Arteta sack? Five unreasonable Arsenal reasons includes the academy snub, Odegaard and lemons

In what even we would suggest is a rather knee-jerk reaction to a couple of bad results and a few unconvincing performances, the Mailbox has featured lively debate over the future of Mikel Arteta at Arsenal.

Sacking him now would be a madness but in a bid to understand the #ArtetaOut lunatics we’ve come up with five reasons they might use in debates with lucid individuals to evidence the Spaniard’s incapacity.

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Too defensive

Arteta himself wasn’t bothered and even claimed he welcomed the comparison, but there are plenty of Arsenal fans for whom Jamie Carragher likening Arteta’s football to that of Jose Mourinho will have really, really hurt.

They endured Chelsea’s rise under Mourinho by taking the footballing high ground, extolling the virtues of their team not stooping to dominate football based mainly on physicality as self-appointed guardians of The Beautiful Game.

But after two close-but-no-cigar seasons in which Arteta’s team at least nodded to The Arsenal Way, they’re now firmly in the win-at-all-costs doldrums, as far away from the free-flowing football of Arsene Wenger as they’ve been since he left the club.

As Mikel Merino said when he joined, Arsenal “look like a basketball team”.

Though we’re slightly surprised by the speed of the transition to this defensive, pragmatic style of football, as Carragher pointed out, there’s no shame in it if it works. The problem is – and this will become more of a problem the longer it remains the philosophy – it does need to work.

While Arsenal fans may put up with losing while being entertained, they won’t abide failing to win with four centre-backs on the pitch.

Martin Odegaard/Bukayo Saka reliance

Manchester City have been struggling without Rodri. A Mohamed Salah-less Liverpool would a very different proposition; the same could be said for Chelsea without Cole Palmer. No matter how much depth a team has, the best players will always be missed. They wouldn’t be the best players otherwise.

In that way it makes little sense to criticise Arsenal for not being as good without Martin Odegaard. It was always going to be the case. It makes more sense to criticise them for offloading the two players – Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith Rowe – who could have slotted in nicely in his absence. But even that would be harsh. They wanted to leave and the club took the reasonable view that it wasn’t worth keeping unhappy players who weren’t going to play enough unless Odegaard got injured. Unfortunately he did.

But it is reasonable to find fault with Arteta’s attempts to cope without Odegaard, which has seen him plough on with a woefully out-of-form Leandro Trossard behind Kai Havertz in nine of the 12 Premier League and Champions League games since the playmaker’s injury.

Odegaard’s absence wasn’t initially so keenly felt thanks to Saka’s brilliance, before opposition teams pretty quickly worked out that stopping him meant they stopped Arsenal. Once Saka’s goals, assists and link-up play was nullified, Trossard, Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling have looked isolated and impotent.

But those aren’t bad players. They’ve all been brilliant at times before. And their shortcomings over the last couple of months really don’t reflect well on Arteta, who’s now relying on Odegaard to hit the ground running to shoulder the attacking burden his teammates have failed to share in his absence.

READ MORE: Mikel Arteta proves Martin Odegaard more important to Arsenal than him after Inzaghi lesson

Not making the most of the academy

It feels wrong to say only Bukayo Saka has come through to nail down a spot in the first team in Mikel Arteta’s time at Arsenal – it’s sodding Bukayo Saka – but it serves to illustrate the manager’s lack of trust in and use of the Gunners academy.

Not much can be done if the young players aren’t good enough but we would contend that Arteta doesn’t really know whether that’s the case because he hasn’t given them ample opportunities to prove themselves.

Myles Lewis-Skelly has been given a few chances this season, as has Ethan Nwaneri, but the latter in particular is a case in point of Arteta’s unwillingness to throw academy players into tough but enriching circumstances to show that if you’re good enough you’re old enough.

The teenager will likely be disappointed that a promising period which could have been his Big Break at Arsenal has nearly come to an end given Martin Odegaard’s imminent return, with his only starts in that time coming in the League Cup.

Nwaneri scored three goals in those two games and his cameos in the Premier League and Champions League have almost always earned rave reviews from pundits and fans, along with questions as to why he’s not being given more game time by Arteta, who surely can’t be watching those starting ahead of him thinking they’re more deserving of a place.

READ MORE: Premier League benchwarmers who deserve a chance: (Nearly) one per club

Pickpockets, lemons and lightbulbs

Nothing makes Arteta more ripe for the sack than his commitment to cringeworthy motivational tactics.

A lightbulb as a prop to promote “electricity” between the players and the fans, in a speech where Arteta eruditely pointed out “it would be f***ing dark without this guy”, Thomas Edison. Lemons whose “juice is our team magic” as Arteta took one from a player who said he had squeezed out all the juice only for his manager to illustrate “you can always squeeze more”. Hiring a pickpocket to steal from his own players – including one who had fought off a baseball-bat wielding thief in real life – to teach them a lesson about ‘the importance of being ready and alert’.

It’s all very weird, a bit funny and a big red flag for 90 per cent of the population who dread corporate away days when a team leader opens a seminar with a smile and a promise that they will make the experience as interactive as possible.

‘Specialist in failure’

Mourinho’s infamous line about Arsene Wenger and one he would no doubt use against Arteta should he get his wish and replace Eddie Howe at Newcastle. One FA Cup in five seasons as the manager of Arsenal is not a good record.

Premier League focus is understandable and two second-place finishes is to be applauded, but they ultimately mean nothing if they’re not a precursor to a title win, and it already feels a little bit like they may have missed their chance, with no team during Pep Guardiola’s time in the Premier League able to sustain a challenge for longer than two seasons.