Mikel Arteta says that success and winning are things which foster an environment of togetherness, and says that teams and players can become addicted to that feeling.
His comments come ahead of this evening’s clash against Leeds United in the FA Cup, a competition the Gunners have won three times in the not too distant past.
Of course the victory over Hull in 2014 ended a nine year drought without a trophy, and the new manager believes that success helped the team win again in 2015, and an against the odds victory over Chelsea in 2017.
“For us, to lift that first FA Cup for this football club was like a massive relief that they tried to get this club again fighting to win some trophies and be there for everybody to see,” said Arteta.
“It generated a really good belief and unity around our team and that helped that group of players to achieve what they achieved later when they won other cups.
“I think winning brings togetherness and, when you have beautiful experiences together and you win trophies, then those experiences stay within that group.
“You like more the people that you work with, you believe more in them, you share some fantastic moments and that habit of winning, winning, winning.
“After you win, you don’t want to stop. You become addicts to that and that’s what we have to try to implement at this football club.”
After a punishing recent schedule, Arteta will have to find the balance between fielding a strong team to win tonight’s game, and resting some players who need to recuperate for Premier League action.
Potential banana skin… but with Leed’s squad fully focused on getting automatic promotion, might turn out to be relatively drama free.
Can Nketiah be unleashed to show Biesla that it was a mistake to not play him enough?
I think we should keep him the rest of the season and play him against Leeds. I have been thinking that he could get plenty of time playing in premiership games if we rotate and keep fresher legs for Europa and future FA Cup games. Cup games important as a plan B because it could well be our only route back to the Europa next season. I think we should absolutely prioritise Europa now and by keeping our first 11 fresh for those games we would have a great chance, whilst we send the kids to The Monday night away… Read more »
Mate, we’re only 9 points off with 17 games left to play! no need to throw in the towel yet
He’s not physically ready yet
I’d pretty much like that, Mikel…
Very true. Just look at what that winning addiction has done to this Liverpool team. Or even better what it did to the Invincibles. Beautiful addiction! I hope we get to that point sooner than later.
Invincibles are a bad example not from players point of view but from club point of view. It led directly to reconstruction which ironically never happened until Arteta reconstructing the whole philosophy now.
So u think it shouldn’t had happened??
How is it a bad example? It didn’t lead directly to reconstruction. If you look at the rosters for the Invincibles season compared with the next year, they were pretty similar. Sure, there are players that come and go every year, but that’s normal. Inevitably rosters change as players retire or move on to other club.
We should field our strongest squad and bash just so Eddy can get the last laugh
I’m with you all the way on that. It’s the sort of addiction I crave for this club; I’d personally love to be bored with routine wins against everybody, especially the supposedly “big” English and European teams. This will in turn create a new “problem” of expanding our trophy cabinet to accommodate said silverware.
I can 200% get behind this!
Always wonder what would have happened to that 2011 team if we hadn’t ballsed up the League Cup final. Remember some of the pundits saying if the young players we had developed a winning mentality they could very well dominate English football for a few years. Then.. well, we alk know what happened.
2011 was the season i got addicted to watching arsenal more than any other season. in hindsight that squad was very average but despite that wenger really got them playing some sexy football. how on earth did a midfield of wilshere-fabregas-song boss Barcelona?!
2010/11 was very good, but 07/08 were on another level. That incredible midfield of Fabregas, Flamini, Rosicky and Hleb. They had so much chemistry with each other who were also very good friends. I remember them just outplaying Milan with Gattuso, Pirlo, Seedorf and Ambrosini.
We should have won the league that season and probably got further in the Champions League if it weren’t for Ryan Babel’s dive.
And poor Eduardo and Rosicky.
Wenger
In April 2011 Kroenke secured a controlling majority, we then sold Cesc, Nasri, Clichy in the summer. We followed that up by selling RVP to United the following summer. Winning the league cup would have been irrelevant, because the Kroenke’s don’t recognise that sometimes, you need to speculate to accumulate. They’ve made an estimated £800-£900million since their investment in Arsenal, but they’ve never put anything back in, they’ve taken out £6million, and are probably going to come back for more, to pay off the money they borrowed to buy us. They also sat on their hands while on the pitch… Read more »
I’m by no means a fan of the Kroenkes, and I think their forcible purchase of the fan-held shares is one of the most sickening and saddening things I’ve seen in sport, but I’d argue the timing of their arrival and the selling of players is very much correlation rather than causation. I think Wenger would have behaved that way whether we had Kroenke, Abramovich, the Qatari royal family or whoever in charge. We had a bunch of players who didn’t want to play for us and a very rich and ambitious club wanting to buy. Wenger’s belief in the… Read more »
We should hire Charlie Sheen in as mental coach then!
Hi, my name is Socratis and I’m a ….
WIN addict!!!
The words are nice but no one can win anything unless they have ability and I am still unconvinced by this group of players. I hope I’m wrong and it’s impressive how Arteta has already improved them, but I do expect some more serious defeats this season unless we bring in much needed help in the form of better players.
Ummmmm.. Keeep talkinggg!!!!
Me too !
martinez
kolA, MUSTAFI, holding, niles
guendozi
willock smith-rowe
Nelson Nketiah Saka
Nice words from Arteta, but winning isn’t just about attitude: in professional football it’s also about money, as he would well know from his time at at City. We’ve finally got a great manager, now we need an owner who’s committed to spending the cash to take us to the next level. I’m not sure we have one. Interesting game tonight: this is actually a bigger match for us than Leeds. With a top-four finish highly unlikely, and even a fifth-place final position against the cards, the FA Cup is now very significant. But for Leeds this competition is very… Read more »
Much as I enjoyed the FA cup wins and the days out at Wembley, surely the Europa becomes priority now? If Arteta can get us resembling something approaching a relatively solid team, with the front 3/4 we have we could (excuse the cliche) beat anyone on our day. I’d sacrifice the FA Cup and- to a point- league position for the EL. Though there is something rather depressing about being dead set on winning entry to a tournament that you’re gonna get absolutely pumped in.
Europa League is priority No. 1 now. We may progress in FA Cup only to be beaten by City or Liverpool whichever has remained in the competition until then.
We’re not good enough to win the Europa League.
I agree currently, but given you’ve said yourself that we’ve now “got a great manager”, surely the chance is there? I’d argue our players individually are better than every other team in the competition, not that that means anything.
The team that I’d be least confident in beating would probably be Wolves!
I think I might be getting addicted to Arteta…
He is a PR Director’s dream.
Yes please.
So mentally feeble over a long stretch now.
Arteta hopefully owns a super powerful hairdryer for his hair…and the squad.
Wenger did alright for a while getting back on course when he realised (belatedly) his project youth was not going to deliver intended results with changing landscape of PL (Chelsea and City entering fray) Did the practical thing brought in Arteta converted him to CDM and added Metersecker to Koscielny. We still faltered but we managed 3 FA cups and stayed within the pack in CL. I think the pivotal season was the one he neglected to add anyone but Cech and Leicester ran away with it. Thereafter, it started to unravel sped up by fan dissent. Still managed 5th… Read more »
Dunno why we continue not to have a captain.
I think someone should be held accountable. Everyone is hiding behind each other otherwise.
To me, someone at the back who can enforce discipline during defensive phases is key.
Sokratis has been about the most consistent and a senior voice. Otherwise I would also consider Leno. Lacazette another who puts in effort but maybe as a vice captain higher up the pitch to lead more by example.
Its not that complicated. We need someone to enforce on field discipline.
Does anyone say “football club” as often as Arteta?