Gary Neville has claimed that Mikel Arteta should quit Arsenal if he succeeds in leading them to fourth, because they will have hit their ceiling.
The Spanish coach has already earned the right to be considered amongst the most exciting young coaches in world football with his young side threatening to qualify for the Champions League ahead of the likes of Tottenham and Manchester United.
We currently hold a three-point advantage on our closest rivals in the table, whilst having a game in hand also, and Gary Neville is full of praise for the coach, but claims that if he can lead us to fourth, he should quit in search of a bigger club because he will have taken us as far as we can go.
“I really like Mikel Arteta, I think he’s a brilliant coach. I think the team is fantastic in terms of the young players they’ve got,” Neville said on the Overlap. “But it’s interesting when you’re in a cycle of a club and you depress the ambition and have a significant period of failure because you then get really happy about finishing fourth.
“I found myself saying that about Manchester United. But it’s because of a depressed ambition. I think Mikel Arteta is a good operator. My concern is if Arsenal finish fourth this season – which to be fair, I think is 50/50, I still think there’s a long way to in that race – but if they finish fourth, that’s in some ways as good as it gets.
He continued by saying: “Mikel Arteta is a brilliant coach, I love that we’re seeing a team that he’s getting the maximum out of, I can see exactly how he wants to play, we all can. But he gets to fourth [and] if he was really hard about it, he’d probably say ‘right, that’s the best I can do there, I’m going now and getting my next job’.”
Neville has a warped idea on Arteta’s goals I feel. The reality is that he will know that he can still get more out of our side, especially if the owners continue to back his project in the way that he wishes, with the team continuing to improve month on month under his guise.
I also think it would feel like an alternative universe where Arteta would quit before taking his side into Europe after all the hard work in guiding us there, and fully believe that the Spaniard would be more interested in continuing to improve and build his own side in north London over leaving to take on a role with somebody else’s players and have to start again to build things the way he wants them.
I personally don’t believe that Arteta will believe that fourth is the be-all and end-all of his targets with this Arsenal side, and I think that Neville’s comments could be more about the fact that he would love to see Arteta leave and join Man United, who could potentially back him stronger in the transfer market, but I don’t believe that our boss would consider it personally.
Do you think Arteta could believe that fourth is the ceiling for this team?
Patrick