Arteta left exposed to ridicule by airing his latest grievance
Arsenal manager must choose his battles more wisely after suffering brutal barbs from Antonio Conte
When he decides the moment is right, there is no managerial takedown more brutal than those of Antonio Conte, a fistful of nails delivered in the deliberate, patient cadence of a man reflecting on his breakfast options.
At some point on Thursday night, between learning of Mikel Arteta’s post-match indignation, and the door of the press-room auditorium opening for him, Conte decided it was time once more for some straight talking.
When he went for Jose Mourinho four years ago – “a little man in the present and, for sure, he will be a little man in the future” – it was clear that this was a theme into which Conte had put some prior thought.
The same might be said of his Arteta critique, which had all the hallmarks of an assassination long in the planning.
With Rob Holding having looked from the first few minutes like a man on an inevitable collision with a red card, this was one grievance that Arteta called wrong. In the aftermath, the observation made repeatedly by Conte was that the Arsenal manager was a serial complainer, and there is certainly a lot of it to choose from in recent weeks.
Last month, it was
Arsenal’s demanding fixture load that Arteta had identified as his chief injustice and the Premier League as the culprit. “I say to them, thank you so much for doing that,” he said, in the same way that Pep Guardiola often thanks people he feels no gratitude towards. It was brave, given the circumstances around the postponement by Arsenal in January of their original Tottenham Hotspur away trip, but Arteta has appeared keen to deliver the first blow in recent months.
He may feel that Arsenal, beleaguered by the rise of the new money, too long under the heel of Sir Alex Ferguson before that, need to start firing a few of the shots themselves. He went after the referees again in February after Gabriel Martinelli’s two rapid yellow cards against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Although it has to be said that pursuing Mike Riley for the proverbial “explanation” is a blood sport they may as well teach on the Uefa Pro License.
Arteta had done much the same in the aftermath of the defeat by Manchester City in January, a game that he had to watch remotely and, in terms of Stuart Attwell’s decisions, would later profess himself to be “extremely disappointed”.
On Thursday, he was invited to scrutinise the Holding red card, but declined on the basis that he said he would get a “sixmonth suspension” for saying what he thought. Which begs the question: what exactly did he think? Any manager is permitted to say that they believe a decision to be wrong. It is when they stray into the conspiracy theories of stitch-up and bias that ears prick up in the Football Association’s compliance department. All managers can let their words run away from them at times. Steven Gerrard had a point about Jonathan Moss’s performance on Tuesday night but he may also, on reflection, feel that welcoming the veteran referee’s impending retirement was a little on the cruel side. It can happen in the moment. Conte threatened to resign after defeat by Burnley. The Italian is at least consistent. He demands that all managers, Jurgen Klopp included, speak about only their own team, and he sticks to that – unless provoked.
For Arteta, the post-match tactic at Spurs may well have been to deflect attention away from a thoroughly insipid performance from his own players as they approach a defining week. In which case, it worked.
Although there are other ways to cause a distraction, and not leave one’s self open to the kind of filleting that Conte performed on his opposite number. In the post-match blur, it is hard for a manager to strike the right tone with such a huge volume of interviews to be completed and accusations flying back and forth. Sometimes it is not enough to fervently believe that one has been wronged, rather a decision has to be made as to whether saying so will yield the desired outcome.
Sometimes it simply has to be said. Other times, a manager might consider the wider question of how giving voice to yet another grievance makes him look. To his own players, to his club hierarchy and, beyond that, the rest of the game. Which is to say, pick your moments. Choose your battles. And do not, as Arteta will know given his own team’s history with Spurs, leave someone as dangerous as Conte with the last word.