The Daily Mirror’s assistant editor Darren Lewis appeared on talkSPORT’s Boxing Day preview podcast to discuss all of the latest Premier League news and he spent some time talking about Arsenal and the problems within their squad at present during the show.
This came after the Gunners were knocked out of the EFL Cup by Manchester City on Tuesday. The north London club was on the receiving end of a 4-1 hiding versus Manchester City – the club where manager Mikel Arteta served as Pep Guardiola’s assistant manager before taking a leading role at the Emirates Stadium last year.
That loss was just the latest setback of the 2020/21 season for the Gunners, with Arsenal having endured their worst start to a league season since 1974 this term and while discussing the Gunners’ poor form on this podcast, Lewis declared that all but three players – Kieran Tierney, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli – have “given up” on Arteta, saying: (6:30)
“[Alexandre] Lacazette clearly has goalscoring potential, we know this, he’s a goalscorer but he doesn’t have that desire at the moment, I could name three players, for me, that do – Tierney, Saka and Martinelli. The rest have given up on the manager.”
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TIF Thoughts on what Lewis had to say about Arsenal’s players…
Lewis’ comments aren’t the first indication that Arteta has lost the dressing room at the Emirates Stadium, as in addition to the club’s poor form, talkSPORT pundit and ex-Premier League attacker Gabriel Agbonlahor has previously claimed that Arsenal’s squad is no longer playing for the Spaniard.
The Daily Mirror journalist’s claim that only three players are still behind the manager is surely cause for concern for fans of the north London club and it may also be a believable claim, given just how poorly the club has started the 2020/21 season despite having the Premier League’s sixth-most valuable squad, per Transfermarkt.
Unless Arteta can change the vast majority of his team’s feelings about him as soon as possible, we feel this is certainly a worrying sign for his future.