Arsenal’s former head of football, Raul Sanllehi, who played a major role in recruiting Mikel Arteta in 2019, believes the club have made a few mistakes with him since he left.
He told The Athletic: “They have betrayed the model a little bit now. By going back to the manager at the top, that is a mistake, but that is their mistake. I would have not allowed that to happen. But that’s fine, it is working so far for them.
“I do not agree when clubs call the first-team coach ‘the manager’. First-team coach is first-team coach, that is enough. Nowadays, the workload is overwhelming, and I need him to concentrate on the first team.
“Anything that distracts you from that is not your responsibility — travel arrangements, the pitch, salary budget, medical department. We will get other people to do that. The first-team coach is short-term oriented — just win tonight’s game.”
Arteta, to his credit, has done a lot of good work at Arsenal since being given full responsibilities and utmost power to make major decisions as the manager. He’s helped them have a brilliant start to this season, as they’re sitting on top of the Premier League table and won 7 out of their 8 games in all competitions so far.
