Mikel Arteta continues to set a bullish tone for the new season demanding “more from everybody” as Arsenal look to build on consecutive title challenges by winning the Premier League.
While the Gunners have closed the gap on Manchester City in recent years, the Spaniard is well aware that his squad can’t be allowed to rest on their laurels. Nor does he want them wallowing in the disappointment of last season’s near miss. Instead, he has everyone focusing on the future and the small margins that could make the difference this time around.
Preparations for the new campaign began with a summer review of the last campaign followed by an early training camp in Marbella for players not on international duty. The club are also in the process of ruthlessly reshaping the squad. Long-standing squad members who’ve found themselves on the fringes of things are on their way out and new faces, most notably Italy international Riccardo Calafiori, are set to be welcomed into the fold.
“I think the message is very clear – we need more from everybody,” Arteta told a press conference ahead of Sunday’s friendly with Manchester United in Los Angeles.
“That means personally I have to raise my standards and I need to bring something that I haven’t brought yet, and individually and collectively we have to do the same.
“And for our people, it is the same – the more they help us, the better the chance will be to win the Premier League. That’s what we want, so we need to work every day with that excitement and understanding the difficulty of it. When difficult times come, we need to be together and go through them efficiently.”
Given the energy expended chasing down the Manchester City juggernaut, the manager could be excused for showing fatigue in such a Sisyphean task.
To the contrary, he says he takes inspiration from last season’s achievements and the excitement his players are showing for the task at hand.
“First of all, we analyse what we did, and have a clear perspective of how we achieved what we achieved last year and why we didn’t achieve what we wanted, which was ultimately to win major trophies, and especially how close we came to becoming Premier League champions. It’s realising the things that we need to do better, and improve.
“We know the margins we need to do that because at the level we are at the moment, there is a very tiny margin to improve and we are trying to have clarity on which margins those are and how we’re going to improve them.
“My motivation and belief is looking at those boys and how much they want it, looking around the club and the excitement that is around it, and the fact that we really want it.”
Asked what it will take to win the title, he joked: “114 points – if we do that we will win the league for sure!
“This is the objective and from there let’s see what we can get, but today that has to be the target, win every single game and earn the right to win it and have the biggest probability on the opponent to win the game.
“When we have difficulties, we still need to be better than the opponent, so that’s the objective for the team.”
“He joked” – or did he?
I think he meant to say, there are 115 reasons we might win the league this year! And last year!
I know he said it as a joke but the fact that it’s even been mentioned that we have to be more or less perfect is nuts.
I like the sentiment though. I think we are sometimes (me included) guilty of having a bit of a victim mentality. We feel hard done by by the situation that has arisen with City. And we do have good cause to feel like that – to a certain extent. But victim mentalities don’t tend to win much. And I think Arteta is merely saying that we have to face reality. For better or worse, the bar is where it is and we have to jump over it. And if we win the league in 2025, then we will have become… Read more »
I agree, feeling like it’s all rigged against us won’t get us anywhere. As a famous poet once said
“Come play my game
Inhale, inhale, you’re the victim
Come play my game
Exhale, exhale, exhale.”
RIP Keef 😢
It’s rigged against every club in the PL except City. City are a tail wagging a dog.
I’ve known this song for 20+ years and never realized those were the words. I just made up different words each time I screamed it into my car.
I love Arteta but he’s got this one wrong.
112 points would also do the job!
0-0 at the Etihad.
Or just go hard in the last 5-10 minutes and send a bunch of their players to the infirmary so they won’t be seen for the rest of the season. That would be cheating of course but Man City are the biggest cheats anyway. Cheating against cheats is OK.
Well you can’t fault Arteta’s mindset, he’s demanding not only more from the players but also himself. If the FA ever grow a pair, we probably have two league titles in the bag already but the icing on the cake would be to win it despite City’s financial shenanigans!
Sorry to be pedantic, but 112 points would suffice (37 wins, 1 draw).
It would have been funny but hugely undiplomatic for him to have mis-spoken and said 115 points!
It took me so much longer than it should have to work out why this is correct.
Me too. You are not alone.
If we can replicate the form of the second half of last season for the whole of this season we will win the league. It sounds simplistic to say it like that but I think a big part of our struggles in the early period were a disjointed midfield and blunt attack, the primary culprits of which were Havertz who was out of form, out of position and low on confidence and Nketiah who isn’t the right type of striker for us. With Havertz moved up front and either of Jorginho or Partey at the base of midfield we have… Read more »
The last time an Arsenal manager said something crazy as this, The Invincible was born. Won’t be surprised if this is the prophecy of The Mega Invincible. 38-0-0 record and 114 points
With 38 clean sheets
Shades of Arsene Wenger saying we can win the league unbeaten…
Arsene made that team believe they could do it, the fact that Arteta is even mentioning it is implanting the idea in the players heads that this is the standard he wants from them.
38 Premiership matches. Win all 38 and we get 114 points. But ¢it€h have 115.
Does any of this perfection include not letting any goals in also?
If we broadly repeat what we did last year in the league (which will be difficult), I think we win it. Other clubs are in a bit of a transition. City are busy arranging fake sales to ‘balance’ their books (while still managing to spend serious money on a 20 year old, good stuff).
We do need to really jump a level in the Champions League.
The simple question that Arteta should be asking himself is: what’s the one thing that could make a big difference in this team? And the answer is obvious: Bringing in a world-class striker.
The lack of a top-quality finisher is the big weakness in this squad. Yeah, we already score score lots of goals, but we need somebody to score CRUCIAL goals. Goals that win tight games.
Bringing in a top striker takes us from 2nd to 1st.
You’re right as always, oops.
Probably had zero downvotes if said by someone else. This is key. A natural scorer would have made the difference last season. Imagine we had prime Alexis instead of Jesus last season.
Name one striker that would undoubtably make us better
No one can give you such guarantee. But this doesn’t mean there is no one better than Jesus in the market. The only thing is how much you want to pay.
Alexander Isak.
We need that striker who gets just one half-chance in a big game but buries it.
We need a striker who can make a goal out of nothing. How many goals did Henry score by picking up the ball in the middle of the park, going around a couple of defenders and then smashing it in?
THAT’S the striker we need.
If only Arteta understood that a prime Henry would be a good addition to a team. Then he’d…buy Alexander Isak.
Techincally you only need 112 points to guarantee the league title but that one draw would nag away at you in your dotage