Mikel Arteta has spoken to the press ahead of Arsenal’s Premier League clash with Southampton on Sunday, and has admitted that he is unsure how to manage his squad this season.
The Gunners currently sit ahead of the chasing pack in the division, with a four-point lead over Manchester City in second, after winning nine of our opening 10 league games, turning heads in our direction.
With all eyes on us, people are trying to figure out where and when things will go wrong for us, and manager Arteta is unsure how to maintain his squad for the remainder of the campaign, insisting that the World Cup being mid-season means we have no idea of how to manage our personnel.
“It will depend on a lot of factors: how the players are performing, the injuries that we have, what happens in the World Cup; there are a lot of question marks that we don’t have the answers to,” Arteta admitted to Arsenal Media. “We are planning to have the right resources to continue the way that we are right now, but again, as you said, a World Cup like this has never happened. We have to all experience it and try our best to get the right outcome.”
The WC in Qatar definitely poses as an unwelcome distraction in what could well be a huge season for our club, but there is every reason to believe that the tournament could well hamper each of our rivals just as much as us. It would be easy to believe that Man City’s extended playing squad gives them the advantage, but you could argue that more of their players will be in action in the international competition also, which levels it out a little also.
Which teams do you think will be most obstructed by the World Cup this year?
Patrick
Watch Arteta on PSV, Xhaka and Saka and our third 1-0 win in a row!…
Please enjoy, watch and subscribe to JustArsenalVids
History shows in Southampton lays the biggest potential banana skin.
Southampton was the team responsible for bringing to an end our longest unbeaten run since the invincible (22) matches.
The gaffer man Management skill will be tested
Gunsmoke, Have you ever come across the well known expression,”history is bunk”? It was said by Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company and is a wise and apt saying!
Yes jon I have come across that expression.
But all am saying history some time can be use as a guide.
It can help us to understand present day issues by asking more or deeper questions as to why things are the way they are, it can also guide our approach at St Mary tomorrow.
Man u the only team to beat us this season, they were the one responsible for ending the invincible run, maybe just maybe if we had ask a few more questions the result could have been different
Gunsmoke, There is a massive gulf between learning the human lessons of thr many mistakes we humans make in such as wars and bigotry etc, on the one hand , in which I MUCH AGREE THAT WE do learn fromhistory(most of us, that is, though NOT such as Putin).
ON THE OTHER HAND, to use so called “history” as saying because we lost our longest unbeaten run since The Invincibles, to Saints, that that has ANY bearing at all on todays match , is to misuse what history means and, as such, it is profoundly mistaken.
And why? Because unlike wars and bigotry, NEANDERTHAL TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND MINORITY GROUPS, football matches in different times have NO common grounds at all.
You are, perhaps naively, misusing what learning from history ACTUALLY SHOULD MEAN!
I say Manc will be one of the most affected clubs simply because of all the internationals that they have on their team. I haven’t looked up fixtures or anything really that could indicate an answer to your question, just off the top of my head, I say, city
An interesting article , only spoiled by Patricks usual and irrelevant daft last line question.
What MA is proving is that no one, , not a single person anywhere on the planet , goes through life with everything mapped out unchangeably in front of them and wise people know that you have to adapt to circumstances, which are always evolving and changing. MA is wisely saying this same truth.
This is so taken as read by wiser fans, that to even raise the subject might be seen as pointless.
But as fellow Gooners will know, I would never say such a thing about an article by Patrick. Would I!!!!