Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta came dangerously close to walking away from the job early in his reign.
According to Miguel Delaney on his Inside Football YouTube channel, going into the winter of 2020, Arteta was in “a very low place” and believed he had made “a terrible mistake” in taking the Arsenal job.
He was even considering quitting.
Arteta had inherited what was described internally as a “toxic” atmosphere at the Emirates.
According to Delaney, some staff members believed players were exaggerating injuries to avoid games they did not fancy, mentally checking out before the end of seasons and showing little of the hunger and intensity Arteta demanded.
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In the winter of 2020/21, Arsenal won just once in ten Premier League games between mid-October and late December.
The squad was average, the infrastructure was lacking, and the early signings were not up to the standard required.
It was, by any measure, an extraordinarily difficult situation for a first-time manager.
The man who stopped Mikel Arteta from quitting Arsenal
The figure credited with keeping Mikel Arteta at the club is Tim Lewis, the executive vice-chair who left Arsenal suddenly in September last year.
Lewis, a lifelong Arsenal fan and corporate lawyer who had worked with the Kroenke family since 2007, recognised that Arteta needed more than encouragement.
He initiated the infrastructural turnaround of Arsenal by building a football leadership team around the manager and sporting director Edu.
Crucially, Lewis arranged for Arteta to fly to Denver to present his vision directly to Stan Kroenke, making the case, alongside Arteta, for proper investment and direction.
And it worked. The backing followed. And the rest, as Arsenal fans now know, is history.
The huge changes Arteta subsequently made, and his meticulous training ground adjustments all stem from a manager who was given time and support to implement his vision fully.
Lewis’s fingerprints were on some of Arsenal’s most important decisions. Even last summer, it was Lewis who was key in securing the signing of Eberechi Eze.
He may have left the club before seeing the project reach its ultimate goal, but without him, there may have been no project at all.
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