EL draw really annoys Coach: How Coach Arteta managed his Arsenal miracle

EL draw annoys coach a lot
How Coach Arteta achieved his Arsenal miracle

By Nils Bastek, Lisbon

In the Europa League it puts a damper on Arsenal FC, but in the Premier League the club is on course for the championship. That mainly has to do with coach Mikel Arteta. The Spaniard is considered the architect of the upswing. The fans wanted to make him say goodbye.

Mikel Arteta barely smiled. He walked briskly through the catacombs of the Estádio José Alvalade in Lisbon, and the Spaniard also answered journalists’ questions in a hurry. The Arsenal manager looked dissatisfied. After the 2-2 win in the first leg of the Europa League at Sporting Lisbon in the black turtleneck sweater, he actually spoke almost exclusively about the deficits of his team: what he saw as weak defensive behavior, the personnel problems, the easy goals conceded. “We have to improve that dramatically in the coming weeks if we want to win games,” warned the 40-year-old. And not a few may have asked themselves after this performance: Is it really the coach of what is perhaps the biggest surprise team in top European football this season?

Thanks to Arteta’s work, the Londoners are on the verge of winning their first Premier League title since 2004. The Gunners are five points ahead of top favorites Manchester City. They have won all of the last four games in the league. After the draw in Lisbon, they also have a good chance of reaching the quarter-finals in Europe, although Arteta rested some of his regulars in the Portuguese capital. So everything is going according to plan. Or? Anyone who saw the ex-professional after the game got the opposite impression. He left the press podium just as quickly as he had rushed there.

Fans begged Arteta to step down

It should also have been a warning to his team. Arteta knows how fast-paced business can be. And he knows that despite the outstanding season so far, Arsenal have yet to achieve anything. When the Arsenal bosses around US billionaire Stan Kroenke surprisingly hired him as head coach in December 2019, the euphoria was initially great. After staid years under former champion coach Arsène Wenger and his hapless successors Unai Emery and Freddi Ljungberg, Arteta was greeted with high hopes. He came from Manchester City as Pep Guardiola’s long-time assistant, and the Gunners’ fans immediately started dreaming: of exciting attacking football, just as Guardiola has had his teams celebrate for years. The euphoria surrounding Arteta was huge. However, it didn’t take long for fans to want to send him back to City.

After a disastrous start to the season in the summer of 2021, they stood in front of his car begging. “Please leave the club!” Some supporters yelled at the Basque native. It was quickly forgotten what Arteta had once done as captain for his heart club. The first doubts about him were raised after less than a year, when he went seven games in a row without a win for the only time in the Premier League to date.

Despite all the resistance and failures, the club management around Kroenke and sports director Edu Gaspar always stuck to the coach. And Arteta withstood the pressure. “There are difficulties and challenges in this job, especially when you lose, but also when you win,” he said recently. “But you can’t let it destroy your life, your family, your friends and all the loved ones around you don’t deserve that.” But he needed professional help to see that. This may also have contributed to the fact that he is now considered one of the most sought-after coaches in Europe.

Arsenal legend Wenger praises his successor

“You can go all the way to the end. You have everything you need. I don’t see any weaknesses,” Wenger said recently about the Londoners’ strong season. The current team is no longer characterized by big names, as was the case under the French. There is no Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, ​​Robin van Persie anymore. The current key players under Arteta are Martin Odegaard, William Saliba and Oleksandr Zinchenko. And they are all less than 27 years old.

Arteta completely transformed the squad according to his ideas. He separated from the biggest stars like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or Mesut Özil, which hardly anyone had previously thought possible. As well as? Apart from being Guardiola’s assistant, Arteta had no experience as a coach at all. Still, he did his thing. These tough personnel decisions have also contributed to Arsenal leading the league table today. Because they gave Arteta standing and respect. Not just within the team.

Team follows Arteta unconditionally

In his first-ever press conference in winter 2019, he said: “We have to build a culture that will carry the rest. If we don’t have the right culture, the tree will shake in difficult moments. So my job is to convince everyone of that.” If you want to be part of your team, you have to get involved in this culture. Özil and Aubameyang didn’t want that. So at some point they no longer played a role in his plans. “Culture”, Arteta still likes to use this word today. It’s at the core of his philosophy. A “culture” based on one crucial pillar: discipline – tactically and morally. Bit by bit he has built a team that follows him unconditionally. The summer transfers of Gabriel Jesus and Zinchenko were perhaps the last pieces of the puzzle missing along the way.

He now trains the youngest team in the Premier League on average, and he himself is one of the youngest coaches in the league. And he is facing the greatest success of his young career so far. Twelve games remain for the Gunners to save the lead over City and Arteta’s former teacher Guardiola. They want to take the next step on Sunday at Fulham FC.

The championship would be the temporary culmination of an exceptional coaching career. Even if Arteta himself doesn’t want to think that far. Gestures and facial expressions made that clear late on Thursday evening in Lisbon. You hardly saw him smile. Although he currently has many reasons for doing so.

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