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Mikel Arteta really has had the most surreal start to a managerial career. The Spaniard took over in November with Arsenal in the midst of their worst crisis’ in decades. Expectation was high when he was announced as the successor to Unai Emery. He was tasked with performing an almost impossible job- transforming a severely unbalanced and error prone squad into a cohesive unit or simply one that resembled a team. With no managerial experience and nowhere to hide, this was always going to be a struggle. His first press conference was impressive and there was a degree of excitement about the the prospect of this fresh faced, perfect haired apprentice of Guardiola and Wenger taking over the team. This season, however, was always going to be about experimentation where there was an outside chance of rescuing a Champions League place. It was a chance for the new manager to analyse his squad and perhaps make decesions about the summer. All in all, it was set to be a fairly uneventful 6 months where steadying a sinking ship was the main priority. That was what was expected. Nothing more and hopefully nothing less.So often in football, expectations and reality differ significantly. However, usually that disparity consists of a newly promoted minnow overcoming the mighty title challengers. Even the greatest storyteller with the wildest imagination would have struggled to come up with the series of events which were forthcoming.
The early reports of a contagious virus spreading in China did not cause much concern for the vast majority of people in Europe. The threat seemed far enough away that it did not take up much space or time in our busy lives. In fact, bar a brief read of a Sky News article, for January and even much of February, we were in almost complete ignorance of how dangerous this could be. Meanwhile, Mikel Arteta was slowly getting to grips with life as a football manager and Arsenal were steadily improving.Life was petty good in the minds of many Arsenal fans, or at least better then it was under Emery. However, within a matter of weeks, we went from debating about whether or not we should sell Ainsley Maitlind-Niles to wondering how we get back to playing back to playing football again. The health and safety of our loved ones became a far more important concern as were thrust into this dystopian reality.
It is perhaps a damning endightment of the FA and the Premier League that the fixtures scheduled for the 14th and 15th of March were set to go ahead. Arteta’s diagnosis just days prior changed everything. The news came as a shock to Arsenal fans world wide. It’s difficult to imagine just quite what Arteta himself was thinking when he received the positive result. With a wife and 3 children at home to worry about passing it on to, this would surely have been a very challenging time for a man who should have been overseeing his new teams continued improvement. Arteta was praised early in his Arsenal career for the way he communicated his ideas and showed good leadership for such an inexperienced manager. These qualities would now be relevant in a very different way. Even in what most have been a troubling time personally, Arteta continued to conduct himself impeccably, a true testament to his professionalism.
It is May- six months into a truly bonkers Arsenal career for Arteta and preparations are underway for a return to football behind closed doors. I’m sure that life as a football manager in normal circumstances is a unique experience and starting in a new job is never easy. However, Arteta’s beginning to life at Arsenal is hardly comparable to anything that has come before. Watching his Manchester City team take apart a feeble and shambolic Arsenal side he would take over several weeks after said match would have been bizarre enough in itself. The next few months would put that particular experience in perspective. However, through all the turmoil and uncertainly, Arteta has continued to show his class and leadership qualities, qualities that will serve Arsenal well going forward.
TheGoonerStation 