Where does Arteta fit in among Arsenal’s great managers

Where does Arteta fit in among Arsenal’s great managers

Obviously, supporters support. Changing clubs, no matter how poorly your team is performing, is not an option. One may cease attending some of the matches, but the club’s support remains, and most of us will go to great measures to stay in contact with “our” team.

For example, I recall moving to Algiers (for reasons that will become evident later) after the end of the first double season on short-wave radio. I did able to watch the Cup Final on Algerian TV, but otherwise it was short-wave radio – and if “short wave” means nothing to you, let me sum it up by saying “And it’s Radford…. [crackle, interference, fade, crackle] and so its a free kick and…” and so on.

However, if changing the club is not an option, criticizing the club is, regardless of how absurd such a position is. The management is incompetent, and half of the team is useless, as far as I can tell. Why can’t the manager see this? That kind of thing.

However, the difficulty is that there are relatively few truly good managers who can not only perceive what is wrong but also do something about it. In addition, the amount of time clubs are ready to give a new manager has fallen substantially in recent years. Where does Arteta fit in among Arsenal’s great managers

The longest-serving manager in English league football is… Simon Weaver, who has worked at Harrowgate for nearly 14 years. In terms of current Premier League managers, Jurgen Klopp has been at Liverpool for over eight years. During that period, he has won the League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the Champions League once each. So, every two years, one award. According to a recent article in Football 365, he thought it was time to depart.

Arteta joined Arsenal in December 2019, thus he has three complete seasons at the club and has won the FA Cup once – however we would give second place last season an honourable mention. However, in total, it is 0.33 trophies each year).

But how long should a manager be permitted to stay if success does not follow? Although Arsene Wenger was unable to deliver another league trophy to Arsenal after the unbeaten season, he did win the FA Cup three times in his final five years with the club, which clearly was not enough for a number of supporters.

In his 12 years at the club Wenger delivered 10 trophies (three league titles and a record-breaking seven FA Cups), and a lot of that time was with funding highly restricted because of the stadium move.   That gives us a total of 0.83 trophies a year.  Arteta is currently on one every three years (being generous and not counting his first half-season).

The second longest-serving manager Arsenal have had was Bertie Mee and he had three trophies in ten years (Fairs Cup, FA Cup, League).  (0.33 a year).

George Graham was with us for slightly over nine years and brought us six trophies (0.66 per year). Tom Whittaker (who succeeded Chapman) served eight years and, like Chapman, died in office, delivering three trophies (0.38 each year).

Terry Neill stayed for six years and only won one cup (0.16 trophies per year).

Then, working our way down the list of managers by the length of time they were at the club, we arrive to Herbert Chapman. He was with the club for eight years and, as you may know, Chapman died in the middle of a title-winning season, so that gives us 0.38 trophies per season if we only count complete seasons, but if we count Chapman’s final but incomplete season, that figure rises to 0.44 trophies – and I believe we should because this was clearly his team and they were way ahead of the rest of the field at the time of his death.

So pulling this together we get…

Arteta has won one trophy in three seasons.   A trophy this season would take him up to 0.5 trophies a season – above Chapman.  Two trophies this season would take him to 0.75 trophies a season.  Behind Wenger, but not by much.