Terribly paced, poorly developed, an abundance of glitz and glamour but no substance to be found, kind of like this Arsenal team.
If you aren’t a Arsenal fan then its a real struggle to get through this documentary that shows us the highs and lows of last season. Within the first episode we have blitzed passed 4 games, the transfer window and the new players barely get an introduction.
Cinematically its a failure as it feels to grasp your attention or make you care about these people and their struggles. Anything involving Josh Kroenke seems blatantly staged and unnatural, at most some of the interviews with Ramsdale and Tavares are fun but too little in a series that seems to be moving at such a fast pace as if it needs to catch a flight or something.
There is never a buildup or rest to allow the viewer to soak in the environment and the emotions, its dull and monotonous with games going by quick and fast and the sole motive being “Hey We needed to release another All or Nothing so we did it”.
It’s the worst Arsenal group I have ever before seen in my life,” bleats one fan demanding Arteta’s head.
Cut to Arteta in the pre-match altering area trying to awaken the soldiers like Henry V at Agincourt. Some managers utilize the “hairdryer” (Alex Ferguson). Others kick stuff (Neil Warnock). Arteta does not roll by doing this, but instead opts for a pep talk that manages to be both touching and also baffling.
Initially, he informs the players that, when he was a kid, he had Spain’s initial open-heart surgical treatment. The lesson he draws from this is that there is a parallel between high-performance groups and the team of medics that saved his life– both are encouraged by love of what they do. Bukayo Saka as well as Ainsley Maitland-Niles, naturally, look empty, as if they are wondering: are we intended to be heart cosmetic surgeons in this example? Because, truthfully, that appears a bit of a stretch.
After that Arteta attracts a chart on the white board to show his emotional standing after the 5-0 trouncing by Man City. He positions a dot far below the X axis. “That was me,” he says. “Dead. I had worries. I had insecurity. I had the media that was killing me.” It would certainly be unfair (though not ridiculous) to suggest that Alexandre Lacazette’s expression states: “Oh dear. The poor old chap’s lost it.”
But, simply when you believe that Arteta, like some supply educator out of his depth, is losing the group, he does something wonderful. He puts one more dot over the X axis and does some ornamental twiddles around it. That is his emotional status currently. You see, he claims, he has been cheered up in the past week by his players’ uniformity as well as defiance in spite of a string of beats. What could have been the end for him has actually come to be, he states, “the best week of my football job … I want to thank you individuals: ‘Thanks’.”.
Then Arteta adds words to reveal he is more Gareth Southgate than José Mourinho. As all employers must be. “The last thing I wish to do is to blame you in tough minutes. My duty. I take the crap.” Exactly how could they not defeat Norwich after such a pep talk?
Its the Arteta show, its a product and less of a true documentary but I guess for the fans it could mean more as for a neutral its a real slog to get through.
