Mikel Arteta has revealed he considered his future as Arsenal manager after losing the Premier League title to Manchester City last season.
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The Gunners came so close to lifting their first league title for 19 years last season having topped the table for so long, only to suffer a late collapse in form, winning just three of their final nine games.
This handed the title to City, who went onto win a historic treble, but the north Londoners are keen on revenge and have spent heavily yet again this summer in a bid to finally overhaul the Citizens.
They’ll get a chance to show off their new signings – such as Declan Rice and Kai Havertz – on Sunday when Arsenal kick-off the 2023/24 season against City in the Community Shield.
But they could well have gone into the new campaign with a different manager, with Arteta admitting he questioned whether he was the right man for the job, though after ‘big reflection’ his commitment to the project was reaffirmed.
Discussing how he dealt with the disappointment of the title race in his pre-match press conference on Friday, the Spanaird said: ‘The first few weeks were very tough, because I went through it.
‘The first thing you have to do is look in the mirror and understand, “ok, is there something you should have done better, differently?”, and if that’s the case learn from it.
‘And then judge yourself: “Are you still the right person to drive the club, the team, forward in the way that you want and do you have that energy and that belief that you want to do it?”
‘I think it took a big reflection but the answer is “yes” and I feel with a lot of energy and positivity. But I don’t like losing and it takes me a while, and that was a tough moment.’
Arteta has previously stated that the three consecutive draws in April against Liverpool, West Ham and Southampton, is when his side lost the title, with those games immediately followed by a 4-1 thrashing at the Etihad that put City in complete control.
Expanding on the matter, the manager added: ‘Momentum. In the key moments, when it should have gone one way — and in many situations in the season it went for us — it didn’t go for us.
‘It was one, two, three and then we lost momentum. They took momentum. That shifted, very much.
‘Then you are talking about a team that has the capacity to win 25 games in a row, so the last thing they need [to be given] is momentum and belief. We gave them that.’
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