With great power comes great responsibility.
And that is the case with Mikel Arteta currently as Arsenal sit bottom of the Premier League table.
The Gunners manager is not only the fall guy for the results on the pitch, but also what the club are doing off of it.
Arteta was promoted from head coach to first-team manager in September 2020 so that he would be working alongside technical director Edu, rather than underneath him.
The decision was scrutinised at the time given Arteta had only been in the role for less than a year.
And Arsenal's struggles last season as they finished outside the European places for the first time in 25 years has only amplified that pressure.
Did Arsenal make a mistake in promoting Mikel Arteta to first team manager? Comment below
Arsenal CEO Vinai Venkatesham was confident Arteta was ready for the step up and his partnership with Edu would turn out to be a fruitful one.
He said: “Edu and Mikel working together to head up the first team operation.
"So in terms of how that will work, going forward Mikel will join a really strong team with Edu and they'll be working really, really closely together to manage all the other elements of our football operations that are so important, whether that is analysis, recruitment, high performance or medical, they'll be looking after those areas together.
"And they'll also together be responsible for our technical recommendations, whether that's players that we're going to buy, whether that's players that we're going to sell, whether that's players that we're going to loan.”
It's a lot to take on for Arteta given his lack of experience and the huge rebuild the club are facing at the moment, hence why the decision was criticised when it was announced.
The general consensus was that the Spaniard was biting off more than he could chew and that he needed to give his full attention to matters on the pitch.
Chelsea, on the other hand, are one club that have reaped the rewards from having clear designated roles as Thomas Tuchel operates as head coach, while director Marina Granovskaia deals with signings and has been responsible for adding the likes of Kai Havertz, Thiago Silva, Timo Werner, Ben Chilwell and Romelu Lukaku to the club's ranks.
It's a system that is producing results as the Blues were able to win the Champions League despite Tuchel arriving at Stamford Bridge midway through the season.
And the German insists he loves the simplicity of just having to focus on one job, instead of juggling multiple roles.
[It has] made a huge simplicity for me here because it has been only about coaching,” he said. “No second thoughts about bringing somebody in or letting somebody go. I embrace the simplicity. I hope I can continue to live like this on the job. Because it is pure fun, very exciting. [It’s] very pure, the feeling I have right now.”
“I have zero ambition to ruin this atmosphere — not for myself, nor for anybody else,” Tuchel said. “Do we have some ideas [about] how to improve the squad? Yes, we do. But will we fight about it? No.”
