Does sacking Arteta solve Arsenal’s problems?

Another game and another woeful loss and pressure keeps mounting on Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta. 

Just before the season started there was optimism about the direction the club was in and how things could progress this season, with a hope of making the top-four and returning to the Champions League again.

They had won the FA Cup for a record 14th time and then won the Community Shield, beating the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool on the way and people were praising the way Arteta had got his tactics right and the players were performing superbly under him.

But that seems like a far cry with the Gunners languishing at 15th in the Premier League and potentially looking at a relegation scrap.

The latest 4-1 defeat to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup's quarter-final once again highlighted the issues that lie throughout the team - the midfield lacks creativity and control, the defence is error-prone and the attackers are lacking cutting-edge. 

The fingers are being pointed at the manager over his squad selection, starting XI and tactics as well.

There are rumours of an unhappy dressing room and the players are leaking news to the media.

There are players like Mesut Ozil who have been completely left out of the squad but are getting paid 350,000 pounds a week.

Players like Granit Xhaka and Shkodran Mustafi showed improvement under Arteta initially but they're now going back to their old form.

So does sacking Arteta solve the problems at Arsenal? In short, no.   

An absentee owner and turmoil in the backroom

For things to change, things need to change from the top and that starts with the owner Stan Kroenke. 

It is well known that the American is not a fan of football (or soccer as they call it) and he's not a fan of Arsenal.

He views this as a cash cow rather than a passion project and while that may not be a bad thing, his spending on Arsenal pales in comparison to what the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City have spent.

While spending has increased over the last few years, the buying has not been good at times and the selling has been abysmal. 

Players have been getting big contracts and that has added to the problems of selling them.

That has led to the club making an annual loss for the first time since 2002. 

The owners need to take the blame for the people they have appointed to handle transfers.

Speaking of which the backroom and boardroom has seen plenty of chopping and changing over the last three years. 

From the season when Arsene Wenger was in charge, the club's CEO was Ivan Gazidis, and Gazidis had brought in Sven Mislintat as chief scout in 2018.

When Wenger left after the 2017-18 season, Gazidis appointed Vinai Venkatesham and Raul Sanllehi as head of football and appointed Unai Emery as head coach.

However, a few months later, Gazidis got an offer from his current club AC Milan and left to join them and that prompted Vinai and Raul to take over Ivan's job and Sven to also resign from his post.

Raul slowly started to help out more in transfers as the club switched from a more scout-based transfer policy to an agent-based one and that was met with mixed results. 

Raul then appointed Edu as technical director and being a former player for the Gunners, he was tasked with handling transfer negotiations in the summer of 2019.

In that season, Unai Emery was sacked following some disappointing results, interim coach and former player Freddie Ljungberg couldn't steady the ship and Mikel Arteta was appointed.

Ahead of this season, the Kroenke's appointed their lawyer Tim Lewis (a lifelong Arsenal fan) to do an internal investigation in the club seeing the financial situation and the annual loss, and that led to the sacking of Raul.

According to various reports, Raul had mismanaged the money on transfers and overpaid the agents, especially during the record 80 million Euro singing of Nicolas Pepe.

With the sacking of Raul, Vinai was promoted to chief executive and Arteta was promoted to manager from head coach; while Edu's job title remained the same, his influence over transfers increased. 

A clearout is needed before anything

All of these dizzying changes in the backroom have led to this transfer window being a mixed bag with some players like Willian and Cedric Soares being signed up as free agents on inexplicably long-term contracts despite not being of top quality.

Players like Gabriel Magalhaes and Thomas Partey have impressed and improved the team but Partey's injury has come as a big blow to Arteta's plans. 

The bigger issue is that the same players have remained in the club despite all these changes in the backroom. 

Players like Granit Xhaka, Mesut Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi, Sead Kolasinac, Mohamed Elneny, and Hector Bellerin have shown that they are not consistent enough and in some cases not good enough.

Ozil's case of being dropped from the squad could be down to non-footballing reasons despite what Arteta might say and we will only know once Ozil is gone from the club. 

There are players like David Luiz and Sokratis that were bought after Wenger left under Emery and they are not long-term solutions and that leaves the club needing a massive overhaul and a clearout.

You can sack the manager and some of these players might do better than they are doing now, but these problems will persist if the players aren't changed. 

Arsenal have been producing some young exciting talent like Bukayo Saka from their academy who has been a regular and there are names like Folarin Balogun, Joe Willock, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Emile Smith-Rowe, and Miguel Azeez that are starting to break into the first team and are showing a lot of promise.

The manager needs to be backed with players by the owners, a clearout has to happen and he needs to embed more academy players that play for the badge into the side. 

The road ahead for Arsenal is a dark one with plenty of bumps and obstacles, and the owners will need to be more proactive than ever in the January transfer window to change the club's fortunes in the long haul.

Failure to do so will only lead to the club falling further behind and not reaping the rewards of the hard work they have put behind the academy. 

If Arteta is backed and then he fails to get the desired results, a sacking then would make more sense but now is not the time even though he's on thin ice.