Mikel Arteta’s ruthlessness has contributed to his success at the Emirates Stadium, as his project grows season after season. By the time Arteta took over at Arsenal near the end of 2019, the club appeared to have lost its passion, style, and, to some extent, DNA.
Some Gooners couldn’t recognise their club, so something had to change.
Sporting Director Edu and Arsenal’s management wanted someone who could help the club regain its DNA while also embracing new ideas.
They opted to take a chance on Mikel Arteta, who was then Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City and had never been a head coach before. Arteta boldly took over the Emirates Stadium to steady Arsenal, unfazed by the task or questions about him.
He has consistently shown his ruthlessness since joining Arsenal. His determination has laid the groundwork for his project to succeed. Many of his decisions have helped Arsenal become what it is today, and here are my top three ruthless decisions he made:
● Dropping Mesut Ozil and Aubameyang. Most coaches would have loved to have the two on their team; they were proven game changers, but Arteta would have none of it. To him, everyone is equal, and if you make a mistake, whether you’re a superstar or not, you face the consequences — a tough principle that saw the two leave, even if it left some fans disappointed.
● Dropping Ramsdale. Ramsdale is not a terrible goalkeeper; he’s one of the finest. Even though he lost his place in Arsenal’s starting lineup, many fans still regard him as the next England No. 1. Many fans didn’t understand why Mikel Arteta dropped him early last season after he nearly won the 2022–23 league title months before. Some of us sympathised with Ramsdake, but in the end, David Raya’s superior goalkeeping, keeping 16 Premier League clean sheets and surrendering less than 29 goals, justified the brutal decision to sideline the Englishman.
● Selling Emile Smith Rowe. Smith Rowe’s departure is heartbreaking. Everything points to his move to Fulham this summer. This decision must have been difficult for Mikel Arteta, who was an admirer of the Englishman to the point of giving him the No. 10 jersey. Injury has been a huge barrier for Smith Rowe, but as difficult as it is to let him go, many must hope he realises his brilliance.
Those are my top three ruthless decisions Arteta has made. What are yours? (Because he has made numerous others…)
Jack Anderson
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Selling ESR was out of sporting reasons that would benefit all parties involved especially to the player himself
If Mikel Arteta and Mikel Merino win EPL or UCL this season, they’ll become legends
Smith-Rowe has good aerial ability and pace, but I think Oulad M’hand is better in tight spaces. I hope the youngster will be included in our main squad
Yep, really impressed with how composed Salah was, he caught me off-guard, I didn’t know he was that good.
I wish Arteta will give him a chance to play in some minor cup games, but it would be unlikely because we’ve got too many senior AMs
1. Easing out of fringe players from the squad (and the treatment of Ozil and Aubameyang).
2. Giving opportunities to only inform/fit players. Switching from ESR to Martinelli, Martinelli To Trossard. GJ to Havertz, benching Nkettia’s inconsistency.
3. Not allowing the media suggestions to influence his selections.
And sticking to his gun / not listening to our emotional sensationalistic fanbase.
I believe exiling Ozil was the decision of person(s) well above Edu/MA in the hierarchy. You can call it a conspiracy theory if you wish. I believe the others were primarily based on football related considerations. I agreed with the Auba decision, disagreed with the Ramsdale ordeal, and am still uncertain whether the ESR decision was the best.
The China conspiracy theory that only a certain section of our fanbase still hold onto. I think people should just let it go. “The Shirt Selling Genius” had gotten exposed as just a scrounger at Arsenal by Emery and Arteta. He was so poor for a supposed “only world class player” we had back then.
When people started taking off their Ozil tinted glasses they realised what some of us had been criticising the 2014/15 season.
Gee, how did I know you’d respond to my post? I really don’t care about your assertions and I wish you didn’t care about mine. You already believe I’m in an Ozil cult!
Lol
Older posters will know goonsters disdain anything Ozil ,I’ve even been accused of being in the same cult .
@Dan Kit
I promised you and your crew back in 2020 that I will keep reminding you of your stances on the Ozil matter in the future.
Here we are in 2024 and I am keeping my promise.
👍😊
I thinks its about time you stopped your vendetta and possibly grow up?
But I made a promise during that period that I will keep reminding the likes of @Dan Kit of the stances they took at that time.
Are we not allowed to keep our promises @Admin Pat? 🤭
As long as no “baiting” or personal abuse, sure. But let’s just say I think history is history and we all support Arsenal NOW. True or not?
Oh I welcome them buddy 😂
I actually enjoy it .
I think you got the wrong fan though as I was never a massive Ozil fan ,but please go through some of my old posts if you want to correct me .
I’ll wait .
My only prob was that I thought Arteta treated him sh1t .
Which I stand by .
Your in his head every second of the day DK and he hasn’t even got his facts right 😂
I crease up every time he mentions the “shirt selling genius” as he’s actually proving the point that fans a tally liked and supported the player, but he sees it as something to knock Ozil with!!
The sheer ignorance is astounding, but let the comedy continue….rent free of course. 😂👍
Actually.
You know me Ken I love a good back and forth especially when someone cannot even get their facts straight .
Sometimes you just got to let them have the win as no matter how much you come back with facts they just won’t have it .
Brother, this is a public forum, if you do not have a thick enough skin then you shouldn’t be posting comments on a public forum.. Because posting comments in a public social networking platform means you give consent for other to reply to them.
If you are not ready then I suggest you form a private members / friends only platform where your opinion is protected and not subject to public scrutiny.
Right?
No kidding, really? That thick skin isn’t useful without commenters like you. btw, I will post as much as I like and you DO NOT determine what I should or shouldn’t do. Since when do you determine what posting comments on this public forum means for others? You know what you can do with your suggestions.
Now now gentlemen. We are all gooners. Please respect each other
Yes, it is a two-way street. We should be able to agree to disagree and respect the others’ opinions on any topic without having to be “right” or insulting the other to make them seem more “wrong”.
I suggest you read the rules. It’s a free forum but personal insults will be dealt with swiftly. You need to take care
Don’t forget;
Guendouzi:
Sending him packing even if he was a fans favourite.
Saliba:
Sending him out on loan even if it was not the most popular decision at the time. I was not happy about it myself but it was what it was.
Martinelli:
Refusing to play him at the start of his Arsenal tenure. Many of us weren’t happy. But he took his time before introducing Martinelli into the team.
Etc..
Guendouzi, alongside Ozil and PEA were possibly ruthless decisions but it depends on your point of view on all 3.
The non negotiables – certainly with Auba and MG – were breached.
The Uighur Muslim issue could have been a factor with Ozil, but just as important on the other side of the coin was his social media presence and influence. I have sympathy for his stance on the treatment of the Muslims in China but absolutely none at all for offering to pay Gunnersaurus for the duration of his contract. This act brought him into direct conflict with the management and day to day running of the club and was none of his business at all. Forget the sympathy vote as the bloke inside the costume was made redundant on a proper package, already over the usual retirement age but funnily enough no offer was made by Ozil to pay the other 50 plus redundancies. Arteta wasn’t left with many options after that. Who was more important? Arteta and the club or Ozil?
Regarding Ramsdale and ESR, as difficult as it is when you have liked and admired their performances, it is the job of the manager to manage. He is being paid millions each year to make those difficult calls and that will apply eventually to all the players when they age, or become less effective, or somebody better comes along. It goes with the territory an example being Guardiola axing Joe Hart.
Based on the facts of the matter there’s only one point of view. Just ask a select few of the commenters. 🤦♂️Perhaps he was naive but the stance(s) that Ozil took against China was costing the Kroenke’s millions and would continue to do so as long as the Arsenal were associated with Ozil. I would otherwise agree with you on the Gunnersaurus episode but if memory serves Ozil did that after he knew he was being kicked out the door and I do believe it was intentional on his part to make the club look bad. The club is most important for all Gooners (I would hope) but the almighty dollar is most important to ownership which depending on the perspective may be the same thing.
BB
Of course there is more than one point of view and I base what I write on what I believe. The fact that we don’t entirely see eye to eye on this subject does not make you right or me wrong or vice versa. I didn’t deem him to be naive in the slightest. He later stuck to his legally binding contract as in effect the club had put him on gardening leave – no doubt hoping he would leave of his own volition
It was an unseemly time and one which I am sure has been affected by the way that Arteta has done his best to create harmony since
@SueP
Ozil made his uyghur muslims comment in mid December 2019.
That was more than a full year after Emery and Arsenal had tried to get rid of him in 2018.
So Arsenal clearly weren’t happy with Ozil’s performance during Emery’s first season in 2018 hence why Emery tried to drop him and feeze him out. That was in 2018.
So that means that Arsenal predicted that ozil would makes those uyghur muslim muslim comments in mid December 2019 so they preemptively started the process of trying to push him out starting with Emery in 2018.
I do think that uyghur muslims and covid (wage saga) etc were some of the opportunity the club had been waiting for to finally get rid of the stench.
And if Ozil was so hurt by the uyghur muslims plight in China then how come he was so silent and hardly bothered by the Kurdish Muslims plight in Turkey at the hands his Best man (Erdoğan)? He turned a blind eye with his buddy Erdoğan ethically destroying the Kurdish Muslim. But then gained his morals and humanity when it was the Uyghur muslims in China?
Nonsense..
😊
Goonster
I so hope that we can all move on from Ozil
There were traits to his character that concerned me – as mentioned in my post – but I try to avoid what is overtly confrontational as it no longer benefits anyone to keep raking up the past.
The article was about areas where Arteta was ruthless and that aspect has hardly been touched on which is a shame
The same Ozil whos been more successful then any current Arsenal player lol
Sorry Sue. My first sentence was actually meant to be sarcastic to make a point but I guess I missed the mark. I fully agree with your first two sentences but the point I was trying to make was there are at least a few on JA who do not agree with you on your point here. There have been times when I’ve read one of your posts (or others’) and changed my viewpoint on the particular matter. My original comment yesterday was simply giving my takes on each of the 3 instances written about in the article not to start an argument with anyone else who for whatever reason felt threatened by my opinions. Your comments are always welcomed and of sincere interest to me as I had mentioned to you before.
@SueP
The Uighur Mulsim thing was just the straw that broke the camels back on that Toxic lunatic. I even forgot about the Gunnersaurus nonsense he tried. What a piece of work that man was at our club.. The guy is a walking disasterS
Look at his history. He had become a proper nuisance everywhere he went.
Aside from his Werder Bremen to Madrid transfer, “The Shirt Selling Genius” has never left anywhere out of his own free will. They all realised what a toxic individual he was and desperately tried to cut their losses.
Madrid
Germany
Arsenal
Fenerbache
İstanbul Başakşehir
All just wanted him out.
That’s not all conspiracy by the communist Chinese, Racist Germans, the Bigoted British media and the Islamophobic Turkish.. lol
It has to do with him as such a toxic, poorly behaved individual. It’s his personality and not everyone’s fault like his cult following always insinuated.
I wasn’t even aware of the China stuff, what I saw was a sulky self-centred who did not turn-up when it really mattered, sadly the downward trajectory coincided with the bumper pay packet extorted from the club – Arteta or not a negative to the club culture I was happy to see the back of
Of course the Ozil situation was a political one – one I’m not sure MA wanted to take anyway., as Bruised Banana eluded too.
Remember this fact –
After playing him for twelve consecutive and unbeaten PL games, leading up to the coronavirus PL cancellation incident, MA was 100%behind Ozil…. fast forward to the resumption of the PL and lo and behold, Ozil was left out for “footballing reasons”!!
What competitive football was played during that period? NONE!!
So there has to be other(s) reasons and HD gave a perfect example of what one of them could have been.
It’s like trying to explain something to a three year old, but I’ll try once again – when a fan buys a shirt for, say, £60 of their hard earned cash, most of them like to put the name of their favourite player on the back, paying extra for the privilege, I should add!!
Mesut Ozil was not only the “shirt selling genius” at The Arsenal, but he also was the fifth most used name in the record books.
Now I know it’s hard for some to take the step of acknowledging the fact that this is what the “shirt selling genius” tag meant but a little common sense might just sink in, if those hate filled glasses were taken off, polished and put back on.
As for the other examples, it’s noted that no mention was made of the four year contract extension given to Aubemeyang at, reportedly, £300k plus a week by MA, despite the debacle of Ozil’s nigh on carbon copy contract.
Could that possibly be one of his three biggest mistakes so far?
Nor was the fact that Ramsdale was told that there was to be no number 1 keeper and MA wanted to substitute keepers during a match… this has happened how many times…?
ESR has been, it seems, transferred out, while Vieria stays. Both have had injury problems, so let’s wait and see if this is the right decision – too early to say I think.
Interestingly, Mikel himself admitted he made a mistake with Saliba, but that goes over some fans heads, in their rush to idolise every decision MA has made.
Martinelli’s career was stalled by the refusal to see that Willian was a mistake and it wasn’t until the player himself admitted it, that Martinelli got his chance… the rest is history.
Guendouzi was one of the easiest decisions to make, as he was asked to apologise and refused – good riddance and well done MA.
I would say that MA’s biggest success by a country mile, has been his ability to bring the club, internally and externally, together as one, by showing his love for the club.
Secondly, his ability to learn quickly from his mistakes in the transfer market since the summer of two seasons ago.
Thirdly, his decision to buy Havertz and not listen to the sensationalistic(?) section of our fanbase, or the media to sway his decision.
You’ve done it now Ken. You’ll be going back and forth with a certain commenter for days on those facts. More power to you my friend, I don’t have the stomach or time to argue with such people. Incredible thoughts thou. Your insights are one of the reasons I continue viewing JA. Thank you.
BB, I expect I’ll upset quite a few fans, but I say it as I see it.
The silly “shirt genius” tirade is such a playground tag, I wonder what anyone gets from bringing it up time after time?
I wonder if an article giving Mikel’s three biggest mistakes might be appropriate, but then I’d be labelled as anti Arsenal and anti Mikel! /
That’s how it should be without needing to be concerned that others will rant and throw tirades on a regular basis just to somehow “prove” that they are right in how they think about something and that everyone else is wrong and deranged somehow if they don’t agree.
Regarding Havertz, buying him was a huge mistake. He was very expensive and demanded high wages but spectacularly failed in the intended position, similar to Willian. If we must commend Arteta for anything, it’s for recognizing the failure and changing Havertz’s position. I still believe we could have acquired a much better striker for that price and wages. If Arteta is sincere and ruthless, Havertz will be a bench warmer. He appears decent at Arsenal only because of our previously weak strike force. Otherwise, he is a poor midfielder and a slightly above-average striker. With our current midfield and prospects, and if we get a striker worthy of our club’s standards, he’ll be an expensive bench warmer. But losses are part of life.
Ken1945
I’m not taking issue with you on Ozil, other than to explain my views on interfering in the way the club was run. I’ll always stand by that as I have in my post.
Auba’s contract extension is neither here nor there and isn’t really relevant to the article. What was important was the disregard he showed to the rules and regulations, as this undermined the authority of the manager. The same as Guendouzi’s attitude in essence.
But Aubameyang was named as one of Arteta’s success stories in how to deal with people SueP.
Aubemeyang had already broken club rules, so the fact that MA gave him such a contract, does come into the discussion.
I have no problem with Guendouzi and the way MA handled him, but to compare the two, is not like for like in my opinion
We haven’t won anything since they left Ken 😉
Interestingly, it was only when Ozil signed for The Arsenal that we started winning things again DK.
As you say, since he departed… 🤔
For me, I see Ozil and George Graham as two players with the same body language when playing.
I’m of the opinion that that kind of player is now a thing of the past and Mikel probably saw that side of the coin as well.
But we are The Arsenal and I cannot remember another player being treated the way Ozil was – credit to the guy that he’s never had a bad word to say about the club, Mikel or the supporters…unlike Aubameyang and Guendouzi.
When it comes to professional sports that whole body language thing has always been such bull. The 15/16 season was amazing in that he had 17 assists in mid February and looked certain to surpass Henry’s PL record but then Santi went out in early March and he only ended up with 19. Santi was truly the linchpin of that team. I was so envious of Leicester with hardly any injuries and yet if Santi had only been healthy for the entire season we would have won the league imo.
Ken1945
In some respects it makes it worse that having been given the captaincy and the much improved contract that Auba should ultimately let his manager down. I am aware that he wasn’t an angel before, but MA did put faith in him so that was an error of judgement on his part. It may well have shaped his handling of players in the future.
SueP, in that statement I agree with you 100%.
I would add that he let all of us down as well, especially those who bought a shirt and put his name on the back.
Some weird things were happening at the time and I guess we’ll never know the real truth, but, as you say, that’s why Mikel gets paid handsomely to do the job and we just give our opinions.
I’d very much like to know when Raya has shown ‘superior goalkeeping’ compared to Ramsdale. Ramsdale is a better shot stopper and Wenger agrees. Ramsdale’s distribution has bee called into question but on the one ocassion he had last season he very nearly earned a remarkable assist with a pin point long upfield pass from the area. Sure, he’s made mistakes and he did in that game, costing a goal but so has Raya and he also cost us results. I’d love to see the stats of Raya last season compared with Ramsdale previous. Raya barely had to make a save the defence in front of him was that good.
GBDB, that’s a really good point regarding the stats.
But it seems MA has made his mind up.
I just hope we can keep hold of Ramsdale and he doesn’t come back to haunt us as Martinez has done.
Career stats for Raya vs Ramsdale.
Save stats:
Goals against per 90 = 1.06 v 1.4
Shot on target against = 1126 v 772
Save % = 74 v 70.6
Clean Sheet % = 29.7 v 25.3
Performance vs xg = -2.7 v -10.8
Per 90 = -0.01 v -0.07
Passing stats:
Attempted = 9174 v 4847
Completed = 6365 v 2992
% Completed = 69.4 v 61.7
Short % = 98.8 v 97.7
Medium % = 98.1 v 98.3
Long % = 44.8 v 35.7
Crossing stats
Stop % = 7.7 v 5.4
Sweeper Keep stats
Defensive actions outside penalty box = 1.50 v 1.12
Average distance outside = 16.1 v 14.5
Senior career? Going all the way back to Blackburn, Southport, Sheffield, Bournemouth?
People are basing their judgment on personal perceptions and bias. They are also probably influenced by the recollection of Ramsdale making some spectacular saves in his best year. This is understandable to an extent but is insufficient to make a definite judgement. The reference to Wenger is a classic logical fallacy. It tells us nothing. In order to reference Wenger meaningfully you need to tell us how Wenger reach such a judgement.
The stats such as they are (it’s important to highlight that they have weaknesses!) indicate that Raya is better than Ramsdale in most aspects of goalkeeping even if you weight things in Ramsdale favour by selecting his best year only for comparison with any period of a year or more that Raya has been a goalkeeper.
Ramsdale couldn’t win best goal keeper when we spent most of the season at the top of the table. You know why, he keeps making stupid mistakes. I think the one that lost him the number one position was the goal he conceded against Sporting CP in that Europa League match.
I agree he should be dropped though he is a better shot stopper. If he refuses to acknowledge the errors in his game and make improvements and instead is convinced by the media and friends that he deserves to start then I wish him well. He doesn’t deserve to start ahead of Raya. He cost us a lot. He deserves serious competition. It is the one decision Arteta has made that I totally agree with him.
Prosiscky, and Raya hasn’t made mistakes ? Cast your mind back to the NLD home and away. He made mistake in both of those games which cost us goals and 2 points in the home game.
You also mention the goal against SL in the EL. Probably the greatest keeper I’ve ever seen play for us David Seaman, was beaten from even further out in the Final of the Cup Winners Cup in 1995. He then went on to win 5 more trophies for us.