Arsenal slumped to another defeat in the League Cup quarter-final fixture against Manchester City in an embarrassing 4-1 loss to the hands of the Cup holders. While the competition isn’t of the highest priority to Arsenal, though this loss would add to the struggles of under pressure Mikel Arteta. The Spaniard was coming off a strong end to the first season of his managerial career at Arsenal and was expected to build upon the good work he had done after making some decent additions to his side in the summer in the form of Thomas Partey, Gabriel Magalhães and Willian. However, he currently finds his side languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League table.
Arsenal are virtually in a relegation battle, the club’s highest earner is not even registered for the squad, few players in the squad feel undervalued by the manager and several reports are now emerging about Mikel Arteta being on the verge of losing the dressing room. For a club of Arsenal’s stature, it would have been difficult to see any manager surviving such a slump, yet Arteta has not only survived but he reportedly still enjoys the confidence of the majority of the decision-makers at the club.
While this can be seen as a sense of weakness from the side of the Arsenal hierarchy, however, this could also turn out to be a smart move on their part if Arteta is able to turn this around. However, he cannot do so by losing his players, the belief is still their upstairs at the club but he needs his players to play for him and give their best on the pitch if he wants to turn it around and given his strong decisions against few of the senior most members of the squad, he needs to start racking up points if he wants sustain his authority over the dressing room. Mikel Arteta find himself stuck in a vicious cycle and the only way out for him from this is by winning.
