Have full faith in Arsenal’s hierarchy to help me improve team, admits Mikel Arteta
Despite sending warnings to Arsenal’s board over the last few weeks, Mikel Arteta has revealed that he has full faith in the club’s hierarchy to help him improve the team. The North Londoners are in the running for another season of Europa League football but will need a miracle to make it happen.
The Gunners have seen their finances take a massive hit over the last few years with them now mathematically out of the running for a place in the Champions League. That does mean another year of Europa League football but it would take a miracle for the club to make it via a league position although winning the FA Cup does give them another road into the tournament. Yet over the last few weeks, Arteta has fired warnings towards the owners over transfer spending.
The Gunners boss even admitted recently that he may not have the resources to mount his own title challenge in the near future with the club struggling financially. However, the Spaniard has revealed that he has faith in the club’s hierarchy as the club look to improve the team again. Arteta also added that he has a good relationship with Raul Sanllehi and Edu Gaspar and is also in contact with the owners.
"I have full faith. I have a really good relationship with Raul, with Edu, with Vinai [Venkatesham, managing director] and direct contact with the owners. We know what we want to do. That's not the issue, for sure. There are many different aspects. Obviously the financial one, depending on where we finish, is one. Depending on the future of a few players and obviously depending on the transfer market. We don't know the type of transfer market we are going to find. It is something unique, it never happened and there are a lot of question marks around that,” Arteta told Sky Sports.
The Arsenal boss has fired warnings towards the board over the last few weeks including admitting that he isn’t sure if he could improve the club in the near future. However, Arteta admitted that while he wasn’t sending warnings, there are a lot of questions that the club cannot resolve because of the situation. He also added that Arsenal’s financial issues and their uncertainty over European football haven’t helped their situation.
"That was misinterpreted. It wasn't my intention. We work so closely with everyone at the club, with the owners to put the plan that we need to take the club forward. Everybody has the same ambition, we are in all of this together. But if you ask me if I know right now what do I have and how can I do it, I'm sorry but I don't know because there are a lot of questions that we cannot resolve right now with the situation we have.
“One is financially and the other one is because we do not know if we are in Europe, and because we have players that we don't know what's going to happen . That's the reality. It's not about sending a message, we all have the same objective which is to try to bring the club back as quickly as possible, fighting with the top teams in the country and in Europe and that's it, and I want to do that as quickly as possible,” he added.