Five questions for Mikel Arteta: Arsenal manager must learn to create value rather than crater it

The St Stephen's Day win over Chelsea arrested Arsenal's alarming slump under Mikel Arteta. Sustaining that momentum against Brighton today will be important, but regardless Arteta faces a host of January transfer window posers. Tim Stillman addresses some burning issues.

NO NONSENSE: There is a suggestion that Mikel Arteta is using sledgehammers to crack walnuts too often in his dealings with players. Picture: Peter Cziborra/PA Wire

Arteta jettisoned Mesut Ozil, who has been nibbling away in the background. Has the decision backfired and should Arteta reach out to the German playmaker or is it key now he sticks to his guns?

At this stage, Arsenal should look to the future rather than the past. Özil has only a few months left on his contract now in any case and having taken such a hard line with him, it is difficult for Arteta’s credibility to go back now. Perhaps if he had longer to run on his Arsenal contract the situation would be slightly different but Emery flip-flopped on Özil and it ultimately undermined his authority with the squad.

Özil’s creative numbers have been in decline for a few years now anyway, even when he has played regularly. This is partially down to his own decline and partially a consequence of an Arsenal team that has lacked athleticism and movement around him — the loss of Aaron Ramsey is very keenly felt in this respect.

Arsenal don’t miss Mesut’s ability to slice open defences because he hasn’t been doing that on a regular basis — he registered two assists in 18 Premier League appearances last season and two assists in 20 Premier League appearances the season previous. What Arsenal do miss is his technical security, his ability to look after the ball, control it effortlessly and find a teammate.

The technical level of Arsenal’s midfield has sagged alarmingly in recent seasons with the team often unable to sustain pressure and possession. Emile Smith-Rowe didn’t do anything amazing against Chelsea but simply standing between the opposition lines of defence and midfield, receiving the ball comfortably, and moving it on quickly leapt off the screen.

It’s too early to anoint Smith-Rowe as the German’s heir apparent and he has had plenty of injuries in the last two seasons; but it makes more sense to invest in his future. Technical Director Edu has admitted that Arsenal are on the lookout for a creative player in January having missed out on Houssem Aouar during the summer, and that also makes sense.

Regardless of the political ramifications of reinstating Özil, the player will leave the club during the summer and he has pursued a scorched earth policy with his social media usage during his exile.

Whether the decision has backfired depends entirely on what the player did to earn the manager’s ire and whether Özil brings enough to the team for his misdemeanours to be overlooked — I would suggest not.

Matteo Guendouzi, whatever you think of him, brings the attitude and confrontational qualities that many say Arsenal are lacking at the moment. Does Arteta make his peace with the French youngster or cut him loose?

I think this one is less straightforward than the Özil situation because of Guendouzi’s youth. He arrived at Arsenal with a reputation as a cocksure personality, to say the least, which translates into the way he plays. Arsenal’s current midfield options beyond Thomas Partey are average, to put it generously.

Managing difficult people is all part of management and I think there is a suggestion that Arteta is using sledgehammers to crack walnuts too often in his dealings with players. That said, it is difficult to judge how appropriate the banishment of Guendouzi was without knowing the full details of his transgressions.

The biggest problem it has created for Arsenal is that it has cratered his value in the transfer market (though Covid takes more than its fair share of blame in that, too). Arteta was unable to sell Guendouzi during the summer in part because sending a player to Siberia does little for his attractiveness in the shop window.

A more experienced manager might have coached Guendouzi up, tolerated his foibles for another six weeks or so, fattened him up for sale and allowed the Sword of Damacles to fall more slowly.

Arsenal are a self-sustaining club who haven’t qualified for the Champions League in nearly four years now — selling well to raise funds for a much needed rebuild is going to be an important skill Arteta will need to learn quickly.

Though Guendouzi is undoubtedly better than some of the club’s current midfield options, the biggest issue for the team this season has been chance creation and generating shots on goal and Guendouzi doesn’t really help in that respect. Matteo will have one year left on his Arsenal contract in the summer and the club will need to hope that his loan spell at Hertha Berlin has done more for his value than Arteta’s iron fist.

Arteta has a big decision to make on Nicolas Pepe with Gabriel Martinelli making an instant impact on his return and Reiss Nelson pushing for more game time. Dumping Pepe in the reserves will kill his value too, so how does Arteta get more out of the winger — stick or carrot?

At this stage I think we have to accept that Pepe is an enormously hit and miss player capable of moments of brilliance and moments of frustration. He is a player with great talent but Arsenal has proved to be a poor fit for him stylistically. He made his name as a counterattacking weapon in a Lille team that constantly looked to hit teams on the break.

Arsenal don’t play that way and unless they undergo a stylistic transformation, Pepe will remain a square peg in a round hole. Arteta has tried plenty of stick and carrot with the Ivorian but inconsistency is simply baked into his game. The return of Martinelli might push Pepe further down the pecking order but that needn’t necessitate a total banishment.

Willian has not exactly impressed playing in Pepe’s favoured right-wing berth and Reiss Nelson is the latest player to get the Arteta cold shoulder having been omitted from the last two matchday squads. I would imagine Arsenal will try to cut their losses with Pepe in the summer. At the age of 25, he shouldn’t be too difficult to sell so long as the club understands that they will have to take a hit on the £72m they paid for him in 2019.

Pepe is clearly a stellar talent who could thrive in the right team. There again, a move back to France seems most likely and Ligue 1 clubs are not exactly flush with cash at the moment. Arsenal still struggle to generate shots and make chances and Pepe, for all of his frustrating flaws, does both of those things. Arsenal should continue to use him where necessary — maybe not as a bona fide starter though.

Nobody likes doing business with a gun to their heads in January, but if Arsenal could move some deadwood out, they would. There are a plethora of centre-backs at the club. Is it more important to shift players out or bring some creative talent in this window?

Arsenal’s squad is already so big that well-paid players like Mesut Özil, Sokratis, and William Saliba are putting out cones in training. Slimming the squad down is of paramount importance and, were it not for the impact of Covid on the summer market, they may have found buyers for the likes of Sead Kolasinac, Shkodran Mustafi, and they might have fetched an acceptable price for Ainsley Maitland-Niles too.

However, some of these problems are going to disappear naturally in the summer with the deals of Özil, Sokratis, Mustafi, and David Luiz set to expire and Dani Ceballos’ loan spell scheduled to end too. Much of the squad will churn organically but the question remains how much disposable funds Arsenal have to call upon without first trimming the wage bill.

The failure to move several high earners on in the summer cost the Gunners a proper tilt at Lyon playmaker Houssem Aouar and well-sourced reports suggest that KSE took the unprecedented step of reaching into their own pockets to help fund the transfer of Thomas Partey. The club has not been immune to the impact of Covid on their bottom line — they probably have to trim some fat from the squad before they can buy as a fiscal necessity.

Evidently Arteta has walked into a viper’s nest of a dressing room. Does he get the stirrers out or can he get to the end of the season with Premier League status intact, clear his head, and then begin a mass clearout?

Most of the players the club would happily set free in the forest probably will not leave until the summer — especially those counting down to lucrative Bosman deals. The bulk of the rebuild is going to be a summer job, not least as Arsenal currently have no idea whether they will be playing in European competition next season and what their budget might be.

Behind the scenes, Arsenal lost a key, if unpopular, figure in head of football Raul Sanllehi, as well as key contract negotiator Huss Fahmy. Neither man has been replaced yet and the strain on executive resource was illustrated when the club failed to complete the paperwork on a loan for William Saliba by the October transfer deadline.

It beggars belief that Arsenal continue to sit on these key vacancies and, even were it possible, they simply don’t have the bandwidth to undertake the amount of business required to properly start on the squad rebuild in January. The club is also in the awkward position of not really knowing whether they want Mikel Arteta to oversee that critical restructuring job.

The win over Chelsea will have bought him some time but there must be doubts over his suitability for the job given the season the club are enduring. 

The treatment of William Saliba casts a further cloud over Arteta’s man-management skills at this embryonic stage of his coaching career. He earned commendation in the early months of his reign by seemingly rehabilitating players that were deemed uncoachable.

Lately, however, he seems to have developed a taste for simply consigning players that he doesn’t like to the scrapheap. Manchester City can afford to keep the likes of Bravo and Mangala on their wage bill while spending in excess of £50m on their replacements — Arsenal cannot. Arteta has to show that he is the man to oversee a rebuild and that will depend on improved results on the pitch and on creating rather than cratering value for players that he does not want.