"After tea and cake and Declan Rices. After Ebe Eze and Viktor Gyokeres. Should I, after three straight second places, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? Hmm. Maybe not. With all due apologies to the living descendants of TS Eliot, the love song of Mikel Arteta still doesn't really scan or rhyme or have a clear endnote as yet,"
"even as the six-year anniversary of his appointment as Arsenal manager approaches. This is normal enough. It is obviously incorrect to conclude, as many have, that Arsenal's manager has to win a trophy this season or be remembered not just as a fraud, but as a Lego-haired billion-pound-spend fraud, the worst kind of fraud there is. Sport doesn't work in simple metre. Uncertainty is key to its fascination. In reality the Arteta era has brought fresh energy, the team regeared, Champions League status re-established."
"The winning of cups and pots is hostage to endless variables. The best does not rule out the good. Others must also succeed. By the same token the idea of early-season title deciders is best dismissed as punditry gush, marketing pitch, whiffle around the lighted dais. What can August really tell us? Most teams are in flux right now. Are Chelsea good? Nobody knows."
Mikel Arteta's six-year Arsenal tenure has re-energised the team, re-established Champions League status and reshaped the squad. Expectations about immediate trophy success remain contested; failure to win a cup this season should not alone define managerial worth. Early-season form is unreliable because teams are in flux and definitive judgment belongs to winter and spring. The Liverpool away match at Anfield represents a meaningful test for league trajectory and Arteta's reputation. Cup wins depend on many variables, and competitive uncertainty sustains sport's fascination. There is an uneasy ambiguity about Arsenal's ultimate endpoint and about Arteta's long-term narrative.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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