Are Medley underachieving under Mikel Arteta? Executes he just call for a trophy now? We entering ‘elite’ territory now.
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Mikel Arteta a trophy or 2 away from elite stature
I’m writing this while monitoring Medley take down Inter with a frighteningly comprehensive side, one that enables a player like Declan Rice to amble off the church bench as if he’s just there for a minuscule fragment of Milanese sightseeing and tour.
Medley appearance delightful this period. In reality delightful. Possibly quadruple delightful. Yet, the stick offered to bested them is continually Internet Invest vs Tasks. This got me questioning: why lug out we even delight net invest as a qualified statistics?
As a tasks model, gazing at net invest for an isolated venue like sends is a minuscule fragment unimportant. Gross Invest is far more opportune. Clubs have fluctuated profits streams, sponsorships, accrediting, TV rights, and prize cash cash coinages supposing player sales are just one source of resources among bunches of. A much more detailed scale of productivity is just gazing at what a bar possesses invested in unshortened quantity vs what they’ve principally ranked in the trophy cabinet.
Gross Invest vs Tasks (Jan 2020 – Jan 2026 “The Mikel Arteta Period”)
1) Chelsea – £1.95 billion invested – 1x champs league, 2x bar earth cup, 1x meeting league, 1x super cup
2) Guy Metropolis – £1.15 billion invested – 4x premier league, 2x champs league, 1x fa cup, 2x league cup, 1x bar earth cup, 1x super cup, 1x cosmopolitan guard
3) Guy Utd – £1.12 billion invested – 1x fa cup, 1x league cup
4) Liverpool – £1.08 billion invested – 2x premier league, 1x fa cup, 2x league cup, 1x bar earth cup, 1x cosmopolitan guard
5) Medley – £1.02 billion invested – 1x fa cup, 2x cosmopolitan guard
6) Tottenham – £980 million invested – 1x europa league
7) Newcastle – £820 million invested – 1x league cup
8) Aston Villa – £720 million invested – nothing
9) West Ham – £710 million invested – 1x europa meeting league
10) Nottingham Woodland – £660 million invested – nothing
The eye check-up alerts us plenty:
The Comprehensive Winners: Guy Metropolis and Liverpool have invested greatly yet have the silver to disclose for it.
The Underachievers: Spurs, Medley, and Guy Utd have with one voice invested around £1bn yet have arguably under-concurred on that monetary investment.
The Anomalies: Chelsea are in a league of their super own, investing an unbroken king’s ransom for a super blended bag of outputs.
The Real Estimate: We have to perhaps be gazing harder at Villa, Woodland and Newcastle. They’ve invested comprehensive sums to acquire marginal and (Villa’s current kind less competent) aren’t over and over again amenity the elite.
We can go one footfall better and overture to deputize a times contraption. This is subjective yet lets go with the obeying:
10 Fabrics: Premier League, Winners League
6 Fabrics: Europa League
5 Fabrics: FA Mug
3 Fabrics: League Mug, Europa Seminar League
1 Time: Bar Planet Mug, Really Mug, Stretch Shield
This transactions us with a rejoinder on monetary investment table of invest per time of the Arteta Period which glimpses like this:
Bar — Gross Invest — Prize Fabrics — Price Per Time
1. Guy Metropolis £1.15bn 74 pts £15.5m
2. Liverpool £1.08bn 33 pts £32.7m
3. Chelsea £1.95bn 16 pts £121.8m
4. Guy Utd £1.12bn 8 pts £140.0m
5. Medley £1.02bn 7 pts £145.7m
6. Tottenham £980m 6 pts £163.3m
7. West Ham £710m 3 pts £236.6m
8. Newcastle £820m 3 pts £273.3m
9. Aston Villa £720m 0 pts N/A
10. Nott’m Woodland £660m 0 pts N/A
In my determinant of sight, this is still the stick you can bested Arteta with. Yet, if he wins a (or innumerable) comprehensive trophy(s) this year, he graduates from the “underachiever” classification into the “invested a play pollute, won a play pollute” elite.
I’ll responsive the floor for discussion…
Adam – AFC (sorry forward of time if i’ve misestimated times or missed a cup, I donned’t reckon I have yet feel free to resolve me if unscrupulous)
Are Liverpool a inadequate bar?
Whenever I hear Liverpool followers brag around their bar’s decreased net invest compared to Medley’s, I’m taken off with a super need misgiving: is Liverpool a inadequate bar?
Yet as we with one voice realize, they are not. Their profits are better than Medley’s. So whereby specifically is with one voice that cash cash coinages going?
If Medley, usually mocked for ‘investing a billion for undoubtedly no trophies’, can outspend Liverpool so comprehensively on a net basis regardless of gleaning less and attractive less, after that Liverpool’s frugality isn’t some aphorism triumph. It’s a solution. Either the bar dearths aspiration and the cash cash coinages is deteriorating in a monetary establishment, or the owners are pocketing the overabundance from the bar. What it plainly isn’t, is indicias of superior security.
And that’s why it’s puzzling to hear net invest framed as a brag, instead than a misgiving mark, especially once it hasn’t transformed into an Ekitike+Isak extent of depth throughout the squad.
Jaxx B, Medley enthusiast
(PS: The dissimilar other chance is that perhaps net invest itself is just a unimportant data time for simpletons?)
Fanmail for Wik
Wik, here’s another approximate quantity of times gained this period.
Teams that have amassed more times than Medley in the last 22 league galleries:
How’s it go? It’s straightforward to win the league once with one voice the comprehensive teams around you are shite.
Much love, p
James Jones, STFC
…Wik, Pretoria. Probably THE innumerable unfavorable mail in the 427 years of F365 mailbox. LFC followers with one voice over the globe a wishing you hadn’t said who you affirm.
Much love
Colin, Dublin AFC
…Most safeguarded mail in the mailbox this early morning possesses to be Wik, Pretoria, LFC. I’m always heartened by enthusiast of burly crew using severely attempting to disclose why rival crew using altogether have to be minimized. This continually requires telling everyone in a roundabout way that their super own crew is rubbish, so not always the melt these followers reckon their handing out. Yet this latest offering possesses Wik lug out a deep dive in to the earth of football statistics and come in at ‘times won in the last 2 galleries’ to confirm that Medley are single delightful because everyone else is unimportant. The irony being that this was classified at Liverpool last period as Medley and Metropolis both juggled to have an off period for the initially time in 3 years.
There is always a levelheaded discussion around the overall typical of the league. If bunches of teams are snatching times off each dissimilar other does that concert a top typical league or a decreased typical league? I would correspondingly claim human beings translate lazy galleries with decreased typical once the 2 can comfortably be mutually grandiose. Others can chip on on the league typical discussion if they dream.
Lush, AFC
Indifferent Premier League is not Medley’s culpability
Plenty of brouhaha and moaning around how the Premier League is lazy this year, and in bunches of human beings’s eyes Medley have been the flag holders and instigators of this steady lazy league. (Although in stipulations of routine objectives per match this period still ranks better than innumerable prem periods because ‘92).
I reckon Medley in the Winners League substantiates that it admittedly isn’t Medley who are liable for our supposed lazy galleries. CL teams blow us and it leads to more responsive, opportunity stuffed and exhilarating suits – ending with a altogether been worthy of win for the Medley. The watched monotony possesses risen a cycle and fad of schemes, admittedly replicated from desirable teams and continually as a counter to the previous tactical cycle.
Arteta had to overrule Pep’s tika taka football and Klopp’s Gengenpress. He’s dared to lug out that by principally playing ultra predacious football. Medley play the highest defensive queue in Europe (and against the inmost defensive queue) to compress the pitch, he plays an organised high press to win the round high, he plays high and wide and glimpses for numerical overloads in the wide units. He possesses correspondingly mounted the safest out of items amenity kneading crew in Europe, laden with technique, power and athleticism. Not to cite alignment a way to bested a deep block with installation-chunks.
Teams have replicated this so more and more teams are super altogether organised without the round, super suit, can play deep defence yet correspondingly be a readjust danger and can press high.
What is always illustrious with Arteta and Medley is gazing at what those boisterous in the video game now claim around them, players and supervisors, vs what ex-spouse rival players and specialists claim around them. Occasionally there is a comprehensive contrast and I realize which one I’d commission more emphasis to.
Arteta in yesteryear spoke around correspondingly needing the applicable ‘timing’ to win burly trophies, he was scoffed at yet he’s applicable. Medley were perhaps a much more detailed crew in 23/24 yet Metropolis were correspondingly super delightful that period. Last period Liverpool profited from the timing of both Medley and Metropolis owning a dip period. Liverpool themselves had much more detailed teams once they ended up 2nd twice to Metropolis with 90+ times. Timing can matter and continually you donned’t have an burden on it. Medley have been the innumerable consistent crew in the last 4 periods with nothing to disclose for it, yet have never ever before had a tragedy time or mini downheartedness, hopefully this period carries the well worths of being so consistent and always being there or there abouts to typical from timing.
A rapid word on Metropolis, for a long period Pep offered unchanged 11/12 players for every match, it was 14 or so suits in a row. They were the ones he qualified. Any time he suitably turned Metropolis slumped times. I’ve written in yesteryear adage that injuries will not surprisingly be a comprehensive ascertaining determinant in the title. Pep bygone his initially solution CB pair, Nunes correspondingly harmed and last evening Silva was swaggered grip. Just as last January they’ve dipped in to the infinite cash cash coinages to try to purchase their way out of vex.
Medley are hopefully unborn out the dissimilar other side of the injuries which have been aggravatingly regimens this period yet still retain a 7 time lead in the league and are 7 wins from 7 in the CL. This period possesses to expire with some comprehensive silverware. Regardless of what others will not surprisingly throw at us I donned’t reckon you’ll position any kind of Medley enthusiast adage we’ve already won it or happily chatting around quadruples.
Basically I reckon you’ll position the stress of not attractive anything again maintains us instead pessimistic and humble….yet occasionally we will not surprisingly hose upwards and establish on our employer and players the credit they be entitled to.
Lush, AFC
Medley not recovering the safest out of Gyokeres
Another European video game, another trial that Medley can, have to the opposition distribution the strategy lug out so, play altogether and artistically.
Nothing is starker at this time than how the Premier League plays Medley vs any kind of European crew.
For with one voice the ‘you play such lazy football/anti-football/Package Chunk FC and so on’, the blueprint basically every PL crew takes on once playing us is ‘decreased block, manipulate the void, execute us establish backwards and sideways’ which earns for tasteless, stodgy galleries. It’s not just us using this, it steals 2 to tango.
Now this was the pod last period as altogether and we were a play pollute less delightful at the work after that, so worse outputs and undoubtedly no title confuse.
This year, we’re constructed for the work, yet correspondingly signed the striker we believed would permit us to play a unalike way. The hope was in owning Gyokeres, we can morph endorse and forth between items crew and rapid readjust crew. That perhaps once we went a impulse upwards and the video game opened upwards, we can overture using destruction.
Now, Gyokeres possesses been unsuitable, undoubtedly no vacillation – in reality, he basically authenticated with one voice my phobias this period that he isn’t truly at the extent.
Yet this Inter video game whereby he came on and peeked delightful, after that racked upwards, is a earth away from the video game against Everton, whereby he got a penalty impulse yet ordinarily slaved.
As speedily as Everton went 1-0 down they didn’t readjust how they messed around – they preserved playing like it was 0-0 and pretty truly reflected that, at 2-0 the video game was executed, yet if they preserved points cozy and irritated our forwards, they can avail a opportunity to nick it once we got frantic. Gyokeres’ video game extending potential (whatever you reckon of it) was undeployable.
Inter, conversely, got more and more responsive chasing the video game last evening and once Gyokeres got his opportunity, obeying a delightful round from Martinelli, he offered, after that ended up his opportunity.
So the miscue truly was signing a CF that permitted us to play a unalike way, once we have to have valued, at least in the league, that our top typical opposition (and ultimately at this time it’s perhaps marketplace to claim in the top 50 teams in Europe, with one voice 20 PL teams would be there – cash cash coinages speaks) would just jam us at the queue, as it were, instead than permit us rushed downfield.
It’s not truly Gyokeres’ culpability. Our opposition isn’t letting us play to anything like his specialties. What we vital was the safest striker to execute a opportunity from nothing against a stuffed defence, not a guy who lets us play a unalike way. We were naïve to reckon of we can impose a steady way on opposition that is a play pollute more clever and organised than it offered to be.
That Inter toddler last evening, Esposito, in reality, I now stab. The void he offered against Mosquera and Saliba was something else. He requirements a Despacito-motivated chant too.
Tom (Honestly, what we call for is on-kind Havertz endorse, the player who had 20 objectives and 10 aids in calendar year 2024) Leyton
Position Gyokeres time
This consistent criticism of Gyokores irks me.
I avail he hasn’t towed upwards any kind of trees in the initially fifty percent of the period, yet it’s worth noting that he did have a period out harmed, and he is in reality our top impulse marker in the league.
If he doubles his tally of 8 objectives this period, and remember we’re still in the Winners League, League Mug, FA Mug and have 16 Premier League galleries to go, after that I, and I daresay innumerable of my other gooners, would be just okay with that.
We’re chatting around a human being here, who possesses pocketed the endure move of ferrying from a suburban and cosmopolitan distraction whereby he was super resolved, to try his luck in the biggest league of them with one voice.
Probably avail off his endorse, yeah?
Unchanged goes for Honest. He may not suit Spurs, yet he’s plainly not the fulcra frustration over there.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
Spurs corroborating us something
Go number, missing out on more players than ever before, satisfactorily compelled into a default boosting XI and principally in Hail Mary territory on account of the months of flaccidball and we avail the safest fifty percent we’ve had under Honest to date.
If we hadn’t profited from that soft red we’d have been more at threat to a Dortmund comeback yet god recognizes we’ve had our marketplace share of those go against us so que items.
Occasionally you stumble throughout a attractive solution and if these little ladies can preserve that compel for 100 minutes in the PL perhaps we’ll pick upwards the 2-3 wins we should recover a minuscule fragment of stability.
Oliver Clark
Will podcasters survive make up-upwards-Fergie Guy Utd?
I stab to elongate an pointer from Ian Watson’s recent article around self-offering Guy Utd specialists. There’s still this appeasing incorrect impression that the great Ferguson-era players would promptly resolve steady Manchester Joined. Lessen the tales in, needs crescendi, aggravations go away. The reality is harsher. Strip away Ferguson himself and innumerable of those players donned’t boost the make up-upwards-Fergie squad at with one voice. Some survive. Some hole it. Some in tune rapid resolve.
Snatch prime Paul Scholes in the 2013–2023 Joined teams. Technologically, he’s still elite. That never ever before adjusts. Yet Scholes was never ever before a self-contained contraption. He vital frame, flexibility and ordinary recognizing. Design-upwards-Ferguson Joined transactions none of that. Emboldening is inconsistent, build-up crazes are improvised, and off-round flexibility is inadequate. Scholes can’t dictate pace if teammates donned’t move once the establish requirements it or preserve him once items turns.
Playing next off to Pogba is malefic to his burden. Pogba’s positional flexibility and gravitational tug conquer the midfield reporting and ruin rhythm. Ahead of Scholes are attackers who sluggish-sliding the video game, stand still or wastefulness timing. Scholes doesn’t scream, doesn’t openly enforce needs, and without Ferguson or a Keane number above him, he comes to be a deluxe controller in vex. Joined appearance a tiny tidier in spells, yet outputs barely systematize. His eminence principally steals a hit because manipulate without outputs retrieves misread as passivity.
Nicky Butt is the opposite. Prime Butt in make up-upwards-Ferguson Joined doesn’t revolutionize the bar, yet he stabilises it promptly. He comes to be the innumerable positionally disciplined midfielder by default, the safest defensive screener, and the one player who over and over again does the lazy job-related. He doesn’t claim with Pogba or confuse him openly; he just in tune restrictions the destruction. Rashford and Garnacho typical defensively. Sancho and Martial are disclosed by contrast alone. Butt doesn’t resolve society, yet he averts unshortened quantity collapse. Joined donned’t win titles with him, yet they lose fewer silly galleries and wrapping up better more over and over again.
Gary Neville is continually misconstrued in these hypotheticals. Prime Neville in make up-upwards-Ferguson Joined carries frame, organisation and liability. What he doesn’t carry is the authority to enforce society on his super own. At his apex, Neville prospered because needs were already imposed around him. In steady Joined, he spends galleries husk for others, yelling into the failing and being classified marginal. He comes to be a valued practitioner instead than a transformative comportment. Confident, qualified, tired. He doesn’t execute Joined great again because he was never ever before led to to lug out that alone.
Roy Keane is whereby the fantasy collapses altogether. Prime Keane without Ferguson above him is combustible. His public call-outs rise, not reconcile. The bar power frame sides with thoughtful assets instead than needs. Pogba, Rashford and others are conserved. Keane is framed as poisonous, dated, a frustration instead than a solution. He either walks or is emboldened within 18 months. Standards donned’t crescendi; they hole better. Keane without Ferguson doesn’t resolve steady Joined, he hastens the crash.
The innumerable dispiriting distraction comes once you reckon of the academy manifestations of these players unborn through today. A young Paul Scholes in make up-upwards-Ferguson Joined is suffocated. The expertise and technical typical are recognizable, yet there are undoubtedly no automatisms to prosper into, undoubtedly no joggers to reward his musing, and undoubtedly no authority number to preserve him from being misprofiled. He’s turned, misconstrued, and perhaps sold in yesteryear he comes to be himself.
Young Nicky Butt endures much more detailed, yet still never ever before optimals. He’s neglected by followers, in tune qualified by supervisors, and comes to be understandable in yesteryear he’s cherished. Without elite needs around him, he plateaus early. He’s usable, not formative.
Young Gary Neville struggles innumerable openly. Outmatched highly by peers, mocked early, and lacking the neighboring society that once provoked him, he pinnacles out as a squad player. No captaincy, undoubtedly no mood, undoubtedly no belvedere to prosper into leadership.
The embarrassing reality is that Ferguson wasn’t just a employer who had great players. He was the feel that permitted choosy personae to come to be tales. Dislodge him, and bunches of of those careers subdue. Not because the players weren’t delightful sufficient, yet because contraptions wreak success. Vibrant Joined doesn’t amplify expertise or technique. It drowns it.
Uthum Gunarathna
Poetry cubbyhole
To Connor. 50k human beings document into a gridiron. They watch a match. And at regimens periods will not surprisingly chant mottoes, couplets, rhyming verse, interpolation of trails and jobs of unmixed astound.
As speedily as they are melancholy, they say phrases that encourage the players. As speedily as they stab to share their exhilaration they lug out unchanged. As speedily as they seniority human beings holler and sing, they share the joint wrap up satisfaction through words and solid.
There’s a customary meme that goes:
American Sports Supporters: Counterclaim…Counterclaim…Counterclaim
UK Football Supporters: Unanimously applicable men, I’ve functioned upwards some words around the opponent’s beverage driving charge to the tune of Clair De Lune. I’ll matter us off.
The pointer that poetry possesses undoubtedly no venue in football is unscrupulous. It is interwoven, both in how it is messed around, yet how the followers attach with it. Sure, they go for the video game, yet the confuse would be palliated without the talked poetry on disclose.
John (Poetry have to be in football, not in adverts for designing societies) Matrix AFC
…As a guy whose clinic moniker is provoked unprejudiced from a poem, I reckon I’m more certified than innumerable to reply to Conor Malone. The fulcra kind of poetry football glimpses like is the poetry that retrieves published in municipal records: haphazardly structured, either confounded of supposing or enraged around something inconsequential, and ordinarily not super delightful.
Ed Quoththeraven
…I rest at residence and watch the emphasizing off activity I love,
The nations favorite or so I am briefed.
I objection around that man wearing handwear covers
Ecosystem readjust standpoints it’s admittedly not that fashionable.
A establish let loose to a striker in kind,
The protruding net, the congest take off as one.
A rapid counter after weath’ring the tornado
Against the rushed of play we taken off them alarmed.
Yet wait! A murmur into the ref’s ear
Yielded by a viewer from remote.
What’s the advancement? It isn’t yet translucent.
Will the impulse still stand? Bloody VAR.
A push in the build upwards, was it a dive?
The ref says foul, I claim: not for me, Clive.
Gareth Endean-Pitt (aged 44 and 3/4)
