Revolution: The Rise of Arteta’s Arsenal is the story of how Mikel Arteta turned Arsenal back into the most innovative, exciting and feared teams in the Premier League.
Having cut his teeth as an assistant to Pep Guardiola, Arteta returned to Arsenal in the winter of 2019.
Through Covid, fan revolt, player bust-ups, dissapointments and an FA Cup win, Arteta’s single-mindedness revolutionised Arsenal, turning them from a dying former great club into title challengers once more.
This book, by renowned journalist Charles Watts, explores the workings of Arteta’s philosophy and how he transformed both on and off the pitch.
With chapters on his tactical innovations, in-game strategies, transfer insight and, of course, an account of the 2022/23 season, Revolution is the story the extraordinary process and the first draft of Arsenal’s new history.
Tomorrow there is an event at the Tolly where Charles Watts will be hosting a Q&A from 7pm onwards. He will be joined by James McNicolas (Gunnerblog) and Sam Dean from the Telegraph.
The Stoke Newington book shop will be at the event selling copies of the book. Alternatively, the book can be ordered here.
Do not want him. Was poor on loan, much better options out there.
Work Hard FC. Odegaard is not creative, does not score goals. He just runs a lot. We should be going for Emiliano Buendia or James Maddison.
And the same people criticising the signing of Odegaard are now criticising…
Kai Havertz – 24
Did not rate him at Chelsea, did not want us to sign him. 0 goals and 0 assists in his first 3 games. Not good enough. Waste of £65m.
And 6 months ago the same people criticising…
Fabio Vieira – 23
Too lightweight. Overpaid for a poor player. Edu talent ID? You’re having a laugh.
And after a good cameo performance, they are demanding he starts ahead of Kai Havertz. But there first choice for that position is still…
Emile Smith Rowe – 23
Brilliant player. Deserves a chance to start. Arteta not rating him is a disgrace
The way some fans talk about Havertz, Vieira and Smith Rowe is a perfect example of them changing the narrative to suit their agenda.
We still have some fans who are “anti-Arteta” rather than “pro-Arsenal”. Any player Arteta rates, they do not. Any player Arteta does not rate, they hype up.
It happened with Nicolas Pepe and Bukayo Saka. These fans were calling for Pepe to start ahead of Saka for some time. And if Pepe was starting ahead of Saka, they would have changed the narrative and been calling for the then-teenage winger to start.
What I find interesting about the Havertz slander is how those fans that dismiss him then hype up Smith Rowe.
They act like Havertz is the finished article, whilst Smith Rowe is a bright young talent who will continue to grow. Yet there is less than a year between them.
I have always had my concerns over Smith Rowe.
He is clearly very talented, but the injury issues that he had as a teenager have just not gone away.
Of the 4 mentioned above, Smith Rowe is quite clearly the worst of the lot. Signing Havertz ahead of him is how you improve your team, and your squad.
Buying better than what you have is how you keep moving forward. Havertz is clearly a better player than Smith Rowe.
I think Emile is one of those players who is also older than people think. He is already 23 and should be further along in his career than he is. It is coming up to 5-years since he made his debut.
Considering his place in the squad os probably as 5th choice “8” (Odegaard, Havertz, Rice, Vieira ahead of him) and 4th choice winger (Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard), I have always felt that if a big enough bid comes in for him, he will depart.
Getting an offer above £40m for a player that is clearly on the fringes of the squad would be good business.
Smith Rowe has had one decent season at Arsenal. Last season he did not start a single Premier League game, and he has less than 50 Premier League starts to his name. And that is not because he has not been given a chance, it is because he is always injured.
When you consider Havertz has played over 300 games for club and country, you begin to get an idea of how far ahead Kai is of the Englishman.
Fabio Vieira is also an interesting one.
He has gone up in many fans estimations off the 30 minute cameo against Fulham.
Vieira was fantastic in that 30 minutes. He is a player who has a wand of a left foot, but did struggle last year.
Whilst many fans were writing him off last season, I saw a player who just needed to get to terms with the physicality of the Premier League. And that if he did acclimatise he would star. But I will not go OTT over his Fulham perfrmance.
Some fans seem to be hyping Vieira up having criticised him for 12 months. My feeling is this is not because they rate him, but because of their dislike of Havertz – and Arteta.
How else can they explain why over the summer, he was on many fans “sell” list, and now they are calling him to start?
We have a lot of fans like this, who just want to criticise. And they will change their support of a player depending on if they are rated by the manager.
Personally, I think Havertz is a fantastic player. A level above Vieira and Smith Rowe. He is still a young man and is learning a new role in a new system at a new club under a new manager.
You do not play over 300 games at 24, capped 37 times by your country, being a bad player.
Vieira will also grow this season.
Primeira Liga to Premier League was always going tobe a huge step up for someone who was clearly a bit physically challenged. But he has incredible technique.
Smith Rowe, meanwhile, could be finding his time at Arsenal is coming to an end.
There are fitter, better players in his position, who are around the same age. Odegaard, Havertz, Rice, Vieira and Smith Rowe are all 23/24.
Phil Foden is also an interesting. He is also 23, just a year younger than Havertz.
It is interesting about how people still bash on about Foden’s “potential” but never talk about the potential Havertz has. The room he still has to grow. I think Foden also falls into the Smith Rowe box that people do not seem to realise how “old” he is.
I also think people forget how “young” Havertz is.
Build your view of a player based on their performances on the field, not based on yourn opinion on the manager, or because you prefer another player.
In 12 months time, the fans booing Havertz on social media will probably move on to someone else. And if Smith Rowe it still at the club, they will probably be calling him “deadwood” and questioning why the club did not sell him this summer.
These fans have been proven wrong about Odegaard, Vieira will prove them wrong this season, and Havertz will also prove them wrong. Yet they still value their opinion above a world class managers!
Always changing their narrative to suit their agenda…
The Fulham games seems like a liftetime ago! I am sure I am not the only one sitting here on Tuesday morning following a heavy Bank holiday weekend thinking “I need a couple of weeks of the booze”.
The fall out from our draw to Fulham continues, with the usual suspects coming out from under their rocas to try and take advantage of the new, monitised Twitter.
After the game, one of my mates summed it up perfectly: “That’s football”.
Anyone who has followed their club for more than 5 minutes will know results like Fulham happen during a season.
Over a 38 game period, we will have games we had no right to win, that we win, And we have games that we should have won and do not.
Those that have done their miles tend to understand this sort of thing happens, and therefore do not overreact with either over excitiment or deranged dissapointment.
Much of the overreaction is not coming from those that go to games, but those who see football as a TV show, and live their lives through social media.
Yes, we can all point to Mikel Aerteta’s formation. I have blogged a couple of times this season that I am not a fan of Thomas Partey at right back and that we are looking unbalanced. But Arteta’s tactics was not why we drew the game. It was just one of those freak results.
Whatever statistic you look it shows a game in which we dominated.
There will be very few times a team has a 3.26 xG against 0.56 and does not come away with all 3 points.
With 71% possession, we had 19 shots, with 11 on target. Fulham had just 3.
It was just one of those days where we had too many misplaced passes in the final third, and a couple of misaktes that led to their goals.
Conceding in the first minute had nothing to do with the formation or tactics and everything to do with Bukayo Saka playing a blind, sloppy, lazy pass straight to a Fulham player. That caught Aaron Ramsdale out of position and Andreas Pereira finished smartly.
We got back into the game and went 2-1 up. Then Fulham went down to 10 men.
99 times out of 100, we see that game out and get all 3 points. Maybe even snatch a 3rd. This was the 1 game in 100.
Poor marking from the corner (I think Saka was caught flat footed?) and Fulham got the equaliser. We then huffed and puffed but could not blow the door down.
We dominated the game, had some great chances, and conceded two sloppy goals. Nothing to do with Arteta’s tactics.
I remember a game in 2003 against Fulham. We had 12 shots on target, Fulham 0. The game finished 0-0. The first time we failed to score in 47 games. We went on to win the league. Unbeaten.
Last season, Manchester City travelled to Aston Villa. They had 72.3% of the possession. Had a xG of 1.92 v Villa’s 0.28. They drew 1-1. In December they hosted Everton. 73.7% of the possession and 16 shots. xG of 2.36 against Everton’s 0.08. They drew 1-1 again.
The point is, over the course of a season, you get results like we did against Fulham, like what Man City did against Villa and Everton. It is just football…
If you are looking for something else to read this morning, I would suggest checking out this blog by LeGrove: Accepting the pain of progress.
It is a really good read and attempts to explain why Arteta is trying to change things this season, moving away from last seasons tried and test formula.
Final thought is on Kai Havertz.
Some fans were criticising him before he had even played a minute for us. It is the same people that spent all of last season digging out Fabio Vieira. Now all of a sudden after a good cameo performance from Vieira, they are all calling for the Portugal man to start. How short their memories are…
Enjoy your Tuesday. Plenty of water for me today as I try to detox the system!
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 