Arsenal announced on Friday that Mikel Arteta has signed a three years contract that will see him manage the Gunners till 2025.
However, Arsenal legend Martin Keown has criticized the timing of Arsenal’s decision to extend the contract of the Spanish coach.
Arsenal is fourth on the Premier League table after beating Manchester United, Chelsea, and West Ham in a space of one week.
Martin Keown believes his former Club should have waited after the Leeds game to extend the contract since the Gunners lost three matches before winning three matches in a row.
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What did Martin say?
He told TalkSport that:‘They’ve just lost three games and won three games. I thought they might have waited until the summer because we are now at a crossroads and got a huge game coming up.’
‘They feel there’s no desire for any change, they’re happy. I think they’re right.
‘I probably would’ve waited until the summer.
‘Perhaps there was a clamor for the manager from other clubs, we don’t know what’s happening internally, they wanted to meet his needs and felt no reason for any kind of change.
‘We could’ve been looking at a very different situation had they not beaten Chelsea, Manchester United, and West Ham all in one week.
‘If they’d been announcing after losing those games it might have been a different situation.
‘I think it’s good for the players, get the man in and settle in place. The person in charge has to be looked after and resolved.
‘It feels like the start of the journey.’
Meanwhile, Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta has revealed that Arsenal offered him a contract at the time his team had lost three consecutive matches.
According to Mikel Arteta, the Board decided to give him a contract extension at the time the Gunners had lost to Crystal Palace, Brighton, and Southampton.
At that time Arsenal had dropped from fourth to fifth behind Tottenham.
Arteta told a reporters at a press conference on Friday that:‘The club offered me the contract when we lost three matches.’
‘That day I went like this, “Chapeau”. And that doesn’t happen in football.
‘That’s a part of what they think, the conversations they have, the belief that they have in me. The coaching and staff in what we are doing and the people that we have now at the football club and leading this football club and I haven’t ever seen it.
‘I just got emotional when I saw it and I said, “You guys are serious and committed and I’d better push forward”.
‘Words and facts are very different things. And in football, they can be extremely different concerning the results and it’s not the case,’ Arteta added.
‘So they meant something for many months, the conversations that we had and they put it in a piece of paper after that day, and for me, there’s not a better way to describe the people that we have at the club. ‘
Arsenal will face Leeds United on Sunday at the Emirate stadium.
