In the second half of his pre-Wolves press conference, Mikel Arteta told his players not to feel sorry for themselves after a tough week stressing the need for perspective and the fact big occasions, even those resulting in difficult moments, are exactly what the club have been striving for over the last few years.
Here’s what he had to say…
On the need for perspective after a bad week…
I think this has to be there and this is what it gives everybody and ourselves in our talks and it’s that it’s testing your resilience and your ego. And again, if I take a newspaper and show it to my son, it’s seven days ago after Brighton, and seven days later against Bayern Munich talking about the same thing, people will think it’s three years ago. It’s the reality of what it is. But we have to live with it, that’s the beauty of it as well. On Saturday you can be home and you can be the happiest man ever and say, we have a real chance here, let’s go for it with the games to go, we have to make that happen, that’s our job.
On whether he’s found the words to explain the situation to the players and staff…
No, probably it’s not words. We need another moment like that, an opportunity to make it, because at the end it’s difficult to say something to make it. You have to have the experience now and overcome that barrier. Now we have a Herald, who is in the quarter-finals. For 14 years the Herald was somewhere else before and before that we were in the competition. We’re moving forward.
On the importance of putting pressure on City with a win…
What we are talking here that I like is [talk] that we win our games. This is the only thing that we can control, and the only thing that we are putting focus and energy in. Prepare the best possible way to go to Wolves and be better than them.
On keeping City on their toes…
That would be the concept. If we win we will put pressure on them because we will be on the top and they will have to win their game. We have to do what is our duty.
On it potentially taking 10 years to win the Champions League…
I don’t know, I don’t know how long it’s going to take, I have no clue. First of all, we have to earn the right to be in the competition again for another year and then we’re going to have to go stage by stage to see how we are. We were very close but the difference is Bayern were in it 20 years in a row. I know the margins are very important and sometimes there are details like that that we have to improve and we have to experience to be able to overcome that. I’m not going to tell anybody that next year we’ll get to the semi-finals, I don’t know. I think we’re close and I think we’re very enthusiastic. We can see how a club like Bayern behaved playing against us. That’s a lot of credit to us. Look what they did against you, I’ve not seen it from Bayern, behaving like this. Good. That’s something positive.
On the players having a difficult week…
I think the players and staff are very lucky to have the week that we have had. This is the week that we want and we have been seeking for many years to have at Arsenal. You have to deal with them. If you want to be in this position, you have to go through it. It is going to be tough against those opponents. The margins are minimal and you have to go to compete and try to be better than them. And maybe even if you are better, you don’t win. It can happen at home, against Bayern and against Villa. Are you ready to react to that? If not, you’re not ready to be living these kind of weeks. We want to be living these kind of weeks. The answer to the question is, is it difficult or tough? Don’t feel sorry for yourself, you want to be here, be prepared, because this is a possibility.
On his players now being focused on their one target…
Yeah, especially working like we have done for the last nine and a half months in this league. We deserve to be in the best state on Saturday to give ourselves the best chance.
On fatigue killing the excitement of a three-horse race…
I don’t know, I’m sure the players are going to squeeze every drop of energy and effort they can to make it as entertaining and as good as possible, I have no question about that. The task and the reward is that big. They will leave everything and I’m sure it will be a fascinating to the end of the season.
On the winner of the title being the team that drags itself over the line…
At the end it’s going to be about winning football matches, how you’re going to do it is a different story. It’s going to be down to who is best at winning football matches.
On a young squad meaning he has more to squeeze from his players than City and Liverpool…
That’s what we are doing every day. There is so much growth and there is still so much energy in this group, and especially what we are attempting to do. That’s not an understatement.
Hope the players can get their energy levels back up to a high level, will make a big difference. Rest, recuperation and desire are vital.
Arteta makes a very good point about how Bayern set up. They were afraid in both legs to go toe-to-toe, so they played on the counter-attack. They only pulled this off because of our mistakes in the first leg and wastefulness in the second leg. Yes they had injuries to attacking players but I do not think that was the main reason they set up that way in the second leg. It is a shame our possession in the first half of the second leg, and after they scored, was so sterile and we could not find a cutting edge.… Read more »
Interesting comment that Mikel makes about the ‘difficult week’ – and about it being, for better or worse (in this case!), a week we’ve all craved for so many seasons. I wrote about perspective in my lengthy post on the Player Ratings thread – about what I’ve seen, felt and lived through with this club over 54 years being a Gooner. And it kinda all comes down to one question – fueled by Mik’s remarks about this ‘difficult week’… Ultimately, we really only need to ask ourselves this: Would I have preferred losing to Bayern by the odd goal, in… Read more »
“It can happen at home, against Bayern and against Villa. Are you ready to react to that? If not, you’re not ready to be living these kind of weeks. We want to be living these kind of weeks. The answer to the question is, is it difficult or tough? Don’t feel sorry for yourself, you want to be here, be prepared, because this is a possibility.”
Good talk Miki! 6 wins is what it’s gonna take. Time to step up.
The more I watch and listen to Mikel, the more I get the strongest sense that he is going to be one of the great Arsenal managers.
He is everything I’d want from my manager: intellect, dignity, insight and more than a little steel. Now we just need to add ‘experience’ and he will become the complete package.
Overstretching 1st team players is what happened in the 2nd half of both loses. Trossard and Tomiyasu are the only other players Arteta fully trusts. If this is true, you have to move on Vieira, Partey, Smith-Rowe, Nketiah, Cedric, Elneny, Tavares, Lakonga and Nelson. That would be hard in one summer, but like them or not, they have not really been used this season. I would add Jesus and Zincheko to the list too. We now see by their injury records why City let them go. Maybe this is not the nice Arsenal of the latter Wenger era, but you… Read more »
Perspective is very important. Arsenal were never fancied as champions – the talk has always been whether it was Liverpool’s or Man City’s to win or lose. From that perspective to make it to six games to go and be near to the race then Arsenal have done very well. As for the Bayern game it was Bayern’s experience that won them that battle. My only concern is whether we have enough seasons in the Champions League to build that same level of experience because I suspect we may be looking at perhaps four or even five more clubs in… Read more »
Why again are my comments waiting for approval?????
Not sure what gibberish Miki’s talking about, 0-0 at half time in our last 2 games has seen him out coached by emery and tuchel, like ESR v Villa and Eddie v Bayern coming on I knew our season was over, if we don’t get 3 points today we could stumble our way out of CL..