Ceballos rips into ex-Arsenal man who almost killed the team

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It’s pretty safe to say that Dani Ceballos is a bigger fan of Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta than he was of his predecessor.

Arteta is closing in on a special milestone as the Spaniard nears the one-year anniversary of his reign as Gunners boss.

The former Manchester City assistant replaced axed Unai Emery as Arsenal’s head coach last December following a dreadful run of form under the latter.

Under Emery at the time of his sacking, the Emirates Stadium side hadn’t won any of their past seven games – their worst run without a victory since 1992.

It took eight months for Arteta to prove himself an inspired replacement after guiding Arsenal to FA Cup glory in August, having beaten Manchester City and Chelsea in the semi-final and final, and then Liverpool in the Community Shield a few weeks later.

Quite a few players look much better under Arteta than they did under Emery and one of those is Real Madrid loanee Ceballos, arguably his side’s best player in the final against the Blues.

And the Spain international has told The Sun that this Arsenal side was ‘almost dead’ when Arteta took over from the former Paris Saint-Germain and Sevilla coach, crediting the 38-year-old rookie as being the ‘soul’ of the team now.

He told The Sun: “The team was almost dead – but after Arteta’s arrival we won the FA Cup and the Community Shield. It’s not even a year since he arrived and he has given a radical change to the club.

“He’s the soul of the club and he’s lucky that the players trust him 100 per cent. Arsenal need him, in part because he takes the initiative most of the time.”

This is big praise from Ceballos but Arteta still has a lot of work to do before Arsenal are back in the Champions League, which will represent real progress.

The North Londoners won an FA Cup in 2017 and Arsene Wenger was gone less than a year later, suggesting that getting back into the top four is a bigger priority for the club than silverware like that.

But Arsenal are 14th in the Premier League table now after nine games and if Arteta isn’t any closer to getting them back into Europe’s elite competition by May then he’ll be under serious pressure too.