During the press conference at the end of the victory over Brentford, Mikel Arteta apparently said, vis a vis the mistake that gave Brentford a goal, “Errors are part of football. It’s how you react to it, especially for the ‘keepers which is probably the most difficult position. He did so in an amazing way.”
Which to me reads like being as close to sound philosophy as anything which a Premier League manager has said in the whole of the rest of this season.
And that in turn makes it a shame that the Telegraph then found it necessary to say, “Errors also lose managers games.” A shame because yes we know that, and yes we know how fickle both club owners and indeed club supporters can be.
But it is the media which is the source of misrepresentation and misleading information which encourages owners to sack managers.
Take Arteta and Arsenal at the moment, by way of example.
You may not have noticed but Arsenal have the lowest number of yellow cards of any Premier League club this season. Even more to the point Arsenal’s yellow card total is just on half that of Chelsea.
And since yellow cards first inhibit how a player plays until the end of the game and second can result in a suspension or two, not getting yellow cards is important.
Indeed one might note that when Mikel Arteta came to Arsenal in December 2019 he took on a club that was top of the yellow card charts. So while taking the club from 15th in the league (where they were at the time) to top of the league (where as you may have noticed we are now), he has also cut the yellow card total for the club virtually in half.
And that at a time when the number of cards each club gets is getting ever higher following changes to the way referees make up (sorry, “interpret”) the rules.
Arsenal have scored more goals than any other Premier League club. Arsenal has conceded fewer goals than any other Premier League club. And, I would argue, Arsenal now has the strongest squad it has had in years.
Of course I still dream of the Henry / Bergkamp contributions, but in the unbeaten season we scored 73 goals. So far this season Arsenal have scored 70 goals. More goals this season than in the glorious Unbeaten? Well, yes, more than likely.
And yes I know the defence is not as good as it was in the days of 2004, but ask most fans if they would prefer more goals and an occasionally dodgy defence, or fewer goals and a rock solid defence, and I’m sure most will go for more goals.
The title winning Arsenal team of old had major players throughout the squad, and to my mind that is what we are now seeing with the modern side. And let us not forget that some of the players in the unbeaten squad were not crowd favourites any more than Havertz is with some supporters now.
And indeed who speaks now of Lauren, Cole and Toure – ok maybe you do if reminded of them but the focus in those past days was on the glorious unstoppable forward line.
Now our praise quite rightly spreads itself out through the team: we will talk of Saliba, Rice, Saka, Martinelli, Gabriel for many years to come I imagine, but we should not forget that what we now have is an extraordinary – and young – squad.
And this is a point I think. What makes Arsenal different from the rest of the Premier League is the use of players aged 22 to 25. For Arsenal over much of this season almost three-quarters of the minutes played on the pitch were played by players aged 22 to 25.
This suggests that Arteta has been buying and nurturing for the future. Which in turn suggests that if what we have seen in the last eight successive wins is based on a team which is already doing incredibly well – then the future looks very bright indeed.
Assaults from defenders and attacks by journalists annoyed at their prophesies of doom and gloom not coming to pass will continue. But for me this team could mature and get even better in the next couple of years.
Which means I’ll be renewing my season ticket next season, no matter what the price.
Tony Attwood 10/03/24