It is in no doubt that Arsenal are going through tough times at the moment but at times like these it is important for fans to be watchful – careful what we wish for – as snap decisions could plunge Arsenal deeper into a hole they will find hard to crawl out from.
Following the sacking of Tottenham Hotspur manager, Mauricio Pochettino, some Arsenal fans have started calling for Arsenal’s hierarchy to give signing the 47-year-old Argentine manager a thought. As much as I agree that Unai Emery should be booted out of Arsenal, I can think of hundred reasons why Pochettino is not, and never should be, an option.
The thought of having a failed manager come in to take over from another failed manager goes to show how much the club has fallen in recent days, with the fans so desperate for a change that they don’t mind if it is from the frying pan to the fire.
Sadly, the talk of whether Pochettino should take over from Emery is all over social media and this one will linger on for a while.
While we continue to debate whether Pochettino is better than Emery for Arsenal, I think it is best to look at the mistakes the Argentine made while in charge of Tottenham Hotspur.
Winning wasn’t his thing
It would seem like Pochettino isn’t in the habit of winning. In fact, with 18 losses, he has lost more games than any other Premier League team in 2019 across all competitions.
Now when you give that a thought, you might want to ask yourself if that is the kind of manager you want in charge of Arsenal. Even Emery wasn’t as bad. No one was. That in itself is taking the club closer to the relegation zone than the top four.
Additionally, the last time Tottenham won away from home in the league was against relegated Fulham last January and even that took an injury-time winner.
Poor decision making
Pochettino made a lot of mistakes. From player sales and benching a fan favourites to using players in bad form, a lot went wrong with his decision making at Tottenham that he didn’t address.
One of the biggest mistakes Pochettino made was selling Kieran Tripper in the summer with the hopes that Serge Aurier was going to be a good enough replacement.
One can agree that one of the problems that brought the downfall of Pochettino was not having the best right-back in place and being unable to find a solution to the problem.
Another issue is that of Lucas Moura and how frustrated fans had been at the manager for not using him. The Brazilian was the hero against Ajax last year in the Champions League semi-final, but then started the final as a substitute.
Furthermore, Eriksen has been in horrible form this season but continued to get the nod from Pochettino, despite the other options he had available to him. One other thing that has caused issues is Pochettino’s tendency to let too much time pass before making substitutions.
Conclusion
With the mistakes Pochettino made at Tottenham, he is not in the right frame of mind to manage Arsenal at the moment. That doesn’t take anything away from him being a great manager but with where Arsenal are right now and with where he is coming from, I’d rather not have him at Arsenal compounding existing issues.
