Happiness Index Report: March 8, 2020

by Scott Willis

Time for another round up of how Arsenal fans feel about the state of the club. Since I last asked about things Arsenal have played 7 matches, winning 5 of those and collecting a pretty impressive 2.3 points per match in the league (87 point pace!), won two FA cup matches while advancing to the quarterfinals but they also got dumped out of the Europa League when they really should have gone through. 

GENERAL ARSENAL APPROVAL RATING:

Even with being knocked out of Europe, fans are happy with how the club is doing right now. I asked a new question this week about how people feel about the direction of the club and things are similar in that people are positive about the direction of the club.

How things have changed overall over the 3 surveys. 

ARTETA APPROVAL RATING:

There aren't any complaints about Mikel Arteta.

THE MANAGEMENT DUO:

Raul still is still the second least popular figure among Arsenal management (only behind the owners) but fans' opinions didn't really get worse from him compared to the last survey. 

Edu is starting to see his numbers trend more positive with people starting to move off of neutral stance as he has been at the club longer. 

Interestingly people are generally happy with the overall talent level of the club but they have questions about the people who are leading the recruitment efforts.

Where people are not happy is with the ownership of Kronkie Sports and Entertainment, I am actually surprised that 6% of respondents showed any level of approval with KSE.

THE PHASES OF PLAY:

The approval rating for the attack improved quite a bit from the last time I asked. Arsenal did score 13 goals in the time between surveys averaging 1.9 goals per match, which was a significant improvement over the 1.3 that they had in the last survey period so maybe that explains things.

For the midfield, things are still generally mixed and there hasn't been much change since the start.

In defense, things have shown steady improvement. Fans are still generally negative about the Arsenal defense but the trend is very positive. That is also reflected in the statistics for goals allowed, Arsenal allowed just 0.7 goals per match in the 7 matches between surveys and in general I think that they have looked like that isn't a fluke. 

Happiness Index Report: January 28, 2020

by Scott Willis

The second update to how you all as fans are feeling about Arsenal are ready to go. We got a few less responses but still have a sample of over 500 respondents, which while not a perfect sample is better than nothing and hopefully it will grow as time goes on.

With this being the second version we also have a baseline from two weeks ago to compare to, so that will be interesting to add as well. Without further bloviating lets get into the numbers.

General Arsenal Approval Rating:

The plurality of respondents still feel positive about Arsenal however there is a significant drop from 67% approval to just 41%. In the intervening time Arsenal collected 3 draws, haven't really done much in the transfer window (not even really any sexy transfer rumors) and perhaps some of the honeymoon period of a new coach is wearing off (but perhaps not looking at Arteta's approval rating).

Arteta Approval Rating:

Arteta is still very popular with the Arsenal fans. He too has seen some decline with his approve a great deal declining from 86% to 61% but overall he is still at 98% approval which is still about as good as is possible from a head coach. 

The Management Duo:

Raul and Edu have both seen their numbers drop quite a bit since the last survey. Raul has gone from a plurality approving of the job he is doing to a majority disapproving of the work that he is doing. I can't exactly point to a reason why things turned so much in the last couple of weeks (maybe transfers?, general lack of a team building plan?, he's the face of the management team and getting the blame going towards the Kroenke's?) but Raul now has more people that "Dispprove a great deal" than he has in the combined "Approve a great deal" and "Approve a moderate amount". This will be an interesting one to watch as time goes on.

Edu still is overall neutral, but as people form an opinion people are breaking towards disapproving. He still seems to have a secondary role on things to Raul and maybe that is why he isn't getting quite as much blame.

The Phases of Play:

The approval of either the players or the style (I don't specify in the question) is another area where things have gone south quickly. The Attack went from wildly popular to just a plurality approving. The negative feelings have gone from just 3% to 24% in the space of two weeks. Maybe people had different expectations for what Arteta would be able to do with the Arsenal attack but whatever it is, people have turned pretty quickly on it.

In midfield it is more of the same. I am pretty confused about this one as well as things haven't really changed much and honestly I think that you can see much better structure in the way that the team sets up and while there hasn't been massive improvement in the attack, there has been noticeable improvements in midfield control turning into less shots allowed.

The defense, well everyone knows that is a problem and there isn't really much change since the last time.

That's it for this time. After the next set in a couple weeks we can start to see if some trends emerge! 

Happiness Index Report: January 8, 2020

by Scott Willis

I asked people to fill out their opinions on how they felt things were going at Arsenal earlier this week, now it is time to take a look at the results.

First let's take a look at the general feeling that people have for the team:

I don't have the data for it (thus why I started this) but I bet a month ago things would be vastly different. Currently two thirds of Arsenal fans who participated in this survey feel positive about Arsenal, breaking that down a little further 6% felt very positive about Arsenal currently. 10% of Arsenal fans had a negative view of the team but less than 1% had a very negative view. In general, I would feel comfortable saying that the early results and performances under Mikel Arteta have made people feel a lot better about the direction of the team.

The head Coach:

I am sure there are still holdouts who aren't sold on Arteta for some reason or another but those people didn't get included in the nearly 600 people who ended up taking this survey. Overall only 0.5% of respondents don't approve of the job that Arteta is doing. This is for sure the honeymoon stage and unless things go perfect it is unlikely that he will be able to have near unanimous support among fans.

Head Of Football

Arsenal's Head of Football, Raul Sanllehi does not share the same level of support as the head coach. If we looked at this following the summer transfer window maybe things would have been more favorable for him but the narrative that came out during the last months of the Unai Emery reign was that he was still a believer in him (going so far as looking to extend his contract in the summer) and it wasn't until almost all hope of top 4 was gone that he seemed to be convinced that a change was needed. From my own perspective, this plus still being uncertain about his transfer style of agent contacts has me on the fence about him. The fall from "Don Raul" has been pretty swift.

Director of Football:

Edu is the second newest member of the Arsenal management team but he has the least publicly defined role (besides looking great in a suit for official club duties) and that shows in these ratings. This will be an interesting one to watch as time goes on.

Arsenal's Attack:

This isn't a surprising result to me, Arsenal's talent is heavily concentrated in the attacking side of the ball and the early results from Arteta is that he is going to do things to unleash them. I do have some sympathy for the 3% who have negative feelings about Arsenal's attack because even though things look like they are going to be moving in the right direction, this team still feels below where we have seen Arsenal in the recent past.

Arsenal's Midfield:

I was a little surprised by this one. I am in general fairly positive about Arsenal's midfield and I think that the early results of Arteta show that their is talent there if it isn't misallocated and played out of position. Maybe the plurality of people are talking a wait and see approach to this. I do think that this will be an area that Arsenal will need to strengthen in the summer but there are talented players here.

Arsenal's Defense:

That the defense has the lowest ratings is not surprising. This is the biggest weakness in the current team and has been for a number of years, probably going back to when Mertesacker and Koscielny were in their primes. 17% of respondents had a very negative view on Arsenal's defense, so to get some easy gains going from a disaster at the back to just bad would be helpful. Some strengthening in January, even it was just a loan, would probably also be welcome according to Arsenal fans.

That's it for this week. Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey. I will look to do another one of these in 2 weeks and then on a continuing basis to be able to track the trends. I might add some questions along recruitment and maybe a couple other things but i still want to keep this to a quick survey to encourage as many as people as possible to fill it out.