Mikel Arteta is not excited about the situation at Arsenal and believes that something is still missing at the club despite a couple of signings that the club has made in recent years.
Last season, the club signed one of the most talked-about defensive midfielders in the 2020 summer transfer window, Thomas Partey, from Atletico Madrid for £45 million. Mikel Arteta decided to go for the versatile 27-year-old Ghanaian star because it is believed that the player could help to solve the club’s issues from the middle of the pack.
Yet, just like the inconsistency the club faced in the 2019-2020 season after signing Nicholas Pepe for a club-record fee of £72 million, the club has continued to be inconsistent in the ongoing 2020-2021 season.
It has gotten so bad that Arsenal that finished 8th on the Premier League table last season, have continued to struggle on the 14th spot. In the last 9 Premier League games that Arsenal have played this season, they have recorded 4 losses, one draw, and 4 wins which have earned them 13 points.
This means that Arsenal are 8 points away from the top four. If they win their Premier League game against Wolves tonight (20:15), they will be 5 points away from the top four but if they don’t, their task of finishing higher than the spot they finished last season will get harder.
“The position probably that I believe we should have been in and where we are at the moment, it is two games (difference),” Arteta said.
“That’s four to six points and it makes the whole difference and the small margins where we lose the game or win the game, it is incredibly narrow.
“But this is the reality of this league and where we are at the moment. We don’t have big margins at the moment so we have to be good at everything we do because at the moment, something is missing.
“We are on the edge of winning or losing a football match and we again are humble and conscious of that and at the moment we don’t have to steal those margins and any game is going to be difficult.”
Mikel Arteta is believed to be the special touch since he replaced Unai Emery at Arsenal in December 2019. The Spanish tactician has urged fans of the club to be patient that what he has been trying to build at the club would take a couple of transfer windows to materialize.
“If you’re asking ‘how do you rebuild the squad’? It takes a few windows at least to do that and to establish yourself to compete at the level of certain clubs in this league, which is near 100 points, again it takes time.
“In football, time is very precious and people are very impatient but if you don’t respect the processes and you ask certain people to do certain things when the foundations are not there, it’s a really dangerous thing to do as well.
“Again I know that we all want to see that and I am the first one who wants to see Arsenal at the top of the league.
“There are still a lot of things that are going to happen and we have to prepare for difficult moments and we knew that right from the start.”
It's time to say it again… IT'S MATCHDAY!
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) November 29, 2020
🆚 @Wolves
🏟 Emirates Stadium
🏆 @PremierLeague
🇬🇧 Kick-off: 7.15pm (UK time)
#️⃣ #ARSWOL pic.twitter.com/NgdCmOHLKX
