"Damaging the club..." - Arteta claims "several players" have held Arsenal back

Mikel Arteta claimed “several players” held Arsenal back from success, in a Monday Night Football interview.

The Arsenal boss has guided the Gunners to the summit of the Premier League, some five points clear of reigning champions Manchester City in second place.

While Arteta’s work in his three-year tenure as Gunners boss is beginning to bare fruit, the Spaniard claimed in a fresh interview that he had to change the club culture when first arriving in north London.

Speaking to Sky Sports’ Jamie Carragher, Arteta claimed that there were a number of players that were restricting Arsenal’s progress at the time.

“Damaging the club”

When asked about Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s acrimonious exit earlier this year Arteta claimed “several players” were holding Arsenal back.

The striker’s final months with the Gunners saw him stripped of the captaincy following several disciplinary issues. The Gunners ultimately terminated Aubameyang’s £350,000-a-week contract in February.

When asked about the decision to get rid of the forward, Arteta told Sky Sports: “First of all I didn’t take that decision, we took that decision as a club.

“Obviously there is my recommendation and what I feel that we need to do to get where we want. But I wouldn’t like to single out one player. I think it was with several players.

“It was part of the strategy of what we’re trying to build.

“At the end of the day, when you are in that process and you want to go faster there are people holding that boat [back] and putting weight on it.

“I’m sorry but we want to go even faster and there’s no time, whether it’s a player or a staff member, for someone damaging the club and we made that decision.”

Five phase plan

Arteta revealed he began to implement a five-phase plan when he was appointed Arsenal manager three years ago today.

He explained: “The important ones are my wife and my family because that’s when you really open up, open your feelings, and say exactly the way you are feeling.

“Then the coaching staff, I think they are critical, you can really sense what is happening, how they are feeling, how they can help you.

“The third one is to have a club behind you that is understanding what the situation is and what it’s going take to move from where we are here to there.

“The good thing is I had a really clear plan, I put a plan of five different phases for the club – where we are compared with the rest of the teams.

“The timeline and everything we have to hit in every phase.”

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