‘He thinks he knows it all’: Mikel Arteta under pressure at Arsenal as mood inside club shifts

The Spaniard has had one full season where he enjoyed almost limitless patience. That won’t be the same this time after a disastrous start

When the Arsenal players got into the dressing room on Sunday, there were some harsh words after yet another defeat, but also a recognition that Chelsea are just in a better place. The mood was much the same in the boardroom, albeit with a twist. There was an acceptance that this was always going to be a tough fixture – especially with the ongoing Covid complications – but that was appended for the first time with a note of caution. The stance now is that this can't continue indefinitely.

A growing question around the club is how bad it would have to get to sack Mikel Arteta, and whether the hierarchy would have the will to do it this season. It’s not at the point that the Basque is facing losing his job yet, but the fact this is being discussed around the Emirates Stadium shows how the dial has moved. Arteta has had one full season where he enjoyed almost limitless patience. That won't be the same this time, even if there is obviously a desire to back him.

Sources within the club insist Arteta is going nowhere for the moment. They even talk about how he calls the shots with a lot of the hierarchy, and strong-armed the board into some transfers.

This is one thing that may surprise those outside the club who have visions of everything falling apart. It might also be a reason things are going badly, mind. Arteta has almost total authority. That’s with the squad, and with the staff. Some have even taken to calling him “mini-Arsene”, such is the extent of his control.

Except, it’s the authority of Wenger without the pedigree of Wenger. There’s no tangible reason yet to believe this is definitely the right man to follow, other than faith. This is one of many issues with appointing a manager with no previous experience.

It is because of that some are impressed by Arteta’s assertiveness. Others have a different perspective. They are surprised by how “arrogant” he can seem. “He thinks he knows it all,” is a common refrain.

For Arteta’s part, he does know exactly the football he wants to play. It is an intense, high-pressing and highly-integrated attacking. The vision is for Arsenal’s attackers to be swiftly exchanging passes to the point they just sweep opposition away.

There have even been occasional signs of this, some of them in the biggest fixtures. That is what gives cause for optimism. It also leaves the question of why it happens so infrequently. This is what has been so frustrating, and disheartening.

Those in the game who have spent time with Arteta admire his knowledge and his ideas. There’s little doubt he knows what he’s talking about. The issue is how he translates that into play.

Observers of Arsenal’s training have told The Independent that a lot of their sessions are good but “like Subbuteo”, in that they're “far too clean”. The argument is that they’re not “dirty” enough, and aren’t actually readying the team for the muck and bullets of a game.

That is perhaps why Arsenal’s football can feel so “prescribed” – another common description – and quite anaemic in so many matches.

It is often as if it takes the fervour of the fixture, or things falling the team’s way, to bring out more in the players. That is also why many raised eyebrows at Arteta’s attempt to engender a “siege mentality” after the Brentford defeat. It just felt like motivation straight out of a manual, “coaching 101”.

Arsenal have endured a difficult start to the season (Getty Images)

All of this might be fine at a club of lesser stature and expectations, but this is again the problem of giving a role of this size to someone with no experience. There’s no breathing space to learn on the job, to try and figure out what works and what doesn’t work. If something doesn’t succeed straight away, there’s pressure and urgency.

It’s just as well, then, that one of last season’s major decisions did succeed straight away. Arteta abruptly went with youth in the crucial December match at home to Chelsea, and it finally brought a win after that torrid autumn run. Arsenal did have the third best record in the Premier League from that point on. That, to again give Arteta his due, is where his assertiveness is influential. He doesn’t give off any sense of doubt, either in public or in private. That personality does tend to calm minds – especially among those in the executive positions above him.

Highly pertinent to all of that, though, is the type of club Arsenal now are and what they see themselves as. The growing feeling around Europe is that they are only a “super club” in name. The starting XI in the opening two games of the season would speak to that. They just don't have the financial power of Chelsea, or the attractiveness of Liverpool.

It is similarly indicative that those close to Antonio Conte insist he has little interest in taking over. He just doesn't think he could compete with the team as it is.

Some in the Super League project felt Arsenal were fortunate to be invited in, given how they have allowed a “big six” to become a “big four” again, but the immense global interest in the club can’t be denied. This is why so many marketing projects – where they often seem a leisurewear brand as much as a football club – do so well.

This is why they can spend around £125m in a summer like this, and this is where the crux is.

At this time last year, one detail constantly put forward by those within the club was that the plan was to follow something akin to a Borussia Dortmund model. That is to get ahead of the game and buy the best young talent. The fact that has inexplicably involved signings such as Willian maybe points to the factionalism within the club underneath Arteta. Repeated sources describe little battles over authority in many areas, including recruitment. Many outside Arsenal still quip that they got rid of the best man for such a project, in Sven Mislintat.

Another big question, perhaps most relevant to that of Arteta’s future, is whether all that expenditure has actually made the team better? It’s not like Arsenal are doing a Leicester City, where hugely promising talent is signed for little money to immediate impact. There is at least the danger they spend much more to be an inferior team than Brendan Rodgers’s squad.

They certainly aren’t the finished article, and it is still like Arsenal are between squads. This is why they are so willing to offload one of the two best-paid forwards in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or Alexandre Lacazette.

To sum it all up, comparisons have been made between Martin Odegaard and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, in terms of how they relate to the role of existing players. Just as Arsenal didn’t really need Mkhitaryan because they had Mesut Ozil, there is the belief that Odegaard is too similar to Emile Smith Rowe.

It is possible that one or both end up stifled. Much will depend on how Arteta sets them up, whether he can get them interchanging in the manner he idealises.

But then that applies to everything at the club. Arteta was chosen because he represented a fresh and progressive coaching mindset that still had an emotional connection to Arsenal, with the belief those values could combine to re-energise a team at a low ebb. It is, however, rarely that simple.

One truth of football remains simple, though. Any situation can be saved with convincing results. Arteta needs some soon.