Mikel Arteta will NEVER be Jurgen Klopp

By the dimly lit backdrop of their press room, Mikel Arteta cut a bizarre figure. Pressed on Arsenal’s use of the ‘dark arts’ - football writer-speak for the collective acts of time wasting, purposeful fouling, surrounding the referee and other unsportsmanlike behaviour - the manager smiled.

“No comment.” he diplomatically responded, before immediately following up with, “I’ve been there before… I was [at Man City] for four years.”

“What does that mean?” responded a journalist, clearly bemused.

“I have all the information, so I know”, was Arteta’s reply.

The strange exchange came off the back of a long weekend where Arsenal dragged themselves to a 2-2 draw with current Premier League holders Man City, spending the entire second half with 10 men sitting behind the ball to suffocate City, who inevitably scored a 98th-minute equaliser.

Read more: Arne Slot issues 'IMPORTANT' Federico Chiesa verdict after first start for Liverpool vs West Ham

The game was a noteworthy iteration in the Premier League’s newest rivalry. Manchester City, the now-dominant world beaters with a squad of stars and 'the best manager the game has ever seen', and Arsenal, runners up in the past two seasons with a young, exciting team and a manager who spent three years as an assistant to his now-managerial counterpart, Pep Guardiola. The master vs. the protege, the big boys vs. the young guns, Manchester vs. London, north vs. south - it has all the hallmarks of a rivalry for the ages.

And yet, as Arsenal dirged their way to the full-time whistle at the weekend, one thing became evident above all else: Mikel Arteta is no Jurgen Klopp, and this Arsenal team are no Liverpool.

Klopp vs. Pep

A few seasons ago, Liverpool vs. Manchester City was the preeminent rivalry in English football. In 2017-18, Liverpool knocked out City’s Centurion squad in the Champions League quarter-finals 5-1 over two legs on their way to a Final appearance. In 2019-19, Liverpool recorded the third-highest points total in top-flight English football history and yet fell one point short of the Mancunians. In 2019-20, City were dismantled 3-1 at Anfield with a thunderstorm of a performance as Liverpool walked to an 18-point-clear Premier League title. Whilst injuries derailed the 2020-21 season, a pair of 2-2 draws and one single point is all that City pipped the Reds to the title in 21-22.

From then on the Arsenal challenge started; a 4-point league loss in 22-23, including an embarrassing 4-1 defeat to City at home in late April that year, and then a 2-point runners-up performance last year following a 0-0 in Manchester in which neither team looked like they were trying to score.

Five Years In

Arteta has been in charge of this Arsenal team since December 2019, just under five years. His title challenges began two and a half years into his reign. Their main European adventures in that time have been a Europa League semi-final defeat to Villarreal and a Champions League quarter-final seeing off by Bayern Munich. The only silverware the side have lifted is an FA Cup from his first season new-manager bounce. In that same time, Jurgen Klopp had delivered a Premier League, a Champions League, three European final appearances and the aforementioned third-highest English points total ever to Merseyside.

But trophies aren’t everything. You have to look at where teams were and where they are now, who was in their team and the style of football they play. Fine! The season before Arteta took over, the side had finished 5th and reached the Europa League final. Their squad consisted of Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Alexandre Lacazette, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan - all players who were performing or would go on to perform at the highest level. Not that Arteta cared for this, mind you, he was happy to kick Ozil and Aubameyang out of the door the first chance he could get. The season before Klopp took over, Liverpool had finished 6th. Klopp took over a side lacking Steven Gerrard for the first time in 20 years, fielding an attack including Christian Benteke, a midfield with Joe Allen and a defence with Mamadou Sakho.

It was bad. Liverpool had to spend money if they wanted to compete and they did just that. As a result, we can’t besmirch Arsenal for the near £700m they have spent in Arteta’s reign. But if you spend the third-highest amount of money in the world under your time as manager - and the 26th most of all time in a criminally short five years, by the way - you’re surely hoping you’d have more to show for it than the same amount of silverware as Roberto Martinez’s Wigan Athletic, Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United, or Michael Laudrup’s Swansea City.

But perhaps all could be forgiven if it felt like the time was now. If - as Jurgen Klopp did - you were starting your title rivals in the eye and going punch-for-punch. If you had Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain firing one in from 25 yards as you go 3-0 up in half an hour on the best team in the world, maybe Klopp and Arteta could have some common ground for the comparisons to sit on. But they don’t. Instead, Mikel is playing with 5 centre-backs and defensive midfielders, ordering his players to lie, cheat and steal their way to damp squib title races and early exits from Europe.

Do the comparisons hold?

Jurgen Klopp departed in the pantheon of managers both at Liverpool and in the English game, leaving the club in an amazingly healthy state. Liverpool have one of the best goalkeepers in the world, a homegrown right-back unparalleled in modern football, maybe the greatest centre-back the Premier League has ever seen, a young midfield that shows amazing progression, and one of the best attackers to ever play the game. Beyond that, Klopp’s replacement Arne Slot only needs to win the FA Cup this season to match what Mikel Arteta has managed in five Arsenal years.

The prevailing wisdom seems to be that if Arteta wins the league this season then he has reached Jurgen Klopp’s level. It seems much more reasonable to suggest that Arne Slot might surpass Mikel’s level within a mere nine months.