Mikel Arteta Interview (Sport Magazine)

Arsenal started this season badly and got worse, leaving new signing Mikel Arteta wondering if he should have stayed in the northwest. But he tells Sport things are looking brighter in north London now…

Mikel Arteta has had just four hours’ sleep when he greets Sport. Not that you’d know it, for the hair remains perfectly coiffed, the stubble suitably designer. The Arsenal midfielder returned to London from Liverpool in the early hours of the morning having played all 90 minutes of the Gunners’ hard-fought (and some might say fortunate) 1-0 victory at his former home, Goodison Park.
“It was very emotional for me,” he says earnestly. “I spent the biggest part of my career playing there for Everton, so to get the reception that I got was very special. I thanked the chairman last night because I always said to him: ‘One day when I leave this club, please we have to do it the right way because I respect this club and love it a lot. And I really mean it when I say it.’”
After pausing to thank the obligatory PR character for delivering him a glass of water, Arteta moves swiftly on to talk about the club that prised him away from Everton. “For me it was a big move and I was so pleased to get it done,” he says. “I’ve always been a big admirer of Arsenal, of the tradition and the way they play football.”
Into the eye of a storm
But his arrival came amid a turbulent time for the Gunners – just three days after that mauling at Old Trafford.
“It was a very difficult start to the season for the club, and I think the [8-2] defeat against Manchester United was probably the toughest point,” he reflects.
“Was there shock in the changing room? There was because, for a club like Arsenal to lose the way they did, it was difficult to take –and against a direct rival like United it was even tougher. They had sold some big players and then had a result like that – it doesn’t help the stability of the club.”
Ditto for getting steamrollered by AC Milan in the first leg of a Champions League last-16 tie: “For me personally, that game at Milan was the lowest time of this season. We didn’t play at the level that we should have played and we deserved to lose the game. At 4-0 it was too much... though we nearly did it at home.”
With the memory of what was to follow in the second leg, when Arsenal so nearly performed the miracle of Champions League miracles, Arteta smiles. But before the Gunners left their supporters dreaming of what might have been at the Emirates, they had left them snarling at the Stadium of Light.
A 2-0 defeat to Sunderland in the FA Cup fifth round saw yet another chance for silverware slip from Arsenal’s careless grasp. Fingers pointed at Wenger, with some outside the club proclaiming his tenure had turned stale. “I don’t read a lot of the press because I’m foreign,” Arteta says almost apologetically.
“But Arsene knows that he has our support, and we know that he’s always been behind and protecting the players – it’s a mutual concept. There’s never been a scary moment, like ‘what’s going to happen with him?’ or whatever. Since I came here I know who is the boss, I know who runs the club; it’s very clear.”
Turning point
The dissenting voices faded when, eight days after their FA Cup failure, a switch seemed to flick on Arsenal’s season. A thrilling 5-2 victory over Tottenham was followed by a further four consecutive Premier League wins – a run that has seen them overhaul their north London rivals and move into the top three for the first time this season.
“We got to a point when we had to say: ‘Listen, we have to go game by game because they are too far from us at the moment to be thinking we can finish third, fourth or even fifth,’” says Arteta.
“I think we were 17th in the table the first game I played against Swansea, so there was a long way to go – but we’ve done it and everyone has put tremendous effort and belief into keeping going because, at one point, I was thinking that the season was over.
“Now we just try to finish as high as we can. There is nothing else to play for. We’re disappointed that we have dropped out of the Champions League and the cup against Sunderland, but we’re third now – and we have to try and maintain that because it takes you directly to the Champions League.”
Millions matter
But Arsenal must also address their domestic desires if they’re to close the gap with the Manchester clubs next season. Here comes the million-dollar question, then: is competing for the league title simply a question of cash?
“Well, obviously if you spend a lot of money to bring top players, you have a better chance – you have a bigger squad and you can change the team around,” Arteta explains. “For me, a key thing with our squad is that we’ve been hit with long-term injuries the whole season that really affect the team.
I always said I would like to see this team playing with the same 11 for 10 to 15 games, and then we could say if we were good enough or not to do it. Now we’re starting to do that and we are getting good results. So the biggest concern is to stop the injuries.”
He’s forgetting something – or someone – else, though. Robin van Persie.
The player whose name scrawled on an Arsenal contract this summer would be the most celebrated of any possible new arrivals (barring Leo Messi, perhaps, but we’ll eat our hats, socks and shoes if that happens).
“How important is it that Robin stays?” Arteta smiles as he repeats the question. “Very important. [Laughs] He’s the one who’s been making the difference. You need someone to put the ball in the net, and Robin has done it more than any other player in the league. He’s probably one of the best in Europe, which means without him it wouldn’t be the same.
"I don’t know if you replaced him how it would be, but we don’t want to be in that situation.”
He’s still smiling when he finishes the sentence, but there’s no doubt about the seriousness behind it. Arteta might be one of the new boys at Arsenal, but if Wenger’s in any doubt about how to bring the good times back to the club, he could do worse than ask the Spaniard. Let him have a few more hours’ kip first though, eh?