Mikel Arteta reflected on his six year anniversary as the manager of Arsenal.
The Spaniard started his reign in North London watching a 0-0 draw at Goodison Park against **Everton**in December 2019. Now, he looks forward to a trip to the **Hill Dickinson Stadium**to face the same side and sustain a title charge for the Gunners, who are aiming to crown his revival project.
Arteta had a tough task trying to turn the club into a unified, competitive collective chasing the top honours. Now hunting the Premier League for a fourth successive season, he has achieved that goal.
“[Changing the culture] was the first foundation that we had to see. I think it was done pretty rapidly. Maintaining it is something that is very, very difficult, and you need a lot of good people and very aligned people to achieve that.
“I think we have that in a really strong and solid way, but all the things, socially, the transformation has been around the club in terms of the size, in terms of revenues, in terms of the squad that we built, the value of it, the sporting success that we had.
“Even though we haven’t won any major trophies yet, I think it’s very consistent, so we’re in the right place.
“One man cannot really change anything, especially when you talk about the size and the history of this football club. You need a lot of good people, very committed people around you with the same vision, the same work ethic, the same passion and I’m very lucky because I had some of that.
“Then at the end you need a lot of support, starting from upstairs with everybody that makes decisions alongside you, but the most important ones are the players. I think the players have to buy into what you say and what you do, and I feel very lucky because those players, they give you 100% in the direction that you want every single day.
“If I say, I never coached at the highest level, I come to a club that is in a difficult stage of history, and the recent past of the previous managers, I don't know [if I’d thought I’d be here after six years].
“But you have to take this job day by day. I do the same on day one, do your best, do what you feel, make sure that people are on board with you and what you do, and that's it. And then at the end, in my job, it's about winning football matches, that's it.”