Mikel Arteta has admitted he reflected on his position after missing out on the title last season.
The Arsenal boss saw his team fade towards the end of the campaign, and having led for so long, they were overtaken by Man City who won the league by 5 points.
Asked how that played out for him mentally, the 41 year old was honest enough to reveal he questioned himself, but ultimately came to the conclusion that was up for the fight again.
“The first few weeks, very tough,” he said.
“The first thing you have to do is look in the mirror and understand – is there something that you should have done better or differently? If that is the case then learn from it.
“And then judge yourself. Are you still the right person to drive the club, the team, forwards in the way that you want and do you have that energy and that belief that you want to do it?’.
“It took a big reflection, but the answer is yes and I feel with a lot of energy and positiveness.
“I don’t like losing, and it takes me a while, and that was a tough moment.”
While there has been a lot of focus on squad depth as a key difference between us and the title winners, Arteta made it clear he felt there were other factors involved too.
“Momentum”, he said. “I think in key moments when it should have gone one way – and in many ways in the season it went for us – it didn’t go for us.
“And it was 1-2-3, and we lost momentum. They took momentum, and that shifted very much.
“Squad depth was a factor, and it did play a part in certain moments, but I think we had games that we didn’t win, especially those three draws that we had. We should have won those games, we had enough to win them, and it was in our hands.
“There were key moments where we weren’t ruthless enough or clinical enough, or we didn’t have the luck, or we made mistakes, we have to recognise that as well.”
No doubt it’s something he’s made clear to his players ahead of the new Premier League season which begins next Saturday, and squad depth has certainly been addressed this summer.
Let’s see if there’s evidence of that in our performance.
Depth I’m sure was a factor, but it seems a facet of Arteta’s management that he tries to focus players onto things that are in their control rather than blaming external factors
Good spot. He’s constantly doing that and it’s such a positive attitude.
Hmmm …we should have won those games…. sort of explains why he almost shifted TP6….the mistakes…The reason we paid 105m….same reason timber came to back up Saliba….The chinks in our armour….then there’s the avoidable mistakes from Ramsdale….I still think we’re pushing our luck with saka though…we would have to change our style at the moment to cope with a forced absence if we’re not careful…
Agreed with each & every point, however come the end of May 2024 if we finish second it will be difficult to accept any sort of excuse.
The premier league is the most competitive Football league in the world, every team has strengthened, Its going to be even harder next year, finishing second would still be a huge achievement even if we have to aim higher. Cups play a part too, make a good accounting of ourselves, get to a final and win a trophy would be the ideal
If fans wants to put markers in the sand as to what is success and what isn’t, fair enough. I don’t need an ultra competitive mentality to be a football fan. That’s not my job. And my mentality or standards will categorically not effect the team in any way whatsoever. So I can freely say this. I am so enjoying watching and experiencing this Arsenal team that I don’t actually care too much about silverware. For me, the victory of this Arsenal side is that I can’t fucking wait to watch them play and I love every second of the… Read more »
You’re right from a fan’s point of view. But each time Arroz plays, it will cost almost one million. The attempt to succeed should be a must.
I promise I’m not being deliberately obtuse.
But I genuinely don’t know what this sentence means :
“But each time Arroz plays, it will cost almost one million”.
Arroz is spanish for Rice. So I think he’s saying Rice will only play around 105 games? Odd comment.
Ah, did not recognise the translation. Well, Rice has a 5 year deal and we play around 50 games a season. He cost £105m so by my chimpanzee maths he’d cost around 400k a game. But then maybe HC is adding on wages which is estimated to be around 250k pw. So that’s 13m a season. 13m over 5 seasons is 65m. 65m divided by 250 (games in five seasons) is 260k a game. So add the 400k for the fee and the 260k for the wages and Rice (Arroz) is on an estimated 660k a game. Plenty of variables… Read more »
We’d have to also factor in the amount of merchandise we sell with his name on it and delete that from the total.
Declan con deneiro?
It was the last sentence that confused me. It seems to me that setting a record purchase for a British player that our rivals at City wanted is attempting to succeed.
Well said. And I’d just like to add to that, the enjoyment of seeing the fan base so unified, fired up and behind this young team is success in my eyes too.
What does that statement mean? It’s devoid completely of any context and drips with entitlement. So from your view, if we don’t win the league we get rid of the manager.
So last year if we were 2nd or 3rd the whole season and have gotten the second place on the last day everyone was cheering.
With our resources, we clearly pushed our boundaries last year, and we pushed it a lot. It was no one’s mistake.
As apposed to MA who says it was down to those three games, I think it was possible to flop long time before that. I just happened very late and by then we were all dreaming that it will go our way in all games.
Infinite possibilities. He chose the moments that happened.
He did chose the three moments, but that means blaming three individuals. What if Nelson’s shot was not in? And so many other ifs. We did very good, not doubt and kudos to MA and all palyers, we enjoyes and are thankful, but we should accept that if it was a trophy at the end, it was a lucky one.
I get the focus on the 3 games. But worse for me was the complete lack of a performance in the Man City loss. We just rolled over. After seeing us so strong earlier in the season that was hard to take.
Yeah yeah we get it, you don’t like losing…
New season, let’s attack it harder and more aggressively than the last – let’s fogging go boys!!
Estandards are rising.
City are a modern day behemoth
We’ll run from top to bottom with unlimited resources.
I for one can’t wait to take the title from them. LEZZZZ DO DIS!
Lesssgoooooo
Lego
All empires fall, eventually… would be pretty nice for us to be the ones to knock them down though
Well, Arsenal have a history of knocking teams off their perch (Liverpool in the eighties, Manchester in the nineties)
I think we had big enough squad to play for just one competition. A little bit inexperienced, young group, that is going to be better in itself this year. But competing in the CL at the same time is a different story.
i think we deserved every point we got last season, and almost every match result was fair. in cases it was 50/50 we more often than not won the game. for me that’s having a lot of luck, in a season you’ll probably have unfair referee decisions screw up your game or a lucky long ball from the opponent snatch a win from you. we didn’t have that. and if you speak about momentum, we had that city game postponed which allowed us to build even more momentum and establish ourselves as contenders. i think we can’t complain about much… Read more »
Winning is very demanding. Guardiola even suggests to his players to do the intimate things with the wife or girlfriend earlier in the evening so that they have an undisturbed long sleep. Not invented by me. I think it was Clichy who revealed that. If you didn’t know, enjoy it instead of killing the messenger.
Or husband or boyfriend?
I’m not really sure what Arteta’s problem was. He’d already improved Arsenal significantly, surely its just about continuing the process. Maybe its the knowledge that even with the recruitment City still have a deeper squad. Perhaps Arteta can’t see how to close the gap. But that’s true of every team in the premier league and it hasn’t stopped Klopp competing against City.
Off topic; We sell Trusty, who was Birmingham player of the season in the Championship, for 5 million pounds. Not sure if there’s any buy back or sell on clauses. Then you have Man Shitty who sell a 19 year old second string player, who I don’t think has any experience, for a total of 19 million euros, WITH first option buy back and sell on percentage clause. I thought this was pretty remarkable, and shows Edu and co have a lot to improve on outgoing transfers. Or is there maybe something I’m overlooking? Just thought it was pretty bonkers… Read more »
To Ajax, I may add. I mean the PL is flush with money and we get a misery 5 million.
The best you can do is only sell to the highest bidder.
Birmingham’s last game of the season was on May 8. We sold Trusty a couple of days ago. That’s three months that he has been on the market for sale and presumably nobody else made a higher bid than Sheffield United.
Thank you for stating the obvious facts of the situation. Supply/demand economics.
Personally I felt that the group we had last season over performed & they got us dreaming of the title again ! All in all what a fantastic season we had ! The togetherness & the connection with us the fans though was Artetas greatest achievement so far ! This season looks promising & we have signed quality but also players who look hungry !
For this year I’d just like us to looked at as “The Arsenal” an elite team with elite principles playing for us the fans ! Plus the Premier Title obvs !!!