Mikel Arteta insists this season has been “one of his proudest moments” despite Arsenal falling short in the title race.
Gunners boss Arteta was in defiant mood as he claimed they should be in mid-table because of all the obstacles they have had to face. Arsenal were expected to be the team to step up to the plate when Manchester City fell away but the fans have been left frustrated after two years of going close.
Arteta pointed to Arsenal’s crippling injury list and five red cards as reasons why this season has not gone to plan and they find themselves 11 points behind Liverpool. But Arsenal are still in second, Arteta is refusing to give up on the title and he says all of that credit must go to his players and their refusal to give up.
“It’s one of the proudest moments, because this could have gone…” said Arteta pointing to the floor and making an exploding sound. “I think we have made big strides this season. Big time. Because we should be in a very different position with everything that has happened.
“It’s been incredibly satisfying to work every day with the players and the coaches and the staff to try to overcome certain situations. So if somebody tells you at the start of the season, by this time, you have played five times with a red card over half an hour in each of those games, and you have lost this amount of players, what’s the bet? You are in the middle of the table, at least, you know, and you are out of the Champions League. That’s not the situation.
“So that tells you the resilience, the resources, the ambition that the team has, every individual has and that has been probably my time, one of the proudest moments to work in that sense.
“We have to understand the circumstances that we had as well and we are still where we are. But I am not here to justify anything. We are here to win, that’s it, and to win the next game, and to win the previous 15 and the next 15, and to win the Champions League if we can. That’s the objective. That’s clear.”
Arteta has seen Myles Lewis-Skelly sent off twice – one was overturned on appeal – along with Declan Rice, William Saliba and Leandro Trossard who got their marching orders. Arsenal were bitterly unhappy with Lewis-Skelly’s red at Wolves, felt hard done by Trossard’s second yellow at Manchester City and were incensed by Rice’s sending-off for delaying the restart against Brighton, citing regular examples of other players escaping punishment.
Arteta could not resist a thinly-veiled dig at referees and football’s authorities for changing the rules as they go along. But it feels a bit bizarre for a manager to be claiming five red cards as a positive in any sense.
Arsenal have also been hit by injuries this season – losing Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz – but Arteta was rather dismissive of any suggestion the players had been overplayed or overtrained.
Arteta added: “Yes there are things in certain red cards that we had that we could have done differently. Even though now the rules appear to change again and not considered what it was before.
“But in other aspects it’s very difficult to change because when you ask the player why they have made that decision, it’s a very spontaneous decision. A very sharp movement or decision-making that caused you the action. It’s very difficult to change that.”
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