Arteta is still determined to find out which of his players is behind recent press leaks
Mikel Arteta is a man under pressure.
Nobody expected miracles ahead of his first full season as Arsenal manager, but with Sunday’s defeat at home by Burnley it’s hard to imagine anyone anticipated things being *this* bad for the Spaniard, with his side managing just one win in their last eight league outings.
The loss to Sean Dyche’s men has been followed by more murmurings in the press that Arteta has lost the faith of several senior members of his squad – with one report going as far as saying he isn’t on speaking terms with David Luiz.
Football.London also add that Arteta, who was angered by recent leaks to the press, has sent a stern warning to his players, vowing to ‘destroy’ whoever is responsible.
The 38-year-old is said to be determined to identify which of his players is the culprit, and called an internal meeting with his squad in which he made it explicitly clear that he would hand out a strong punishment when he eventually found out.
A report from The Athletic last month had claimed that Luiz and Dani Ceballos had been involved in a training ground incident, enough for the Brazilian to draw blood. Though Ceballos quickly dismissed the report as “fake”, Arteta promised there would be consequences when he got to the bottom of who was behind the leak.
“I don’t like the fact that that incident comes out at all,” Arteta said at the time. “I will find out where it is coming from and if that is the case, that goes completely against what I expect from each other, the privacy and the confidentiality that we need, and there will be consequences.”
“Training is very competitive and issues happen a lot of times,” Arteta later added. “Those things get resolved immediately within the team and there is not much to say.
“There is no problem at all.”
