The Arsenal of Mikel Arteta fought back on Sunday to pull 2-2 with champions Liverpool, but the Gunners boss cut a very frustrated figure during his interview after the game on MerseSide
Jamie Carragher has warned the “emotional” Mikel Arteta that he could be confronted opposite the bag next season after he had blamed him for the title of Arsenal almost on the accident. The Gunners have undergone another trophy -free campaign under the Spaniard watch.
They saw their challenge for the Premier League crown ended in an explicit style by Liverpool, before their Champions League run was stopped by the French giant Paris Saint-Germain. Despite seeing his side rally from 2-0 down to the level of affairs at Anfield on Sunday, Arsenal boss Arteta has cut a very frustrated figure.
He publicly closed his players for their first half performances – something that stayed with Carragher. Speaking at Sky Sports, he said: “He drives high standards, but what really stood out in the interview, and in the last few weeks in his press conferences he is emotional and sometimes he sounds a bit like a fan, not the manager.
“He was really strong in how many players they have sent this season. He puts his hands on and says six. I think he is convinced inside that they have been victims in some ways, with the shipments and injuries they have had.
“I think he thinks she could have won the competition without this and that.
“The injuries affected them this season, but they also played for them last season. What they did in terms of competing man City in the past two seasons is fantastic, but much of them was due to having the same eight or nine players week in, week out, and he never rotated.”
And although Carragher is a big fan of the work that Arteta has done with Arsenal, he claims that he could be under pressure from club heads if he would not end the club's trophy next season. He added: “I am a huge fan of Mikel Arteta.
“The job he did to get Arsenal from where they were here. They made the leap to compete with Man City and they followed it again last season, and they have been the team that Liverpool pushed this season.
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“But this season felt like it should have been their season. There is no doubt that next season the pressure on Arteta will be enormous in terms of winning something and win something big.
“If they don't, the Arsenal Board will have a huge problem because they don't want to change the manager, but there will be many people who say” five or six years without trophy “and they will look at how many managers can take that next step.
“The problem with changing Mikel Arteta is that Arsenal could easily become what Chelsea is now, a team that ends second year in year, for a team that does not come to the Champions League. That is the big mystery that Arsenal will have in 12 months when Arsenal comes close but does not come over the season.”