating opponents and sustaining pressure throughout 90 minutes.

Look at Tuchel's Chelsea. They do not appear very creative, do they? Klopp called the counterpress as the best playmaker in the world but I call bullshit. Sustained pressure is the holy grail of attacking football, and the counterpress is a part of it.

By sustaining pressure on

the opposition for 90 minutes, for rarely allowing them to 'get out' of your lock, you get the chance to constantly attack them for 90 minutes.

Anyone who has played football before can tell you how frustrating it is to be part of a team who cannot touch the ball. Dreadful.

Sustained pressure allows you to constantly attack, to constantly work on the opposition block for as long as possible. Ultimately, they will make mistakes, your attackers will pull out something and you will get a goal.

That is how all top teams play nowadays.

The problem is that there are not many managers who have a system for sustained pressure that is good enough at the elite, elite level.

The likes of Koeman, Lampard, De Zerbi, Louis Van Gaal etc are not as good at creating a system to sustain pressure like Pep, Klopp and Tuchel.

It is a HUGE problem. There are simply not enough elite sustained pressure managers around for every club. Sarri and Pirlo are another example, although Sarri is slightly above average. But they are all not good enough.

Since this is a still uncommon coaching style, clubs have

to take risks on the younger generation of SP managers. Graham Potter at Ostersunds. Marcelo Gallardo at River Plate. Roger Schmidt at PSV. Ten Hag at Ajax youth teams. Julian Nagelsmann at Hoffeinheim. Hansi Flick and Mikel Arteta as assistant coaches. Those types of risk.

Arsenal took a 'risk' with Arteta and we came out WITH AN ELITE sustained pressure manager.

I am not joking when I say that we have one of the very best tacticians in the world. Arteta's system is impeccable. It is good enough to FIGHT for the Premier League title.

Of course you still need the top players to really do that but his scheme has every single ingredient required to compete with Pep's, Klopp's and Tuchel's schemes.

You may have concerns about one thing or the other but I assure you that it is a player deficiency not tactical.

IN CONCLUSION: Arsenal have always had extreme good luck in hiring managers. From Herbert Chapman to Graham to Wenger, we were born with that thing where we just identify and hire an amazing manager from nowhere.

Mikel Arteta is the next one on this great line of coaches.

We will succeed with Arteta, it's written in the manuals and the stars.

In fact, from next season, I believe that Arsenal will be competing for the Premier League title with Arteta.

When Arteta said that he wanted to win one of the big 2 in 3 years, he knew what he was saying.

They mocked him like they mocked Wenger when he prophesied that Arsenal could go invincible throughout a season.

Arsenal fans don't know what is coming upon them. The revival is almost complete. We are the new Liverpools. Hug your mamas and cry into your shirt.

We are back.