Raul Sanllehi and Josh Kroenke are both hoping Mikel Arteta can get Arsenal’s season back on track after the Spaniard was appointed the club’s head coach.
Arteta becomes the 20th person in the club’s history to take on the role in a permanent capacity and does so without any experience as the main man in a dugout. That said, as we all know, he has spent three and a half seasons working as Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City.
While pleased with their appointment, Raul and Josh also took time to pay tribute to Freddie Ljungberg and Per Mertesacker for their hard work at the helm in the three weeks since Unai Emery was sacked.
“We met several top-class candidates and Mikel stood out to every single one of us as the perfect person for us,” said Raul.
“Mikel understands Arsenal Football Club and what it means to our fans around the world. We look forward to him getting down to work and bringing the best out of our squad as we work to get our season back on track.
“I must also pay tribute to Freddie Ljungberg for his hard work and leadership. Together with Per Mertesacker, he has done a vital job for us in difficult circumstances. Freddie and Per are important parts of the Arsenal family and care deeply for this club.”
Josh Kroenke echoed those sentiments: “We’re delighted to be bringing Mikel back to Arsenal. He knows our expectations and those of our fans around the world are high and we are confident he can play a lead role in taking the club back to the levels we all demand.
“I also want to thank Freddie Ljungberg for skilfully guiding us through the last three weeks. He stepped up at short notice and has helped us through this difficult period with great professionalism.”
Didn’t they say some similar things about Emery?
Let’s hope that they have it right this time.
Last time it was Gazidis and Emery. This time Raul and Arteta. Hope this pair do better than the former, not that high a bar, let’s see.
Come on, what are they supposed to say? “He was our fourth choice, because other people were either unavailable or refused, and there was a big dispute about whether to even offer him the job, but we think he will be okay.”
And besides, he cost us only 2m in compensation and a low salary. Anchelotti? Of course, but he’d ssl for more than 10m salary our cheap bastard of an owner wont fork out for him. Oh, hi Josh, you’re here.
This is a massive gamble – but it might work.
Arteta’s personality will be just as important as his coaching ability. He’s gonna have to lay down the law and get the most out of some of these players, many of whom are not pulling their weight. But his major job will be simple: to toughen up this team and make them harder to beat. He has to start by making this group of players do the basics properly.
No matter what Arteta does money needs to be spent, mainly on the defence, if we are going to seriously improve.
I suspect, we’ll learn a lot about which players are on board with this and which are not during the Everton game.
Oh yes, we will. And we have to act accordingly.
It’s going to be hard to do the basics when… 1. We have no recognised left back until middle of January 2. Don’t have a right back other than Bellerin, who’s injured, has no pre-season,and is coming back from a knee ligament injury 3. Have 4 subpar centre half’s, who aren’t comfortable on the ball, and can’t defend either 4. Has a pretty bland set of central midfielders 5. A talented group of wide forwards, but are all extremely raw 6. Has 2 quality no9s, but both apparently want out, and unbalance us playing together, particularly away from home. 7.… Read more »
Yeah as much as we want to al blame emery for everything, it has become very apparent this squad melts like chocolate on a hot day. Arteta needs to get the passion levels up… And quickly.
No more señor buen tipo… Yes I already used that one
He’s certainly the perfect person for me ?
Hopefully they let him bring in the players he wants
So was mislintat but you dropped him quicker than you can say sanllehi
Some nice words about Arteta here
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/50827317
Interesting article there. Thanks for the link.
Spanish people picking and praising each other? Raul picked two successive Spanish managers. Balague jumped in praising Arteta.
‘the hell does Raul know who is the perfect person for “us”, AFC?
That dude seems pretty shifty and gives me the heebie jeebies. I hope I’m wrong.
I agree lol I know it’s just PR but wtf does he know about AFC lol
Until i read th last sentence of th comment??
Just watched Arteta’s first address and I gotta say I’m loving what I’m hearing from him. He is definitely like a breath of fresh air. From his words it seems that he knows exactly what he wants to do, what is expected of him and how realistically he can implement his ideas (don’t want to jinx any of it though). Specially loved how he said that he’s going to be headstrong about his ideologies.
It’s time to get behind the guy and support him unconditionally and he just might deliver.
#COYG
With this is move we have made Everton favorite to finish above is…….
I don’t think he is the perfect candidate. BUT it could be a question of bad timing. Getting rid of Emery is one thing, who you can bring in is another question altogether. And whether they want to come to Arsenal yet another. we are no longer an attractive destination for top end managers. Arteta’s advantage is not that he knows the club inside out but that he is gettable and easier to fire even with 3 year contract. He will need to : 1) Not seek to emulate Pep. We do not have the complement of players City have,… Read more »
He’s our manager now so time to support him
But no it’s not some blind 2-3 years of support. I’m more skeptical because of his lack of experience. Stepping right into a big club like ours. It’s incredible this is our best plan? Next 5-10 games will set the tone.
Raul is a fraud. This guy is going to ruin AFC.
While I welcome Mikel Arteta’s appointment into the role, Raul and Josh have a tremendous amount of work to do to get back in the good graces of us all after their horrendous handling of recent events.
Look i wasn’t convinced the appointment of Arteta even tho i truly rate him And that he’ll be one of the greatest coaches around because of his intelligence and the knowledge he had as a football player he wasn’t fastest or aggressively did the dirty work but he new how to use his body and his head to dictate much physical midfield sides. But i thought it was too early to give this massive job to Arteta and i watched his both press conference and his arsenal Welcoming interview And i swear it was clear what he wanted and never… Read more »
Fuck off Raul
Raul is full of shit