Neville

“It’s a mentality thing” Gary Neville explains the hard job Mikel Arteta needs to do

Gary Neville believes Arsenal still do not have the mentality to become champions because of their terrible performances towards the end of most seasons.

Mikel Arteta’s side was close to winning the Premier League this season, but they missed out on the top spot after a terrible set of performances in their final games of this campaign.

The title run-in is an important time of the season for clubs looking to win the league or qualify to play in the Champions League.

This is the ideal time to not drop any points, but it was much different for Arsenal, who dropped points to the likes of West Ham, Southampton and Brighton to fall from the top of the league standings.

Neville insists they must defeat that mindset which cripples them at the end of campaigns to win any trophy.

He said via The Dailly Mail:

‘Arsenal have the lowest collection of points of any team in Premier League history in the last ten games that they have finished in the top three.

‘It just tells you what Mikel Arteta is going to have to shift. It’s a mentality thing in the final part of the season, it’s an experience thing that in the last two seasons in the real two moments, they’ve not been able to handle that in the last ten games of both seasons.’

Just Arsenal Opinion

Our run-ins in the last few seasons have simply been terrible and truly will not help us if we do not get better during the important stage of the season.

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16 Comments

  1. Didn’t this same man said arsenal dnt hav d mentality to qualify for champions league. Now he has upgraded it to becoming Premier league champions. We are getting their, by next season after we win PL it will be arsenal dnt hav mentality to win championship league

  2. Thete is no arguing with the stat that of the top three teams Arsenal have the worst end of season record of all. Mind that is something that we have had to live with for a few years now. Big mentality problem!!!!!!

    1. They need psychiatrists to be employed @ AFC for this purpose along with a good rotation policy.
      Mental burden on the Ist 11 leads to mental fatigue which can affect your physical abilities.

        1. I thought arteta changed the culrure of the club and almost all the squad are his players. Just saying

  3. The pundit is right but let’s put it in perspective.

    Arsenal may have the Lowest points collection of their ten remaining game finishing in the top four because in.my opinion they could afford to.
    But is that good certainly not.

    Having started out so well and on coming to the business end with the big jug out of sight and their nearest rival some distance off the pace Arsenal could afford to take our foot off the gas.

    But had our feet been taken off the gas by giving some ring rusty and academy players a chance the conversation would have been different.

    But Arsenal mentality is the single biggest factor why we lost out on that big jug.

  4. I have to say, I think neville has provided a lot of wisdom on *this* subject we’d do well to listen to. He’s made the point before that players like zinchenko can get too emotional and, while it might be appealing at times, when it gets to the crunch, we need leaders to be calming everyone down. We need to be able to harden ourselves in those moments, not let emotion take over – emotion makes players seize up or make bad decisions, or both.
    And that’s not to pick on zinchenko, he’s just been one example. Many of our leading players simply disappeared (seized up) when it got tough.
    Really I think we need one or two players who can provide that calming influence in the difficult times.
    Jorginho might be one to look to – though it’s been mentioned the others might not be listening to him. Maybe he needs a bit of help, especially considering he’s in and out of the side.

      1. Yeah, and he seems to have an understanding of it beyond just having ‘strong characters’. There’s a difference between looking like a leader in a team and being one.
        As much as I’ve changed my opinion on xhaka as a player, I still don’t rate his leadership qualities. He let the occasions get to him, even if there weren’t any car crash moments. e.g the Liverpool game- whether it affected the anfield crowd or not, it showed something.
        Jesus was another one imo – all that running back to help the defence looked like nerves to me.

  5. I remember those older generation players being just as emotional as Xhaka if not more so, they were always getting into skirmishes and mouthing off s**t. Especially in the big games

    1. I see what you mean as a generalisation (Keane and Vieira would obviously lose it at times, worse than xhaka or any of the others in our team), but i think it’s in the big games when you see the difference. That’s when they’d generally show calmness and it was about concentration and not making mistakes.

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