There’s a brand-new member of the Arsenal family at our London Colney training school.
But this addition isn’t part of the playing team. The brand-new face is a chocolate Labrador, that has actually used up residence at our training center.
Named ‘Win’, she invests most days at London Colney, with her main carer likewise being a full-time Colney member of staff. Mikel Arteta has actually generated the dog to help establish the family environment at the club, and says the response from gamers and staff alike has actually been ‘incredible’.
“We always talk about family, and being connected,” Mikel describes. “A huge family like we are at the club, and I seem like we are a family, we require a dog to represent that family. I believe there are still things at the club that can be done to get in touch with individuals. To be more caring with individuals, to reveal love.
“I thoroughly picked the dog and in my viewpoint it’s the best agent of who we are right now. Her name is Win, all of us like winning and Win requires a great deal of love. So the love for Win, that was generally the sensation.
“The response from the gamers and the staff has actually been amazing, she is among us. She is going to be on this journey with us together. It’s something that modifications your state of mind like this [clicks fingers]. She provides you all the love and all of a sudden you feel the energy of the location. It’s simply lovely and to me those things are really crucial.
“Win needs accountability from us because we have to look after her as well, her emotions and what she needs.”
Ahead of our journey to Nottingham Forest, Mikel discussed other methods he is utilizing meaning to build togetherness.
“Another symbol at the club is our tree. It needs a lot of care as well. It’s an olive tree, it’s older than 150 years, similar to the club, and we have to look after those roots every single to the day, make sure they don’t get poisoned, don’t get damaged and it’s in the right condition.”
The employer likewise discussed how he has actually been handling the dissatisfaction of last weekend’s harmful defeat to Brighton, and how he has actually been advising the gamers that there are still targets to go for in the last 2 video games of the season.
We have actually won 25 of our 36 Premier League video games up until now this season, the most we have actually ever accumulated in a 38-game league season is 26. We can likewise reach an optimum of 87 points, we’ve just improved that tally when – in the Invincibles season of 20023/04.
“First I recover myself for 24 hr that I required since it hurt and after that deal with the minute, deal with the scenario and attempt to alter it quickly. And then provide all the assistance and help that they require to be much better, to gain from it and to deal with tomorrow as a difficulty and a chance to put something right.
“You have two different routes when we are on this pathway now. Do you go to the frustration route, or do you go to a different one? And that’s what we can still achieve – our biggest number of wins in the history of the league, and the second or third highest (points) ever in the history of the club. Today we still have the opportunity to win the Premier League – you have to go for that. Forget about the other route, that is taking you nowhere. Only to bad places.”
And how does Mikel ‘heal’ himself after disappointing results like last weekend?
“Sometimes it’s just going to bed for 12 hours and don’t speak to anybody!” he smiles. “Sometimes you require your wife, you need your kids around you, your dog, your family. I’ve been here for three years at the club and I’ve never had that many text messages after a game, it was incredible.
“I think it was 122 messages that I had, all talking about what we’ve done. They said don’t lose perspective about what we’ve done and that helps because it comes from friends, a lot of colleagues, a lot of coaches as well, a lot of people at the club and sometimes that helps you as well. Sometimes you live with that tunnel vision thinking about ‘I should have done that in the game, we should have changed that, we should have done that’ and you just heal and hammer yourself and that helps.”
As soon as the season is over, Mikel will be turning his thoughts to the summer, and his preparations for the 2023/24 campaign. He is under no illusions how important this next close-season is.
“Crucial,” he states. “To go to the next level, this is going to be a crucial summer for us, that’s for sure. First of all to make sure that we maintain everything that we have at the club right now. To maintain the expectation, the enthusiasm, the energy that is around the place and we have a proper preparation to fulfil the objectives and the challenges that we’ll face next season.
“We try to make the right decisions,” he adds. “Tough decisions are sometimes something that depend on you, sometimes it depends on players that they want to seek or look for a different challenge, it all depends. We will sit down at the end, evaluate where we are, what we can do, how we’re going to get much better which is the primary goal and remain in the very best possible condition next year to contend.
“[We have to] be on top of everything every single day, that’s what you can do. Keep your eyes open, your ears open. And at the end things have to go your way. You need your players to be healthy, at the crucial moments you need everybody at their best mentally, physically, in terms of confidence. There are a lot of factors that contribute to a team at the end winning or not winning, the margins are minimum.”
Copyright 2023 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to utilize quotes from this short article is approved topic to proper credit being offered to www.arsenal.com as the source.
