• last year
Arsenal's Mikel Arteta on Invincibles tag and Manchester City challenging for that
Transcript
00:00 Yeah, Miquel, Arsenal are the club of the invincibles,
00:04 so I wondered if, and I think a lot of people think City might be a club
00:09 that one day, this current City side might go through that one day,
00:12 so is there a small celebration at Arsenal every year
00:15 when Manchester City lose a game,
00:18 because you're still the invincible club?
00:21 It's great to have, I think it shows the achievement and the difficulty of that task,
00:27 because nobody else has been able to do it.
00:29 And then the obvious question is, do you think it can be done now?
00:33 I don't know, 100 points? It was never done.
00:39 Yeah, but they still weren't in... That's the thing,
00:42 they've done 100 points, but they need...
00:44 Yeah, but to do 90 or 100, I think it's more difficult to do 100, no?
00:48 Yeah.
00:50 And to score the record amount of goals and clean sheets and all these things,
00:53 but yeah, they are both great things to do,
00:57 and the things are there to be broken, that's for sure,
01:00 and probably one day somebody will do it.
01:02 And just lastly, they obviously are one of the great Premier League sides,
01:07 100 points, they've won the treble,
01:09 does that just show the changes you've made this summer,
01:13 you keep having to improve, you've been quite ruthless
01:16 in some of the changes you've had to make,
01:18 is that why you have to be so driven,
01:21 because you are basically competing as possibly the greatest team
01:25 or one of the greatest teams in Premier League history?
01:28 Well, they have set standards that nobody else has seen in this league, ever.
01:33 That's the reality, and with that level of consistency, ever,
01:36 no team has done that in the history of the Premier League,
01:39 that's unquestionable.
01:40 So we need to seek to be the best, and to be the best,
01:43 you need to be better than them, so you know where the temperature is
01:48 and how much you have to raise it.
01:51 Yeah?
01:52 Mikel, not only Roger you were missing on Sunday from the team,
01:56 but also De Bruyne, also Gundogan,
02:00 you touched on it earlier with Declan Rice,
02:01 but how much is this an opportunity with those players being absent
02:04 for us to really take control of the game in midfield,
02:07 which is where it seemed to be won and lost before?
02:10 Well, they have, and we have as well, they would have other players,
02:14 certainly that wouldn't be a problem for them.
02:17 Speaking about one of those players,
02:20 Gini Alvarez, was he a player that Arsenal were interested in signing?
02:25 And since you didn't, is he the kind of player,
02:28 everyone looks at City's £100m signings,
02:30 but they got him for about £20m,
02:33 and he now looks like one of the best players in the league.
02:35 Is he the kind of signing that Arsenal need to make,
02:37 as well as the Declan Rice £100m?
02:41 Yeah, for sure, every player cannot be £100m,
02:43 but I think they made a big call with him,
02:46 and he played that really well,
02:47 so he's having a really good impact on the team.
02:50 Can I ask one more?
02:52 You talk about the standards being set by City, they're unprecedented.
02:56 How much of that is down to Pep himself,
03:01 and how much is it down to the organisation behind him?
03:04 The point being that we've seen great managers like Wenger and Ferguson,
03:08 and people, even coming in and following the same set-up,
03:11 haven't been able to achieve the same things,
03:13 so how much of it is down to him?
03:16 Well, since they started to build that project,
03:18 the clarity and ambition that they had,
03:20 and you asked me about Pep, and huge, I would say huge,
03:23 because he took the standards, he took his idea,
03:26 with the board and ownership, to a different level,
03:28 and they've done it for a long, long time,
03:31 so credit to them for what they've done, that's for sure.
03:33 Will replacing Pep be harder than replacing Ferguson or Wenger?
03:36 I don't know, I'm not the person to answer that question.
03:39 Might be you.
03:40 OK, last couple, we'll go to Harry first.
03:44 I don't know if you've watched any of the Rugby World Cup,
03:46 or whether you've ever watched that game,
03:49 last weekend they were talking about,
03:52 ex-managers were talking about how rugby managers sit in the stands,
03:56 analyse the game, make calm, controlled decisions.
03:59 I know it's a slightly different game,
04:01 but Sam Allardyce used to do it, and Steve McLaren for the first half,
04:06 could you ever see yourself enjoying sitting in the stands,
04:08 and watching it quietly, and making decisions from there?
04:12 It feels like we're going to have a lot of managers in the stands this season,
04:16 whether we like it or not.
04:18 I've done it from home, I haven't done it from the stands,
04:24 only when I was against Everton when I signed,
04:26 I could not be there yet, but it might happen one day,
04:30 and I will try to take the positives and learn from it as well.
04:35 But you wouldn't make a decision to go up there and watch a half,
04:39 to analyse it, because you obviously get a different view.
04:42 The view is much, much better, that's for sure.
04:46 It's something to really think about,
04:49 because we have people that watch the game from that height,
04:53 and it is very different.
04:55 You don't know, I think when you feel it's the best for the team,
04:59 it's like any other decision that you make,
05:01 maybe it's the right thing to do.
05:03 Pep didn't enjoy it last weekend, he said at Wolves,
05:05 when he was having to sit in there.
05:08 Yeah, but as you said, I spoke to Sam about it,
05:09 and Sam was really comfortable to have,
05:11 especially in the first period there, and he took a lot of it.
05:14 When you see, when he explained the arguments and why he did it,
05:17 it's just brilliant, that's being ahead of the game as well,
05:21 and managing yourself in a way that can make the team better.
05:26 And finally, we'll go to Davide from...
05:28 Oh, sorry, go, go.
05:30 There was one other, artificial intelligence for linesmen
05:34 is used, or semi-artificial, in Champions League games.
05:38 Obviously you're now playing that.
05:40 Do you think that's something the Premier League could think about,
05:43 to have slightly the robots as the linesmen, as FIFA likes to call them?
05:48 I think they are thinking about every possibility,
05:51 and the intention is to improve the game,
05:53 so I don't know how far we are from that,
05:56 whether it would make it better or not,
05:58 because we have tried quite a lot of things, but yeah, why not?
06:02 OK, thank you.
06:03 We'll go to Davide from...
06:04 Hi, Miguel. You say Manchester City are set to stumble,
06:08 obviously they won the three last Premier League,
06:10 do you think you're up there yet?
06:13 No, because we haven't won any Premier League,
06:15 so from zero to three in a row, what they've done, we are very far.
06:20 So you need to win Premier League to be at their standard,
06:22 not just this game or big ten like...
06:24 Yeah, and not only win, it's the way, you know,
06:27 and playing that way every single game,
06:30 and not only being in one competition, but in four,
06:32 and we are not there, that's for sure.
06:35 OK, Paul, thank you very much.
06:36 Thank you.
06:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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