London (AFP) – Arsenal’s worst start to a league season for 67 years will see the Gunners spend the next fortnight during an international break bottom of the table without a point or even a goal to show from their opening three games.
Mikel Arteta’s position as manager is under increasing pressure with the Spaniard reportedly given four more Premier League games against Norwich, Burnley, Tottenham and Brighton to save his job before the October international break.
To rub salt into Arsenal wounds, for the first time ever they sit bottom of the English top-flight table while north London rivals Spurs are top.
However, their decline has been a slow and steady process since the final years of Arsene Wenger’s 22-year reign in charge and has only accelerated since the Frenchman’s departure.
AFP Sport looks at what has gone wrong for one of English football’s traditional giants.
– Shoddy recruitment –
Long after Wenger’s great sides of the late 1990s and early 2000s stoped winning league titles, he managed to keep Arsenal as part of the Champions League fabric despite a limited budget to buy players and even selling some of his best as the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie and Samir Nasri departed.
Despite fan protests towards the club’s American billionaire owner Stan Kroenke, Arsenal have long since ditched their frugal policy on transfer fees.
Since Wenger left in 2018, the Gunners have spent £425 million ($585 million) on new signings and have the second highest net spend in the Premier League behind Manchester United.
Even this window they have been the biggest spenders with £130 million splashed on Ben White, Martin Odegaard, Aaron Ramsdale, Nuno Tavares and Alberti Sambi Lokonga.
However, so much of that money has been wasted.
Two years on from a £30 million move from Saint Etienne, William Saliba is yet to play a game for the first team. Young midfielders Lucas Torreira and Mateo Guendouzi have been deemed surplus to Arteta’s requirements and farmed out on loan.
Club record signing Nicolas Pepe has failed to live up to his £72 million price tag, while a series of huge pay packets have also been wasted and made it difficult to move players on.
The club had to pay up for the remaining months on contracts for Mesut Ozil, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Shkodran Mustafi before they left for free in January.
– No clear direction –
Should Arteta face the sack in the coming months, he will be the third manager in three years to leave the club.
Changes have also been constant among the hierarchy. Highly-regarded former Borussia Dortmund chief scout Sven Mislintat left after just 14 months in 2019 due to differences with then head of football Raul Sanllehi.
However, Sanllehi also left the club last year due to dissatisfaction with his transfer business.
Arteta was promoted from head coach to manager, with more say over recruitment, after just nine months in the job.
Arsenal’s focus now appears on youth with all of their summer signings aged between 21 and 23.
But that followed the expensive mistakes of giving huge contracts to players over 30 such as former Chelsea duo David Luiz and Willian, Ozil and current captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Ozil even poked fun at Arteta after Saturday’s 5-0 thrashing by Manchester City by tweeting “trust the process”.
– Falling further behind –
As Arsenal have gone backwards, the teams at the elite end of the Premier League continue to improve.
City, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool have finished in the top four for the past two seasons and all look even stronger this season for their new signings, or in Liverpool’s case the return from injury of a number of key players.
During Wenger’s reign, Arsenal boasted a record only matched by Real Madrid of 19 consecutive seasons in the Champions League.
Now they have failed to qualify for a fifth straight season and would need a miraculous turnaround to prevent that streak stretching into a sixth year.
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Hans
August 31, 2021 at 12:56 pm
@Jagular
No one expected AFC to win the games against Chelsea or City most fans hoped that one would be a draw, but it was the manner in which they lost those games and their playing style for the City game 1 attempt with 0 shots on goal and in the 2nd half Chelsea toyed with Arsenal and it became a friendly then.
Ozil’s twitter dig at Arteta summed it all up after the 5-0 loss he tweeted “Trust the Process”.
Don’t mind KSE as long as they put in the funds and have professionals running the daily football affairs. Like Abramowich he can’t attend games in the UK because of visa problems but look what he did with the club after Lampard was dismissed. Why could Tuchel use the same players and turn them into European champions? He is a world class manager.
As I posted earlier the power corridors at Arsenal are filled with rookies and novices bounbd to repeat rookie errors, Garbage in Garbage out.
Jagular
August 31, 2021 at 12:29 pm
I’m a diehard Arsenal fan, but I never expected them to be able to beat Chelsea or Man City at this point in time as we are in the rebuild phase. However, if we lose again to teams we’re supposed to beat, like Norwich in the next game, then Artetas’ job would be untenable. Kroenke should then bring in Conte and see if he can turn things around.
Mercator
August 31, 2021 at 9:41 am
@Ra – Everything is some rich person’s asset these days, such is life. I see your point though and I do try to get more into the BL, but I have never lived in DE so I don’t have a real club I support in the BL. It’s also off-putting knowing Bayern will run the table in the end, and that will not change anytime soon. Even one other big club that could regularly make it a race would be much more attractive for me. I say I won’t watch EPL but honestly I will still tune in to watch Spurs bottle it. One, if not both, of the Manchester clubs is going to be embarrassed by next spring as well, so there is always that to look forward to.
At least Arsenal don’t look they they will ship off Auba for nothing, so that’s positive. Seems like we are even signing a RB, another unexpected positive. Arteta, after denying AMN match time and denying his transfer to Everton, has now banned him from training. Disgraceful display from the club, the man has been at the club since childhood and can still help the team, but the little man and his ego seem to know no limit. I still think there is enough in this squad to salvage something at year end though, we are only 3 points off what was expected really. Bin Arteta immediately, get the squad healthy and match fit, bring back Silba as soon as possible, and I do think we have a lot we can work with going forward.
Ra
August 31, 2021 at 7:04 am
@Hans @Mercator It is sad, but you are now rooting for Stan Kroenke’s asset. I personally can not bare to support someone’s tinkertoy. I would rather root and watch my Fidelity account.
The problem is so endemic in EPL, that I now prefer to watch specific players and coaches, but I do not care about the clubs themselves.
That is also the main reason why Bundesliga is my favorite league in EU. And also because I lived in DE for a couple of years back in the day.
Mercator
August 31, 2021 at 3:22 am
Yes it’s quite incredible how every fan can see the obvious and yet the club remains so clueless. Sack them all and throw whatever money you have at actual professionals. Overmars would come if the club made him a serious offer. Then get a real manager who can organize the clown show at the back and actually move the ball UP the pitch. It’s absolutely ridiculous a club of our size is this mismanaged. Raul and Gazidis took Stan for a ride as well, he doesn’t get it and he needs to sell the club or bring in actual professionals. How can they turn down £10m+ for Nketiah?? I’m not sure what’s worse, not selling him to bench him before he walks on a free or thinking he is going to lead the line for arsenal football club this season. How on earth is Xhaka still here? Roma we’re willing to pay a transfer fee, let him play for Mourinho, there is no reason he should be at our club. We have spent £100m on center backs and we started Kolasinac against the titleholders while Silba is putting in MOTM performances in France. These are not opinions everyone can this!! It was ridiculous last year and now it’s truly truly malicious. AMN is one of ours, if he isn’t happy I doubt Saka or ESR are pleased either. These amateurs will destroy our club for good if they have another year. I swear it’s beyond reason now – I’m almost thinking Stan is letting this happen on purpose to wind up some billionaire Arsenal fan into paying well over market value for the club.
If they sell Auba with no striker lined up today I think I’m done, at least until we send Arteta back to Pep and bring in a real DoF. Unfortunately Brescia is back in Seria B, but Madrid, Dortmund and Anderlecht are all on ESPN+ now.
Hans
August 31, 2021 at 1:55 am
I pushed watching Arsenal to a 3rd priority in watching games, made easier by the clusterf**k called Comcast & Peacock.
1st priority Napoli. Forza Napoli on Paramount+
2nd priority Dortmund I am really enjoy watching Haarland playing in a youthful team with noisy fans in the stadium on ESPN+
Hans
August 31, 2021 at 1:51 am
@Mercator
I feel your pain and I am taking a break from making Arsenal games a must watch live these days. Hanging out at an Arsenal Blog with a global audience the vast majority of them are waiting for the management to be fired. Get rid of the 3 stooges, Vinai, Edu and Arteta. Bring in Overmars from Ajax as DofF and Rangnick. Ket them sort out the mess at Arsenal.
From today’s Daily Mail article the dilemma Arsenal is in now makes perfect sense for me now. The article written by a well respected sports jorno highlighting just some glaring errors.
“Kroenke has never run a sports institution that was not a franchise; Venkatesham has never before been chief executive of a football club; Arteta has been an assistant, but not a manager; Edu has not been the technical director of a club in Europe.
Unsurprisingly, then, Arsenal appear callow. They make rookie errors, then repeat them. Their signings make little sense. Arsenal spent upwards of £125million this summer, but on what?
In the City game there were £52m-worth of freshly recruited players not considered capable of starting for a team that had lost its first two league games, and failed to score.
A. M. Niles was in public disagreement with the club who, having initially said it would let him go, was now blocking potential avenues of escape. More inconsistencies between the army of individuals given a say on recruitment.”
Mercator
August 30, 2021 at 11:48 pm
Wish I could, I really do. This has gone far enough now though. It’s malicious at this point, there is no way they are this incompetent. If they sell Auba without another striker lined up they are going to need to spend those funds on police and security for the remaining home matches
Ra
August 30, 2021 at 8:38 pm
@Mercator If were an Arsenal fan, I would skip EPL this year and watch everything Bundesliga.. 🙂
Mercator
August 30, 2021 at 7:33 pm
Arteta needs to be sacked immediately. I absolutely cannot believe AMN has been ready and willing to play RB, and we are starting Soares/Chambers. Now he wants out of the club. Absolutely incredible, ruined my day again and they haven’t even kicked a football. What is this club doing!!!