Mikel Arteta says life as a manager is much tougher than being a player and he readily admits the disappointment of Arsenal’s recent poor form has left him emotionally drained.
While the Spaniard was buoyed by the 3-1 victory over Chelsea on Boxing Day – a result that ended a run of seven Premier League games without a win – he’s well aware the pressure will be cranked up again if his players don’t beat fellow strugglers Brighton and West Bromwich Albion in their next two games.
Ahead of Tuesday’s trip to the AMEX he reflected: “Obviously results-wise in the last few weeks we have all been suffering, I have been suffering.
“I feel very responsible for that. The worst feeling is because I want to do so well for this football club and at the moment we are in, I want to bring all my passion, the knowledge that I have, the right intentions to move as quickly as we possibly can as a football club.
“In order to do that we need to win football matches, to be stable and win some time. When I don’t, I feel like I am letting the club down and the people that work for us, and obviously our fans.
“It is draining, it is frustrating and it is painful. At the same time I know we have to fight our way back.
“In difficult moments is when you see the right people, they give me a lot of encouragement because I see people that are willing to fight with me, with the people that we have here. It gives me energy every day to carry on doing it.”
A novice in the dugout when he was appointed head coach at the Emirates just over a year ago, Arteta couldn’t possibly have predicted all the highs and lows he’s experienced since.
That every decision he makes impacts so many others, is a burden he admits weighs a heavy on his shoulders.
Asked if he finds managing or playing more tiring, he explained: “The simple answer is managing. Because you have a lot of people around you that you have to take care of. I always say you have 70 hearts in the training ground and stadium that you have to look after every day.
“Every decision you make has an impact on their lives, their mood and the next day. So you are very aware of that and you get attached emotionally to them and I’m attached emotionally to this football club. That makes the emotion even bigger and stronger and that will drain you energy-wise.”
It’s a Tough job, of that I have no doubt. The hopes and emotions of hundreds of millions laser focused on every action you take. Learning at Arsenal is no easy ride either. Impatient, expectant fans, a history of success, a leftover turd from awful previous management decisions and little money to spend. Providing we don’t get relegated and use Chelsea as a platform to kick on and pick up some points, this period of shit could do Arteta a world of good. He’s seen both sides of the coin in his first year. Play the kids, focus on performances… Read more »
Yes, but there are a number of points: I strongly doubt that there are really “hundreds of millions” focussed on what MA does. Should a club as big as Arsenal really be in a position where the manager is learning on the job? It’s history now, but appointing a former player with absolutely no managerial experience? Being an assistant to Pep is useful, but no substitute for having done the real thing as MA is finding out all too painfully, having never experienced anything remotely like this while at City. “Impatient, expectant, fans… ” Not sure about that. Is it… Read more »
Agree. He’s learning a lot of lessons. There have been a lot of major positives still about Arteta, if he can ride out this season he/we should reap the benefits of that experience next season. That’s exciting. COYG
Kroenke, Edu and Willian out!
Luiz. Xhaka. Mustafi. Ozil.
They’re off thanks to natural wastage this summer anyway.
Not xhaka. Not xhaka… 😭
That’s true. Forgot about him. Maybe, just maybe he is sellable this summer.
Arsene always said that a young player can cost you points but he realised their value if they were better than what we already had.
Mikel has been let down by the established pros who have cost us points.
It’s now time to back the young talent, we have plenty of it. Ship the dead wood out in the transfer window. Get the board to add a sprinkling of creative attacking talent to the midfield.
Here’s to a happy training ground and to a successful Arsenal in 2021.
Arteta has been playing young players this whole season, in runs of games both collectively and separately.
I think you’ve been hitting the eggnog to hard. The almost criminal lack of pl game time for ESR, Nelson, Balogun and Willock (while Willlian, Xhaka, Pepe, and Lacazette continuedly under performed week in week out), is one of my biggest gripes with MA this season. I really hope we are witnessing a watershed moment.
I haven’t noticed Lacazette under performing in recent matches.
Less of Willock I’m fine with. If we weren’t so thin in midfield he needs a loan to increase value. I don’t think he has it.
In the Europa league.
I think, giving him the benefit of the doubt, he’s always felt that young players like saka, smith-rowe, and martinelli need experienced players alongside them to thrive and didn’t want to overburden them. I think (hope) he’s realised that Willian, Pepe and (this season) Aubameyang aren’t cutting it and these kids are actually ready and good enough to start now. Part of me still hopes we say bye to Will.i.an in Jan.
Agreed; Arteta strikes me as a ‘tough teacher’; very demanding but it seems actually a lot of the younger players are rising to meet his challenge and becoming more well rounded players as a result. IMO, thats what I saw against chelsea, where we played a bunch of expensive young talents like Werner, Pulisic, Abraham etc. I think in a vaccum they would have more upside than our less physically imposing trio of Martinelli, Smith Rowe, and Saka. But our young players were so much better drilled; they were capable of applying a successful press and counter press, exploit open… Read more »
Good luck to him, hope we have turned a corner with the Chelsea win and he can get some support in the transfer window to boost the squad as well as Partey getting back on the pitch regularly.
The young players have been great, far better than the seniors. But they need experienced players around them if they are to thrive. Partey is key.
Our experienced players, bar Leno most of the time, have been sh1te to be honest. Luiz and Willian are a disgrace, esp if the reports of them complaining to Edu and the press before chelski game are correct. Need to be shipped in Jan if true. How to get rid of them, esp Willian is another matter.
I agree totally about Willian but Luiz has played well generally since Arteta has been here.
Has he though? Or just better than we’d expect… We had to switch to a back 3 just to accomodate him too and that’s come at the expense of midfield
to be fair to Luiz, he’s the only player who has been trying to spray passes through a packed midfield.
The back three switch is because our midfield is shit. Not because of Luiz. Even Wenger had to go to 3 at the back towards the end just to get results.
Let’s a bunch of us pose as Real Betis fans on Twitter and demand that the club sign Willian to take us “to the next level”.
“If reports are true, nah nah nah” is the final part of false rumours.
Those rumours are coming from credible sources.
That’s probably what Arteta thinks too but, so far, the senior players have let them down. That said, Partey and Xhaka behind and Auba/laca in front of Smith-rowe, saka and martinelli should be enough
”…to move as quickly as we possibly can as a football club.”
To me this is the part where he is wrong. He was too impatient and only saw short-term, thus made the same mistakes as we did 6-7 years ago by trying to cut corners to get to the top (or at least to the CL), by signing Luiz and Willian for example.
All our quick fixes will only bring us back even more. We need to look forward, long term and with players who will grow with that vision, not wane.
I believe the idea of having short, medium and long term goals is a good one. Only one problem – the resources put in place to achieve short term goal are insufficient.
Right, because he’s immersed in a football culture at Arsenal that is patient, understanding, and supportive through thick and thin. Three days ago this site was saturated with spite and bellows for Arteta to be fired. Arteta has made it completely clear to anyone willing to see and hear it that he has a long-term vision for the club, but that he is responsible here and now to provide results. Moreover, he cannot just start playing the kids as everyone seems to think — not all of them are ready to play consistently at the top level, not all of… Read more »
Not all. We also have people like you who continued to suck up to Arteta, despite his futile tactics, ridiculous selections, and delusional talk, thinking he can do no wrong.
Thanks for reminding me that I shouldn’t waste my time. I somehow always forget what I’m doing here! Cheers.
Don’t leave!! Arseblog needs the voices of optimism and reason now more than ever
Play a lot of FIFA/Football Manager per chance son?
Maybe he’s just taking a measured approach to one Premiership win in nearly two months.
Oops, I see you finally come out of your dungeon during the first ray of sunshine following the depths of our despair.
Top post, well said.
The first decent result in two months and certain individuals are wetting themselves as if we’ve just beaten the Spuds 10-0 in the ECL Final.
This readiness to accept mediocrity is a reflection of how pathetic this fan base is at times.
Yes, it was a well deserved victory – but check out the Premiership table – we are still nowhere near where this club should be.
People that are downvoting this need to take a minute and compose themselves.
The same can be said for those acting like we’ve just done the quadruple.
Save the platitudes for when we get back into the ECL.
At the moment, we’re trying to avoid s relegation dogfight – hardly the cue to start bigging up a guy who has, for the most part, made a right pig’s ear of this campaign.
Right. We have seen enough to know that Arteta’s hand was forced in this game. Whether it be the unavailability of his non-negotiable favourites, or desperation to avoid the sack, we know his natural inclination is to go to the wings and cross it in. I wrote before that I want Arteta to do well because it would mean that Arsenal does well too. But that we have the first good game in weeks, not counting EL, the sycophants are out drooling over Arteta. Not Futsboller though, he has been pretty consistent throughout it all. All a section of the… Read more »
I can understand and accept the recruitment of Luiz and Willian. It just didn’t work but worth the try. What do you do while you wait for the youngsters to develop? You bring 25 years old top players to deny them opportunities in the middle and long terms? Chelsea is getting 36 years old Thiago Silva perform well. Man U is getting Cavani perform and before that they’ve had Ibra.
Fair point; not to mention that the 25 year old top players are the ones that have a premium cost attached (see Pepe tbf).
I honestly dont love Luiz getting lumped in with Willian. All the evidence we have so far points to Luiz having been a great presence in our club, and I think in a slightly more “loaded” youth squad like ManU/Chelsea he wouldnt have been as exposed as he was at Arsenal.
I have been saying this. Luiz has been mediocre but he seems to have great respect from the youngsters and seems to care at least when he plays badly. Willian is walking around with ‘Dubai/pension’ written on his forehead.
It would be less taxing on him if he continues to keep willian out of first 11.
Out of the first 111 actually… 🙂
FFS ship out toxic/selfish elements and bring in people with positive and growth mindset, the look on his face and fortune of the club will change for sure! I hope club ensures looking at the personal background of the player before signing them. On that scale signing Luiz was no less than criminal offense.
Evidence that Luiz is a toxic/selfish element? even if its anecdotal–dont think it counteracts the greater volume of evidence we have for him being a positive presence in our club
Quite the opposite. He is very popular amongst the younger players
Probably not Ceballos though…….
If AFC shipped out the toxic elements, we’d lose half our fanbase and have far fewer posts in here.
Some of the pain is self inflicted, honestly. I hope one of the key lessons learnt over these last 56 days is that short termism does not pay. Favouritism too is a bad thing. The team should be selected on merit/current form. Also trust your young players.
I’m glad to read that he admits responsibility for our woeful form – because that’s what being a manager (rather than the assistant as he was at City) is all about. We’re not out of the woods by a long shot yet – the last “good” win we had before Chelsea was against Utd (feels so long ago now) and we collapsed after that so let’s not get too carried away with the victory against Chelsea. MA is in the “hot seat” and is paid a lot of money to get things right. I think he can, and will, but… Read more »
lets see if we actually see some improvement in the next set of games. I’m still not convinced by Arteta!
I will see if he is itching to bring back W as soon as he can and revert to the U-ball.
He’ll be gutted about that.
yeah maybe seems to be acceptable for Arteta to keep failing!
I still don’t think Arteta is the man for Arsenal, but then again some of our players are just not good enough either. If a player is not good enough regularly they should not play again until they can prove they are good enough. We should pick players based on performance and hunger, and not on transfer fee, seniority, or wages. For me to accept Arteta as a solid manager I would expect him yo a better job than Emery did in the league. The baseline should be Emery. Anything below Emery us nor good enough for this club.
Emery had Arsene’s legacy to dine on for the first year. He slowly deconstructed it and replaced it with… nothing of any clear identity other than fear of the opposition. Arteta, on the other hand, had to pick up the pieces of Emery’s work and try and actually put something together. They’re not really comparable.
Ah! Good excuse.
easy to scapegoat Emery,Wenger, Raul,Gunnersaurus etc instead of admitting Arteta’s incompetence
You can’t even string a couple of dozen words together without fucking up so maybe you ought to stop casting judgment on Arteta.
someone sleeps with a poster of lego hair!
Who pis*sed in your cornflakes? HaHaha what a twat
Off topic …but just wanna say admin latest blog post “Bread and Butter” captured exactly what is going on my mind now ahead of our upcoming Wed match. Nice job admin.
He and Edu really care, which is a big step up from Sanllehi. Their biggest problem has been the senior professionals that they’ve relied on. Hopefully the last few weeks and the Chelsea game have been a big lesson and we can move forward with better team selections and tactics and no Willian. Edu and Joorabchian should be having a conversation about counterfeit goods.
they care so much that they signed Willian and handled the Saliba situation poorly!
These Arteta fan boys seem to be a different breed. The amount of mental gymnastics they will go through to justify their support. Trust the process innit
As soon as someone calls supporters fan boys they show their total ignorance. Arteta has been with us for one year and has already won a trophy and after a third of this season he must be given more time. No mental gymnastics just a little more patience
You tell me, which Top 10 club in the world would of given this much patience to a Rookie Manager, who are 15th & relegation battle… ?
I am happy to listen from all Arteta Fan boys as well…
How about Man United when they kept faith with Ferguson. That didn’t turn out too bad, did it?
I’m with you heihaci… they talk about Ozil fans, but blimey Arteta fan boys are hardcore 🤣
Hmmm.
A lot of them have been self-inflicted with poor squad and match day team selections.
No one else’s mistakes – our ‘season of woe’ is down to you, Arteta.
Can we, the fans, please see some of that “knowledge” too?