Arteta reflects on five years in charge: ‘The roots at the club were damaged’ | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta has reflected on his five years at Arsenal and says he had to change the culture of the club when he first took over as manager.

Today (December 20) marks five years since Arteta was appointed Arsenal manager.

The Gunners boss took over a side tenth in the Premier League table and won the FA Cup in his first season in charge. He led his side to consecutive eighth-placed Premier League finishes in his first two years in charge, before they finished 5th in the 2021/22 season and then second in both of the previous two seasons.

Reflecting on his start to life at the club and the job he had on his hands, Arteta explained: “The first thing is understanding what is a good culture and what is a bad culture.

“To do that, what I basically did is to ask through somebody I employed, their opinion of how they feel to work in this football club whether it’s players, staff, in all kinds of roles and with all kinds of responsibilities and then I had a very clear picture of what they thought and how they felt about it.

“It was clear that it had to be changed.

“That’s the roots of the football club so if those roots were damaged at that level, there was nothing to build without that so the first emphasis and what we have to put the energy (into) and the big decision is to make sure those roots were clean and in the context and the right place to be able to build what we wanted to build.”