Declan Rice on the upcoming Manchester City clash: “How much do you want it? I know I'll be ready, and I know our players will be ready, so let's go. Let’s have it.”
Mikel Arteta reveals Declan Rice has been given the captaincy over the past two games as the Arsenal players decided he has to have it.
🚨Guillem Balague has said it perfectly… absolutely spot on.
Two things bother me about the narrative building around Arsenal.
First, we're told constantly that the Premier League is the most competitive league in the world. Fine. So what does it mean to be consistently fighting for the title in that environment? You can't celebrate the league's brutal competitiveness and then dismiss sustained title challenges as not good enough. Pick one.
Second, and in my opinion this matters more, failure in elite sport is not losing. Luis Enrique said it. Many others have said versions of it. Failure is not trying again. It's accepting the ceiling. It's going through the motions. Arteta has never done that. Every setback has been fuel for the next attempt.
The problem is social media runs on binary outcomes. Win or fail. Hero or fraud. No room for nuance. No room for the manager who rebuilt a club into genuine title contenders and is still hungry for more.
Simeone has been at Atlético for over a decade. Two league titles, two Champions League finals. Still no European Cup. Nobody serious calls that failure. They call it one of the great managerial tenures in modern football. And I'm convinced that given 14 years like Simeone, Mikel will win more leagues than him.
Arteta may or may not win the league this year. He may not lift the Champions League this year or next. But as long as he keeps pushing, keeps trying, keeps competing at this level, failure isn't what this is.
Find another name for it.
Granit Xhaka in 2022, after Arsenal had a UCL qualification blow.
🗣️“If someone is not ready for this game, stay at home. If you’re nervous, stay at home. Don’t come here. We need people to have balls.”
Think this still applies…
🎵 £60 million down the drain…Kai Havertz 🇩🇪 wins it for #Arsenal again!! Absolutely brilliant work from both Kai and Martinelli 🇧🇷 to give Arsenal a MASSIVE boost we really earned that tonight!! 🙏
Thierry Henry on Arsenal’s style of play: “I always say I don’t have to like it, even as an Arsenal fan, but I surely respect it. After 22 years, no matter how we do it, I will respect it. We asked Mikel Arteta to find a way, he did.” 😤🏆
🎥 @SkySportsPL