Five Years, No Trophy: 4 Reasons Arteta May No Longer Be the Man for Arsenal

• Despite spending over £700 million and reaching multiple key stages in competitions, Arteta's Arsenal has failed to win any major trophy since the 2020 FA Cup
• Arsenal fans clamour for a change at the helm of affairs in the dugout at Arsenal as they feel Arteta could take them no further
• Legit.ng examines four reasons that justify the call for Arteta to be replaced as Arsenal manager

After a feeble exit at the hands of French champions Paris Saint-German in the semi-final stage of the UEFA Champions League (UCL), Arsenal are once again the object of banter and ridicule across the world, to the delight of opposition fans.

Patrice Evra’s comparison of Arsenal with Netflix now seems like the proclamation of a sage. It is always next season, never the current one.

More importantly, the exit of Arsenal at the penultimate stage of the Champions League confirms what has been the suspicion since Liverpool won the English Premier League at the weekend, which is that the club is going to end the season without any trophy – major or minor.

This would make it the fifth consecutive year that Arsenal last won anything under coach Mikel Arteta. Beating Real Madrid was only going to be a temporary shot at excitement, as even this would eventually wash away with the stench of persistent failure

With another trophyless season all but confirmed, the scrutiny is once again cast on the competence of Arsenal coach Arteta, and if he is indeed still the right man for the job, after half a decade and over £700 million spent on purchasing players.

Legit.ng examines four reasons Arteta may no longer be the man to take Arsenal to the promised land of consistent flow of trophies.

4 reasons Arteta should be replaced at Arsenal

1. Recruitment goofs

Since Arteta joined Arsenal in December 2019, only free-spending Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have outspent the club. Chelsea won the Champions league in 2021 and are bullying their way to the Conference League.

Manchester United, despite their well-documented struggles, continue to scrap in trophies. Only Arsenal’s eternal rivals, Tottenham, share the same fate with them in this period of time, and that hardly counts.

Despite this huge spending, Arteta has made the wrong calls when it comes to his playing personnel and that has continued to affect his trophy-winning chances. Before the 2024/2025 campaign started, it was glaring to the most nonchalant football fan that Arsenal needed an elite striker.

The Havertz experiment didn’t work out and Gabriel Jesus spent more time on the injury table than on the pitch. Top strikers, including Victor Osimhen and the PL-proven Ivan Toney, were up for grabs.

However, the former Arsenal captain opted to sign a defender, Calafiori, and midfielder, Merino, ignoring his team’s most obvious need.

Jesus continued his poor run of fitness, Havertz suffered a season-ending injury and Merino became the next-best option. Arteta remained adamant during the January transfer window and has now paid the price.

Promising stars such as Vieira and Nelson who could have been good backups were sent out on loan while Sterling was drafted in.

When it mattered most for the team to get the signing that would push them over the finish line, it fumbled and Arteta has to take the blame for that.

2. Poor rotation

Season in, season out, Arteta has always been guilty of using his players to the point of breakdown before he considers resting them. His poor rotation policy usually leaves the Arsenal team exhausted at the business end of the season.

In the league game against Bournemouth over the weekend, he chose to start the same players who played PSG at the Emirates few days before and would still play a return leg barely three days after.

The outcome was predictable. League game? Lost. UCL games, both lost as well. Saka was rushed back in time to face Real Madrid but it was written all over him that he wasn’t back to full fitness.

Fellow semi-finalists, PSG, Barcelona and Inter Milan, all rested their core players for league duties. Bafflingly, Arsenal didn’t and they got tired easily when they needed more push in the second half.

In the 2023/24 season, Arsenal’s season crumbled in seven days, after conceding two late goals at home to Aston Villa to surrender the lead to Man City while failing to overcome Bayern Munich in the UCL.

The poor rotation habit of Arteta has cost Arsenal time and again, and having shown little signs of shifting ground, the club will continue to experience the same bitter fate of fading when it truly matters.

3. Misplacement of priorities

To borrow from Mourinho’s playbook, every trophy is not to be taken lightly, whether it is the Carabao or the Holy Grail. The common belief is that the smaller trophies unlock the confidence and hunger needed to win the bigger ones, and winning breeds more winning.

This is why Erik Ten Hag will call himself a serial winner as he won a trophy in each of his two full seasons at Manchester United. The self-acclaimed Special One also boasts of winning everywhere he goes.

Manchester United and Chelsea have arguably experienced a worse season than Arsenal but their fans have a brighter prospect of celebrating a trophy win when the season comes to a close.

Before now, Arteta focused only on the league, without considering the psychological benefits of other trophies. He fell short and proved that it was a miscalculation of priority. He has always put the league over cup competitions even though they come with their unique prestige.

If there were success to show for it then, it would have been justifiable but relegating cup competitions when your team will inevitably lose steam in the league title race appears like an ill-conceived idea.

4. Lack of trophy-winning mentality

Arsenal’s five-years-and-still-counting drought may simply be down to a simple factor – Arteta is bereft of a trophy-winning mentality.

Since 2020, Erik Ten Hag has come in, managed a worse team and won two trophies. Thomas Tuchel lifted the coveted UCL while Slot slotted in seamlessly to win a league title. Eddie Howe helped Newcastle to break their 70-year barren spell and David Moyes clinched the UEFA Conference League with West Ham.

All these coaches have needed considerably lesser time to win titles for their respective clubs. Arne Slot, particularly, should serve as an indictment for Arteta, as the coach hardly changed anything handed to him by Jurgen Klopp, the same squad that trailed Arteta's the previous season.

It may be simple and straightforward as Arteta lacking the decisive edge when it comes to what matters most in football – winning trophies.

Fans react as Arsenal crash out of UEFA Champions League

Earlier, Legit.ng reported that football fans shared their thoughts on Arsenal’s Champions League semi-final exit, especially after their impressive performance against Real Madrid in the quarter-final.

Arsenal failed to reach the UEFA Champions League final after falling 2-1 to Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday night, May 7.

Proofreading by Omoleye Omoruyi, copy editor at Legit.ng.

Source: Legit.ng