Mikel Arteta and Hugo Ekitike are discussed during Stan Collymore’s latest column. (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images, Stu Forster/Getty Images, Jon Hobley/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including Mikel Arteta’s position at Arsenal, the Alexander Isak and Yoane Wissa transfer sagas, and more.
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When is Mikel Arteta going to start receiving criticism?
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
I find it quite startling that Mikel Arteta isn’t under pressure at Arsenal. Every season I’ve written this column, I always say at some time in the season: when will the criticism of Mikel Arteta happen? And the only reason I can think why he doesn’t criticise is because he has this uncanny ability to go into his next press conference with a big, beaming smile, as if he’s just put out a team that’s beaten Real Madrid 6-0.
It’s remarkable. Every press conference, he looks confident. And I think to myself, that’s quite bold for a manager that’s only won one major trophy. The reality is if he was a golfer, and we kept on talking about him as an elite golfer, but in the last five years he hadn’t won a major, would be saying, well, he’s not an elite golfer. And I think you could say the same about him as an elite manager.
It feels like there is a force-fed mythology that he had to turn around Arsenal that were finishing out at the top 10 all the time. They weren’t bottom half of the table, they were firmly 6th, 7th, 8th. And all they needed was somebody to come in and buy two or three players. It wasn’t major surgery that was needed where they were finished 16th or 17th, like a Man United or a Spurs
From my perspective, taking into account the performance against Liverpool, which was at best lukewarm and lacking in any belief, I am genuinely surprised that at this early stage of the season, we haven’t seen big-name managers being touted to take his position. And it’s almost as if it’s a given now, because he wasn’t sacked in the first couple of years, that he can now be the…
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