Mikel Arteta was hired as the manager of Arsenal last year after the team had made a poor start to the season under Unai Emery.
The Spaniard came into an Arsenal side that was in disarray and in an environment that had gotten so toxic that the club fans had turned against their players.
The Spaniard had his work cut out in terms of reuniting the fans with the players as well as making the team competitive again.
Arteta came prepared even though it was his first senior managerial position and the former midfielder has made a big impact at the club.
He has recently opened up on the atmosphere that greeted him at the club and the sort of rebuild he needed to do.
“You cannot build something new [quickly], when something has been damaged and hurt badly, that you can see a big split between even our own fans and the team,” Arteta said to the Arsenal website.
“You have to rebuild that [bond]. In order to do that you have to build some foundations, and afterwards start a process. You have to prioritise that process at the start, and where you are going to get to.
“To do that you need some pieces that have to fill in there, and you have to start to create a puzzle and try to manage it because there will be bad moments and you don’t want to break it.
“All the time you have to be very alert because it takes very little to break what you are building.”
