Arteta happy with Arsenal progress but not done yet
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta is calling for patience and insists he still needs time to get the Gunners playing his way.
Arteta has not been at the helm long since arriving from Manchester City and has praised his Arsenal squad for responding to his new philosophy. However there is still plenty of work to be done before he is completely happy.
While he has only lost one of his 11 games in charge since his appointment on December 20, Arteta has seen his side draw five of those fixtures.
That sort of form saw them sitting 10th in the Premier League table heading into the weekend action as Arteta prepares to welcome Everton to the Emirates Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Victories over Newcastle and Olympiacos would be topped off nicely with three more points against a side Arteta represented as a player between 2005 and 2011.
But, while the 37-year-old is pleased with the reaction of his players after he replaced Unai Emery, he remains convinced there is no quick-fix to get Arsenal back challenging at the top end of the table.
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Arteta has again spoken of how proud he is to coach the Gunners and is happy with the ‘passion and energy’ being shown by his players, but it is still very much a work in progress.
“We have a lot of things to improve and it feels like it was eight months ago but it was not that far away,” he said. “We have a long way to go in this process, to develop a lot of things that I want to implement. We need time.
“I don’t want to accelerate the process and take them somewhere they cannot do because it would not be productive. We have to maintain the things we do good and maybe then we have little margins of improvement that we have to aim to achieve.”
The Gunners are six points of Tottenham in fifth and need a very strong end to the season to give them any hope of qualifying for European football next season.
