Mikel Arteta Arsenal
Mikel Arteta has hit back at members of the press who he believes distorted his quotes from a press conference in the build up to his side’s 1-0 victory over Chelsea. The result was Arsenal’s first victory at Stamford bridge in nearly a decade and came courtesy of an Emile Smith Rowe goal after a poor back pass from Jorginho. Thomas Tuchel ‘s side went on to dominate the game after that, but the Gunners held firm to record a victory that moves them up to eighth place in the Premier Leauge. However, after the match Arteta was in no mood to analyse the game and instead wanted to get across his anger at the media for the way they reported his quotes.
Mikel Arteta said “Nothing is broken, inside nothing is broken. I don’t know how hard you are going to try from the outside, but from the inside – no. They will try to put things on me that I never said. You can see the spirit of the team from the first minute. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing to be seventh, eighth or ninth you can see that and you can never doubt about their efforts and how much they try.”
Mikel Arteta said “Nothing is broken, inside nothing is broken. I don’t know how hard you are going to try from the outside, but from the inside – no. They will try to put things on me that I never said. You can see the spirit of the team from the first minute. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing to be seventh, eighth or ninth you can see that and you can never doubt about their efforts and how much they try.”When asked to elaborate on exactly what he was referring to the Spaniard went on to add:
Mikel Arteta said “Something that I didn’t say. I said that if I don’t get 120% from each player, then it’s my fault and my responsibility and it wasn’t like this in the press and I am so annoyed with that. My players, I will defend them in front of anybody for the rest of the time that I’m here because they deserve it, because they earn it every single day.”
He then went on to suggest that despite some reports to the contrary the unity within the Arsenal camp was as strong as ever.
Mikel Arteta said “They’re not going to break that,” he said. “They can try, but they’re not going to break that. I know the chemistry we have, not only with the players, but with our staff, with all the coaching staff, with our board. They cannot touch that and if they try to touch it, it can be opinions but not saying something that I never said. I’m not taking that. This is the first time I’ve had to make my point.”
Arteta has come under increasing scrutiny since his side were eliminated from the Europa League at the semi final stage by Villarreal last Thursday. Despite victories over West Brom and Chelsea since then Arsenal look unlikely to qualify for European football for the first time in 25 years this season which has caused discontent among large sections of their fanbase. Having got his point across Arteta was then able to move on to talk about the game and praised his players for the resilience they showed in victory after a difficult few weeks.
Mikel Arteta said “I’m really happy with a lot of things that they have done, the attitude and the desire to win that they showed. When we had to dig in which you have to do against this team because they are a fantastic team we did it and we put everything that we had to give the best possible result and we did it.”
