Morning all, from a pretty windy Dublin after a very stormy night. If you’re in England, I think it’s heading your way so mind yourselves out there.
Let’s start today with Mikel Arteta and his press conference yesterday. Quite often, and very deliberately, these tend to be fairly bland. He is someone who tries not to give much away, whether it’s injury news or anything else, and his practice is – in general – to play everything with a straight bat. He’s happy to give information and his opinion to a certain point, but he doesn’t want headlines or to court controversy.
So, it stood out a bit yesterday when he was asked – as you would expect after our midweek exploits – about Arsenal being the best team around from set-pieces. His reply:
We want to be the kings of everything. at set pieces, the best in the world, at high press, the best in the world, attacking open spaces, the best in the world. We want the best atmosphere in the stadium, and be the best at everything.
We want to be the best at everything. we want to have the best academy, the best individual development for players, recruit the best players and have the best coaches. That’s the aim.
Later, he was asked how close he thought we were to achieving that, and he continued:
Very far. I don’t think there’s ever been a team that has achieved that, you know, so do we have the best atmosphere in the world at the stadium? Not yet. Have we improved a lot? Yeah. Do we have the best academy in the world? Not yet. Do we have the best mentality in the world? Not yet.
We want to achieve that. Are we the most physical team in the world? No. Do we have the best individuals to play magic moments every three days? No, we are on it.
I have to say I love that mindset. Some might scoff, and I’m sure there will be pundits and the like who, when things don’t go as well as we’d might want (which is the inevitability of football, let’s not forget), will use these words as a stick to beat him with. Of course that says plenty about the state of how the game is covered in the media landscape these days, but if you’re an Arsenal fan, how can you not connect to what he’s saying?
Isn’t that what every football fans wants? For their team to be the best … at everything! To have that level of ambition means you’re never satisfied, because the reality is you’re always going to fall short somewhere. But, the constant drive to improve is how you maintain the levels you’ve already reached, and go beyond them again.
Think of the words or phrases that are associated with Arteta already. His ‘foggin estandards’ or the ‘non-negotiables’. These are just part and parcel of this mindset he expanded on yesterday. I suppose the thing to say is that after five years in the job, and having improved the team and the club in so many ways, our manager is in a position to be taken seriously when he says things like this. If you heard it from Erik ten Hag while he was at Man Utd, or from Ange Postecoglu now, you’d be well within your rights to have a good laugh, but not from Arteta.
There is a drive and determination about him that has been evident from day one. If you’re in with him, you’re in, but the minute he decides you’re no longer useful, you’re out. It might not always sit well, but that ruthlessness can pay dividends. We loved Aaron Ramsdale, but he discarded him for David Raya and nobody’s arguing about that decision from a football standpoint now. There have been other casualties along the way (btw he was quite interesting on how letting Vieira and Smith Rowe leave was to make room for Ethan Nwaneri), there will be more to come, but if the end result is a better team that wins more games, it’ll be hard to argue.
Heavy is the crown etc etc, but that’s what Arteta wants and I hope he gets it – because if he does we’ll all have the trophies we crave.
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Finally for today, I had to mention this. Jose Mourinho talking about Pep Guardiola:
I want to win, but I want to win cleanly and fairly. If I can’t win cleanly, I’d rather lose. Guardiola told me something like this. He won six trophies and I won three, but I won fairly and cleanly. If I lost, I want to congratulate my opponent for being better than me. I don’t want to win by dealing with 150 cases.
On the surface, kinda funny, but let’s not overlook the fact he was the manager of Chelsea for years. The club who were essentially the gateway for the likes of Man City and others, because of what Roman Abramovich did and how he did it. We don’t have this Man City if that Chelsea didn’t come to power because of the blood-money spent on resurrecting it when it was on its knees. So, in short, Mourinho can stick his holier than thou shtick up his arse.
Right, that’s it for today – join us a little later this morning on Patreon for our Fulham preview podcast.
Until then.
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