Simmering tensions at Arsenal could soon boil over for Arteta
WHEN Mikel Arteta persuaded Pierreemerick Aubameyang to sign a contract extension in the rosy afterglow of Arsenal’s FA Cup triumph last season it looked like he had pulled off a masterstroke.
Seven months on that agreement is starting to resemble the updated version of the Mesut Ozil millstone at the Emirates.
Aubameyang, a shadow of the force that propelled Arsenal to that Wembley glory, has not scored for a month and has been reduced to substitute duties by a manager who has lost patience with him.
The Arsenal captain in turn is clearly no great fan of a boss whose tactical methods have helped to sideline him.
Creative leadership tension can work in an organisation up to a point but in the end all parties have to face in the same direction. If the differences between manager and star striker are not already irreconcilable they look to be headed that way.
If Arsenal are to move forwards it cannot carry on like this. One or the other has to go.
The club face a critical five days in their season. This evening, mired in midtable, they travel to the Premier League’s bottom club Sheffield United, a custard pie waiting for a North London face after the traumas of recent performances.
Then on Thursday they take on Slavia Prague in the second leg of the Europa League quarterfinal. The tie is locked 1-1 with the Czechs in the box seat having banked an away goal.
If Arsenal go out, the club which proudly graced the Champions League for 19 successive seasons will be staring at the prospect of no European football at all next season.
Arsenal, according to the Deloitte Football Money League, are the 11th richest club in Europe just above Dortmund – Champions League quarter-finalists – in revenue terms.
Of course revenue is not much use if you don’t spend it but Arsenal’s wage bill is the fifth highest in the Premier League at £225million. For all the disrupters of fixture congestion and no fans this season the league ladder has run in pretty close parallel to squad costs. Eleventh place makes Arsenal the biggest underachievers of the season.
Either the players aren’t worth the money they are being paid or the manager is manifestly failing to bring out their true performance level.
Both appear to be true and Aubameyang (left) is the personification of this.
The three-year contract he signed in September was worth a reputed £55m. Good going for a 31-year-old.
So far this season he has scored 14 goals in all competitions, been dropped for the derby against Spurs for reporting late and giving off the impression in the craven humbling by Liverpool that running had gone out of fashion in football.
Not quite what you want from a captain.
Cast your eye around the Premier League at other leaders and there is a jarring disconnect. Cezar Azpilicueta at Chelsea,
Harry Maguire at Manchester United and Jordan Henderson at Liverpool might not have the talent of Aubameyang but their managers know what they will get from them every week.
Arteta must have seen something in Aubameyang to have reappointed him as skipper when he took over but this season he has been unable to bring it out.
Standards are set at the top and while Arteta has been able to develop young players like Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and
Kieran Tierney, the old guard at Arsenal has gone backwards.
RELATIONSHIPS are as much a part of management as tactics and if Arteta cannot corral his senior players he is making a bed of nails for himself. He confessed that he had not even conversed with Aubameyang over his decision to drop him again for the first leg against
Prague.
Ex-england full-back
Gary Neville spoke of seeing a “little mafia” developing at Arsenal and that is exactly what a manager risks if he opts not to communicate.
With no previous experience to fall back on he is in an uncomfortable spot as he heads to Bramall Lane this evening.
There have been sparks of promise under Arteta – victories over Chelsea, Spurs and Manchester United this season hint at a side that can compete at top level when it sets its mind to it – but overall his win ratio is lower than that of his muchmocked predecessor Unai Emery.
So Arteta’s way or Aubameyang’s – which is it to be?
When a club’s culture is reduced to over-rewarded mediocrity, something has to give.