Joe Mills
Arsenal’s hunt for a manager is well and truly on, with every ex-player possible seemingly contacted so far. It has been evident from their targets that they are looking to appoint a coach rather than a manager, someone who will look after training and help improve the players but not someone who will necessarily be involved in signing players and operating in the transfer market.
They have been linked with Patrick Viera, Thierry Henry and Mikel Arteta, with the Arteta leading the race to be named the next Arsenal manager.
If Arteta is appointed, then he will be looking to bring his own personal stamp to the club, to hopefully build on the current setup and bring success to Arsenal once more but to do this, he must be allowed to do things his own way. Here are three things he will need to change:
Lack of defensive stability
For the last few years, Arsenal really do seem to have had a paper-thin back-four, and this has really come to a head this season. They conceded 51 goals in total this season, which is the 13th worst in the Premier League, with teams like Newcastle above them having only conceded 47.
This is a terrible record considering they spent more than £35million on Shkodran Mustafi in an attempt to strengthen their defence. Arteta must figure out the crux of the problem and also persuade the Arsenal hierarchy that spending money on defenders is more important at this stage than spending it on attackers.
Arsenal’s away record in the Premier League
Arsenal beat Huddersfield on the last day of the season to record their first Premier League away win of 2018, having lost all the previous seven away games.
This is something that Arteta must address immediately if he is going to have success at Arsenal. He needs to find out what exactly is going on away from home and sort it out. Otherwise, it is going to be another long season of disappointment for the Gunners.
The mentality of the fans
Arsenal fans expect their teams to play attractive attacking football and they expect them to win in style, a cross that Wenger found very hard to bear in the last few years of his tenure, even though it was a cross he built for himself.
If Arteta comes in, then the Arsenal fans will have to get used to an entirely different style of play. He might want to build from the back but he should still try to keep the attackers as duty-free as possible.
If he were to come in and get the Gunners scoring goals fast, then the fans will get on board quickly. He has to lift the doom and gloom around the Wenger Out era and get the Emirates rocking once more.
