Mikel Arteta wins over Arsenal players in just ten days but now must turn belief into points
IT has taken Mikel Arteta just ten days as Arsenal manager to win over the struggling players he inherited from axed Unai Emery.
Now the new Spanish boss has to turn that belief into points after a breathless start to his Emirates reign.
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He has wasted no time in getting to grips with an underperforming squad who are at the heart of the club’s worst run of form this century.
Arsenal have won one of their last 15 games and are only six points above the Premier League relegation zone.
Yet even Sunday’s crushing 2-1 home defeat by Chelsea has not dampened the players’ belief in their new boss.
And no one has been more impressed than centre-half David Luiz, who said: “The club has made the right choice with Arteta because he will be one of the best coaches in the world.
“He’s trying to improve our team on the training ground and we have to do that as soon as possible because this club deserves to shine again.
“He is trying to make a new philosophy and in the first half on Sunday everybody saw an amazing thing.
“But in the second half the game became very nervous and both teams were fighting to the very end and Chelsea were better than us.
"Everyone is disappointed to lose but we have to understand that Chelsea are ahead of us in their process because they had a pre-season together with the same coach and the same philosophy.
“We understand where we are and now it’s up to us to improve because we really need to get some points.”
Luiz’s enthusiasm for Arteta’s work is shared by captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who has scored half of Arsenal’s 26 league goals this season.
The striker did not get off to the best of starts with the new boss when his brother Willy publicly questioned Arteta’s appointment on social media. But he does not share the family’s concerns as he enters the final 18 months of his £200,000-a-week contract.
Aubameyang said: “Mikel Arteta has only been in charge for a few days but we’ve already noticed a big difference.
“We needed someone who would shake up the whole squad, someone with new ideas and a new message to take us in a different direction.
“The only perception I had of him was an assistant to Pep Guardiola.
“But he has spent 3½ years alongside one of the best managers in the world so I knew he would be full of ideas and would have an impact straightaway.
“He is very rigorous and demanding on the training pitch. It’s all about the details so he talks a lot, and repositions us and explains a lot of little things.
“We have worked hard on the style he wants us to play and now we have a clear gameplan and there is a real structure.
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“His message has been clear and it has been well received.
“It’s all about attitude and commitment. He wants us to be at 200 per cent all the time, to leave everything on the pitch.
“It’s so different to everything we have done before. It’s a new dawn and you can feel how positive everyone is.”
