Speaking to Stadium Astro on YouTube, Mikel Arteta has once again discussed his project at Arsenal, commenting on the state of the club when he arrived.
It’s fair to say that Arteta arrived while Arsenal were in a low ebb. They were miles off of the top four and were on their worst winless run in almost 20 years.
Arteta went as far as to say that Arsenal were almost battling relegation when he came in after Freddie Ljungberg’s spell as caretaker, which is a damning claim.
“There are different phases in this project. When I landed here there was a lot of instability, a lot of issues, problems that we had to resolve,” Arteta said.
“We needed to analyse quickly what happened and make some quick changes, why we were going to start to win, because we were fighting almost relegation in that period and we managed to do that, to rebuild the team, change the energy, change the environment and win two trophies.”
This is an eye-opening statement from Arteta.
Yes, Arsenal needed a rebuild, but to say that they were fighting relegation when he came in is a bit far.
They were only eight points off fourth when Unai Emery was sacked, and even when Arteta was appointed after a poor run under Ljungberg, Arsenal were 10th, only seven points from the Champions League spots.
In fact, the only time Arsenal have ever seriously been talked about as relegation candidates was earlier this season when they sat 15th in the table after 13 games.
We’re not going to pile in on Arteta too much, but we can’t help but feel he’s more than a little wide of the mark with these comments.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
