Former Arsenal legend Ian Wright talks about the hard job ahead for Mikel Arteta.
Ian Wright believes that Mikel Arteta has his work cut out for him as he bids to return the Gunners to former glories.
Arsenal’s goal for the season is to seal a return to the Champions League, but a poor start to life under former manager – Unai Emery- has seen the Gunners struggle to turn things around.
Mikel Arteta was made the replacement for the former PSG boss late last year and he has been making gradual progress with the team.
However, Ian Wright insists that Mikel Arteta’s task is a tough one and the Spaniard would have realised now “enormous” the scale of the job is right.
He said this after Arsenal failed to take advantage of their fine start against Burnley missing two great chances to grab a goal before the break.
The Gunners eventually drew the game after firing blanks in the second half, and Wright believes Arteta has it all to do in terms of making this team a top English side again.
“Mikel Arteta now realises the enormous task he has,” Wright told Premier League Productions per the Mirror. “The way they started, it looked like something was going to happen but then after that they slowly went further and further into their shell.
“It’s something he has to address because in terms of the calibre of player we’ve got – and you have to give Burnley credit for where they are – but we should be performing a lot better.
“We’ve got a lot of young players coming through that you hope can step up to the mark but we’ve got a lot of players there that aren’t playing to a level where Arsenal should be.
“That’s the job that Arteta has got, to get them back to that level. Whether or not he can do that with the funds that he’s got, which isn’t much, is going to be a massive, massive ask.”
Cannot argue with too much there from Wright, it is a hard task but Arteta is going in the right direction and after the summer transfer window things should be a whole lot better.