’Tis the season to be jolly! Well, not if you’re Mikel Arteta. Indeed, ’tis the season to be anything but jolly as far as the Spaniard is concerned. Jolly careful, perhaps.
Arteta’s Arsenal are in a pre-Christmas slump the likes of which has never been seen at the Emirates – or indeed Highbury for that matter.
Eight domestic games without victory, including defeats to rivals Tottenham and relegation-threatened Burnley, and most recently the exiting of the EFL Cup to Manchester City, has the Gunners in 15th place on Christmas Day.
This day is usually significant. Fifteen times has the team top at Christmas gone on to win the Premier League title, while those in the bottom three are expected to still be there come the end of the season.
Arsenal’s league position tells a worrying truth: that they are miles away from competing for the European spots, let alone the title. The aspirations of a club that were slowly deflating in the final days of Arsene Wenger’s reign have hit rock bottom here.
And while the Gunners have stood by their man until now, defeat to Chelsea on Boxing Day could well force their hand. After all, the humiliation of potentially dropping to 17th in the table while losing to yet another high-flying London rival could be too much to bear. Unable to sack the players, the club can save face by ditching the manager here and now, before plunging their communications team into PR overdrive with buzz words about a “fresh start” and “new direction” – something that will keep the fans happy, at least until the end of January.
And as harsh as it sounds, sacking the boss after a Boxing Day defeat is not unusual in the Premier League.
Why is Christmas so bad for managers?
One doesn’t want to accuse club chairman and owners of playing Scrooge at Christmas, but it feels particularly callous to ditch a manager shortly before or just after the Big Day.
Premier League post-Christmas sackings
- Gary Megson – Bolton, 30 December 2009
- Malky Mackay – Cardiff, 27 December 2013
- Neil Warnock – Palace, 27 December 2014
- Bob Bradley – Swansea, 27 December 2016
- Manuel Pellegrini – West Ham, 28 December 2019
After all, the festive fixture list can be viewed as something of a lottery. Within the span of 20 days your season’s fortunes can change dramatically – hardly a basis from which to decide whether or not to keep a manager.
But for some chairman it seems as though they wait for Christmas to pass specifically to do the deed.
Of the 390 Premier League managerial departures (including for those in a caretaker role), 48 have come in December – and a quarter of those after Christmas day.
Yet there is logic in the decision to ditch a boss at this time. The upcoming January transfer window often forces the hand of an owner – they don’t want to back the current manager with cash for new signings that the next boss will not want, while a pre-New Year’s vacancy with the promise of transfer funds is very attractive to applicants.
Just look at Thomas Tuchel’s dismissal at PSG on Christmas Eve this year.
What’s more, trying to find a new manager between the end of the November international break and the New Year is tricky, what with a heavily congested fixture schedule and relentless demands on the players. That period is usually the last roll of a cursed dice for the incumbent.
Once Christmas Day itself is over, the chairman or owner will rock up at the stadium on Boxing Day still stuffed with turkey, sherry and a great serving of optimism. Win this game and everything will be forgiven – ’tis the season indeed! But of course, form is form and the inevitable Boxing Day defeat is something our decision maker cannot stomach. The flush of anger tinted with last night’s port rises in his cheeks. The manager has to go.
This brutal sacking of the Premier League football manager has happened on a handful of occasions.
Cardiff’s billionaire Malaysian owner Vincent Tan ditched Malky Mackay on 27 December 2013 after a 3-0 Boxing Day loss to Southampton left the Bluebirds hovering over the relegation zone. A year later Neil Warnock lost his job at Crystal Palace – again following a Boxing Day defeat to Southampton – despite the club not having a successor lined up.
And in 2016 American Bob Bradley saw his 85-day reign in charge of Swansea unceremoniously come to an end following a Boxing Day loss to West Ham that left the Swans rooted to the foot of the Premier League with fellow strugglers Hull.
Swansea and Cardiff eventually went down, Palace stayed up. Indeed, another post-Christmas sacking – that of Manuel Pellegrini at West Ham on 28 December 2019 – resulted in their survival thanks to the arrival of David Moyes.
Would Arteta go?
So what does this mean for Arsenal? Ditching Arteta now would certainly signify the club is worried about relegation – an unfathomable event for an institution that has been in the top flight since the First World War.
But were the Spaniard to leave, it would at least give the Gunners something of a fresh start –although, as history shows, sacking the manager at Christmas is not a guaranteed route out of disaster.
In his post-match interviews recently, Arteta has expressed his frustration at how blunt his Gunners attack is. That is despite Arsenal spending £174m on their strike force.
Goals are a major issue for the boss but equally as concerning is a lapse defence and a discipline problem that has produced three red cards in 10 games.
Furthermore, who Arsenal would actually bring in to replace Arteta is just as big a headache for the board. Sourcing a replacement is difficult at the best of times but doing this during the festive period, in a pandemic, with the next fixture just around the corner, for a frugal club hierarchy that isn’t going to splash the cash on a new boss, seems almost impossible.
Arsenal, then, may be stuck with Arteta for the foreseeable, regardless of the Chelsea result.
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