As Arsenal racked up defeat after defeat in December, the fact Mikel Arteta had two trophies to show for his first 12 months in charge at the Emirates didn’t bring him much comfort.
Arteta learnt the hard way that football managers are never far away from back page broken cannons, angry punters on radio phone-ins and lonely blokes in mid-range saloon cars muttering into their camera phones.
A ‘crisis’ comes easy in football and the experience has hammered home the need to look forward at all costs.
“When I was losing football matches, I wasn’t thinking about that cup,” noted Arteta when asked if FA Cup success bought him time with his employers.
“In football, the pressure that this football club brings is to win today. What you did yesterday doesn’t count anymore, it’s about tomorrow, the next game, the next goal. I just focus on that.
“It was great that we won two trophies in a really nice way against big teams, beating big teams, which gave them more importance. But now I am focused on what is ahead of us. That is done, OK we enjoyed it but let’s enjoy more in the future.”
When the season started, Arsenal were tipped to close the gap on the sides that have finished above them in recent years. While the gap on the team in first may have narrowed, the fact the Gunners sit in 10th-place in the table at the halfway stage points is clear evidence that things have not gone to plan so far.
While Arteta has repeatedly spoken about the need for patience and to trust the process he’s implementing, he acknowledges that Arsenal can’t keep settling for second best.
“Arsenal has to challenge for every trophy, and every game has to be won: that is the standard, and the level and the history related to us,” he said.
“I want to do that in a way that our DNA shows, which is using a lot of talent, young talent as well, using players from our academy and building something different.
“In the last few seasons we have so many different issues not to achieve what we want and in my opinion there were things that have to be changed and slowly, to build something, you have to change some pieces and we are in that process.”
Does this mean guendouzi can play in Arsenal shirt llagain? Hmm…
I hope not, he’s not up to the standard.
what stardard is that 10th in the league? didnt he play a major role in a team that finished 5th and made the europa league final?
I think he is up to the standard! His performances against Sp*rs and Villa last year were brilliant; some of the best individual performances I’ve seen from an Arsenal player recently! His attitude and consistency were not up to scratch though but the talent is definitely there and if he comes back a more mature man I’d be very keen for him to play a part! I think it is unlikely he will be I have hope
I felt that the talksport journalist was being very disrespectful in this interview.
Hardly surprising….:-/
TalkShite journo talks shite! Pictures at 11.
Other news : Sun comes up, bear shits in woods, Pope is Catholic.
But what Willian hasn’t done at all this season still does!!!
“What you did yesterday doesn’t count anymore”- true, but that attitude would’ve ruined the back to the future trilogy
It’s actually the premise for the whole series. See, what they did previously doesn’t count anymore because they are rewriting that by travelling back in time. Even in back to the future II, when they travelled forwards and brought back the Almanac Biff’s previous yesterdays as a loser setup in the first movie no longer count because he creates new personally advantageous tomorrows with the knowledge of sporting outcomes. Mikel obviously just got his hands on the Delorean and has realised exactly this, as he begins to mould better yesterdays and brighter tomorrows. Probably why we started playing better recently.
That almanac is now 5 and a bit years out of date.
I was coming at it from a slightly angle. If doc Brown didn’t care about what Biff/Marty did yesterday to change time, he wouldn’t have travelled back to change the future. totally accept your view and I think we can all agree that the third installment was total bollocks
But what we’re both forgetting is that once the doc time travelled, which inevitably alters events, and created a new timeline no other timeline then exists rendering yesterday and tomorrow obsolete. That is unless of course you are Rick Sánchez and you know infinite parallels exist and what happened yesterday or will Happen tomorrow is super important and simultaneously inconsequential.
“lonely blokes in mid-range saloon cars muttering into their camera phones”
Love it. Not sure exactly what he’s referring to but the whole piece is poetry. 😂
It is. Lovely
@AAllen never disappoints. Sometimes I tend to suspect he was actually running a pseudo account as “Rumbling Pete” back in the day. But why did he stop? I always looked forward to reading his posts.
Arteta has an unfortunate tendancy to pick on certain members of the team at any given moment. And, as much as I hate to say it, also seems to have favourites. I’m sure you know who I’m talking about.
I really believe that part of the reason of our recent slump was down to this. I had hoped he had learnt his lesson after we recovered form, but was disheartened when I heard he had left AMN out, this after barely giving the kid a chance. It fosters an environment of fear, resentment and uncertainty.
If they don’t have the right attitude, then they can’t stay as a part of the team. A winning team requires the right mentality
Here here! I’m starting to wonder whether some of our fans have the right mentality…the amount of whinging you hear because their favourite player hasn’t been picked is embarrassing. There’s even talk that modern players need to be treated differently to how they were in the past…and I personally don’t understand how you foster a winning mentality by mollycoddling players…sigh.
That approach attracted massive criticism when times were hard not so long ago. Care must be taken.
Um, when he was picking the players with the “right mentality”, we certainly weren’t a winning team.
It was only after their Christmas party went wrong and Arteta was forced to play actually talented players that we became a winning team.
The players with the “right mentality” are on the bench now.
Arteta really lucked out on that one. Credit to him, however, for not changing it yet.
I honestly don’t understand where this comment is coming from. Isn’t it about time as fans we started trusting the manager to do his job? It honestly doesn’t matter who we think should be playing or even whether we think they’ve been treated fairly or not. We don’t witness what goes on at the training ground so most of our perceptions in that respect are badly flawed anyway.
AMN has had plenty of chances and often doesn’t cut the mustard when he gets his chance….and I really like AMN so I’m not saying this with an agenda.
I would say that in any relationship trust has to be earned and for me MA is not quite there yet. I’d love him to eventually get there for as much optimistic as I was begining of last year most of the things he did brought my optimism significantly down. If we speak about future and patience it has to include young players and concerns about how potentially valuable young players are treated are definitelly valid. Guendouzi, AMN, Nelson, Willock, Balogun are just obvious examples and many have forgotten that prior to Martinelis injury MA didn’t really gave him much… Read more »
Hector Bellerin being a favourite of Arteta is something I can definitely see – Same country of origin, Barca youth, Established working relationship from his playing days.
Willian being a favourite only makes sense to me if Arteta was trying save Edu’s ass by playing Willian into form. You can’t explain to the executives that you made the new guy the 3rd highest earner and you have nothing to show for it.
.
Perhaps Arteta decided that Willian shouldn’t be the domino that gets him sacked.
The first half of this season has been a disappointment, no two ways about it. But I think Arteta will eventually turn it around. He has an awful lot he needs to change and you simply cannot do that in 12 months. The era of being in cahoots with superagents looks like it is now past. We are clearing out the underperforming or unaffordable or ill-disciplined members of our playing staff. There has been one big mistake (the ill-advised signing of Willian), but overall the squad looks better than it did a year ago. In a year’s time I anticipate… Read more »
Even signing Willian seemed logical at the time. I guess the gamble just didn’t pay off…yet
Which bit of that signing was logical?
Well…proven premier league player with a decent record of goals and assists for free is a start
I don’t agree, Jeremy. It looked ominous at the time to me that we splashed out big wages on a three-year contract when Chelsea didn’t want him and it has turned out worse than even the grimmest pessimist expected. Heaven only knows what he’ll look like by the end of his contract at the age of 35. I expect he’ll have been a long way from the first team for about 18 months by then. Hopefully it will trigger a decisive shift in transfer policy at Arsenal. No more discarded busted flushes from Chelsea please.
Chelsea wanted to extend him for 2 years. We signed him for 3.
Even Chelsea didn’t think he’d be this bad so quickly. It really is one where hindsight is 20/20
We are still critically following, results and performance, until wherever we’ll end up. Still.
Squad ‘looks better’ not good enough. Proof in the pudding. Considering outlay and number of players on hand, Arteta should still be getting way more out of this squad. BC many of the squads directly above us West Ham, Soton, Leicester, Villa far more humble in build but have been buying wisely, finding means within their more limited squad to grind results this season. Everton have shown tremendous ambition. This is the delusion that continues to afflict too many supporters who prefer to wear blinkers with Arteta where they were critical of Emery. I don’t see us doing enough. We… Read more »
I am sorry but Emery achieved :
1) A twenty-game unbeaten run.
2) A Europa League final.
3) A top-six finish.
He did have a plan and training sessions were tougher.
Practically, we are in 11th with Leeds likely breathing down our neck. Villa have 3 games in hand over us. Thereafter we are looking at Lampard and struggling Chelsea but even the gap to Soton is 5 points. May not seem like much but the number of clubs in and around from there to Liverpool on 34 would suggest it is a tough slog to chip away for us. Unless we can find another gear to what we have now, it won’t be enough. Arteta needs a creative player and a decent back up keeper this window. I’m not sure… Read more »
Can’t understand why we don’t just sign matt Ryan. His club screwed him despite being excellent for them for years, this he’s cheap right now, good with the ball at his feet and a good shot stopper. We don’t need a world class #2 just a very solid option (which he is). We have some real talent in the pipes in okwonko and Hein too. To me Ryan is a no brainer.
THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN
#TheProphet
To illustrate how far we have dropped, we are now finding it harder to load on players bc we are no longer an attractive destination. There is way too much risk coming to us. We are not guaranteed Europa never mind CL. We have overloaded on wages recently (Auba and Willian) never mind over spent (Pepe and Saliba + Partey and Gabriel = 158m)…contrast Leicester’s outlay. Who has been spending and identifying players better? We have entrusted the rebuild to the hands of a highly inexperience person in Edu. Then decided to get rid of experience scouts (Caggagio) and rely… Read more »
Yeah I fully agree. Leicester should be por model to rebuild – scouting and young talent identification and not over spending “super talents” (I don’t include gaby or partey in that, both were market value buys), or big contracts on stop gap 30+ year olds. Gutting our scouting team has really thrown mikel-edu duo in the deep end before they learned how to swim.
When did we start referring to the Community Shield as a trophy? And can we stop it please?
Only in years when we win it, the rest of the time it’s a pre-season friendly….😉😊
Exactly. It’s on par with the Emirates Cup…
Arteta couldn’t help referring to it when we were losing games and not scoring. Guess the advice doesn’t apply then.
If this was actually true, every manager would be fired after their first loss.
But if the club waited a day, the loss would have been history and it no longer counts.
The absolute chaos (and likely shenanigans) at the executive level for the past few years doesn’t get enough credit for the team’s wild inconsistency. Throw a first time manager into that situation and the product can only be volatile.