Hector Bellerin has revealed that it’s the Arsenal players who need to shoulder most responsibility for their dismal form in the Premier League this season, claiming talk about Mikel Arteta’s job being in danger is ‘so unjust’.
The Gunners go into tomorrow’s North London derby with Tottenham Hotspur 14th in the Premier League table.
Arsenal have only scored 10 goals in as many games, leading to pressure on head coach Arteta.
It has only been four months since the Spaniard led the Emirates Stadium side to FA Cup glory over Manchester City and Chelsea in the semi-final and final of the competition.
But for whatever reason, Arsenal just aren’t responding to Arteta’s methods in the same way that they did during Project Restart in the summer.
Bellerin has come out firing and defended the under-pressure coach, claiming it is unfair to even suggest the Gunners should look for a different manager, insisting that this slump is solely down to the players.
He told BeIN Sport: “So unjust. So unjust. As I say, we have to, as players, take responsibility for this because I think we all know that Mikel and his coaching team give us all the tools that we need to win all the games.”
This is very noble by Bellerin but, really, the buck does stop with Arteta.
When Arsenal won the FA Cup, nobody was refusing to give the rookie Spaniard – in this his first managerial job – much credit. On the contrary, Arteta was being praised from pillar to post and rightly so.
But if you get the credit when the team succeeds, you also get the blame if it fails and Arsenal are failing in a big way.
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