Even the Liverpool top brass knows how hard it is to assess managers. It took a custom screening process using a wide variety of criteria to select Arne Slot as the man to replace Jurgen Klopp — and it would be very interesting to learn how Mikel Arteta would score in a similar assessment, with new comments from Riccardo Calafiori bringing him under the microscope.
The Arsenal manager’s tenure is almost uniquely difficult to judge. Is he the man who has finally fired the Gunners back into regular Premier League contention, or has he just happened to be the one at the helm at a time when the owners have released the handbrake on transfer spending?
The answer may well be somewhere between the two, but Richard Hughes and Michael Edwards last summer were determined to try and separate as best as possible a coach’s achievements from all of the other factors in team success. The numbers led them to Slot, who has so far looked every inch the ideal successor to Klopp.
He is on the brink of securing the Premier League title, the primary goal which has long eluded Arteta at Arsenal. And recent remarks from Calafiori arguably add to a creeping sense that the Spaniard still has something to prove in terms of belonging at the very top level.
“One day on the phone, he sent me some photos of my family and asked me to say what each member of the family meant to me,” Calafiori revealed, per Corriere dello Sport. “Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.”
It must be said that Calafiori was using this as a positive example of Arteta’s man-management, and indeed one of the factors that convinced him to join. But it is certainly unique to be sending a prospective signing pictures of their own nearest and dearest — and would surely have been enough to make some players run a mile.
As an isolated example, it could probably be ignored, or perhaps chalked up as something that has got a little lost in translation. But Arteta has routinely shown himself to be something of a gimmicky manager.
He hired pickpockets to rob Arsenal players in a bid to make a point about remaining alert. He brought a lightbulb into the dressing room — that one was something about energy and electricity.
And then there was the time when he blared You’ll Never Walk Alone through the speakers at the Arsenal training ground to prepare his players for the Anfield atmosphere. His side proceeded to lose 4-0.
This all has the unmistakeable whiff of David Brent. Or perhaps of Brendan Rodgers.
(Image: Sathire Kelpa/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
The former Liverpool boss also exposed some of his methods to the world in a much-mocked documentary. Rodgers’ tricks included revealing some envelopes, which supposedly contained the names of players who would let the team down that season.
Rodgers, of course, is a very good manager, and came close to the Premier League title himself. But that owed much to the brilliance of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge — and time has shown that the Northern Irishman has never quite been able to bridge that last gap to the very highest levels.
By contrast, Slot has been strictly no-nonsense in his short time at Liverpool to date. Without any of the smoke and mirrors employed by Arteta or Rodgers, he has marched straight to the summit of the hardest league in the world.
Arteta might get there one day — he still has a remote chance of doing it this season, and denying Slot a debut title. But despite almost six seasons at the helm, it remains difficult to get a handle on just how good he really is, with the latest remarks from Calafiori adding to the picture of an eccentric coach.
