After beating West Ham United at the Emirates, Arsenal have officially made a really positive start to their new Premier League campaign but Mikel Arteta is still confident that they aren’t good enough to challenge the big boys.
The Gunners beat David Moyes’ men 2-1 on Saturday but Mikel Arteta has made it clear that he still needs to solve a lot of problems within his first-team squad before they can reach the levels of Liverpool and Manchester City.
When asked about being title contenders, Arteta sharply replied: “No, I think we are very far from where we want to be, but I think if you ask any manager in the Premier League if they are happy with the way everything is going now for the team, it is probably no because we had a super mini pre-season and we are still adapting some things and some players are still not 100 per cent fit either.
“But it’s great to start winning and to have six points already and to find ways to keep winning.
“I had a sense after about 55 or 65 minutes that we were dropping.
“I could see the team were a little bit giving up because it was difficult, they were suffering and they were being a threat in two or three moments. I tried to lift them up and suddenly they clicked.
“I saw a different team in the last 20 minutes, with more belief, much better focus and determination in what we were trying to do. At the end we won the game. We’re going to have games like that.
“With the amount of games we have to play in this calendar year, it’s going to happen. The most important thing is to find a way to win.”
Ever since taking over, Mikel Arteta has made sure that Arsenal move exclusively in the forward direction and his hard work over the past nine odd months is finally starting to show dividends.
He has not only managed to bring in players like Willian and Gabriel over the course of the summer but has also convinced someone like Aubameyang to sign a new deal at the club.
But despite all this positive buzz, Mikel Arteta will still be needing a couple of more transfer windows before he can truly set up a starting XI as per his liking.
