Mikel Arteta can envisage life at Arsenal beyond his current 18-month deal but has insisted he must ‘earn the right’ to get another contract extension.
Arteta will celebrate his six-year anniversary on Saturday when Premier League leaders Arsenal travel to Everton.
The 43-year-old has overseen a huge cultural shift at Emirates Stadium and taken the club from mid-table into regular title challengers but, with his current terms set to expire in the summer of 2027, Arteta was quizzed about his future.
Asked if he could stay beyond his 18-month contract, Arteta said: ‘Yes, but it is about today and a lot of things have to happen in the next few months, as well, to earn the right.
‘I think the manager has to earn the right to be here tomorrow. That is how you react, how you talk here, how you go in the dressing room, the message that you send, how much the players follow you.
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‘I always said that you need support. I said it before, from the ownership and the board, it’s great. At the end, the most important one is those players. You open that door, you confront them, you talk to them.
‘And for six years, I have seen just players with a level of attention and desire to learn, and give the maximum to the team. That is what keeps me in this job. Nothing else and obviously, winning a lot of football matches that, percentage-wise, I think is quite high.
‘That is the only way. If not, you cannot survive in this environment.’
Arteta did acknowledge, though, that he would be unable to give players guarantees if they were to question him about his future ahead of their own contract talks, with Bukayo Saka’s deal set to expire in 18 months’ time.
‘They do ask me but I can not lie to them. I don’t know, it is something that does not depend on me,’ Arteta reflected.
‘Are you really happy here? Do you feel that you have the energy and you feel you can take this club? Yes. One hundred per cent, yes. But I think it does not depend only on me.’
It's crunch time for Arsenal
Arsenal maintained their two point lead at the top over the weekend, but only by the skin of their teeth. With Manchester City now looking far more like their old selves, suddenly the Premier League title race is starting to take a very familiar shape.
The Gunners next six games could tell us a lot about whether they’re ready to go the distance this time given they dropped 13 points from the corresponding fixtures last season
- Everton (a) 1-1
- Brighton (h) 1-1
- Aston Villa (h) 2-2
- Bournemouth (a) 2-0
- Liverpool (h) 2-2
- Nottingham Forest (a) 0-0
Arteta lifted the FA Cup six months after he took over in the winter of 2019, but Arsenal have suffered near-misses in the Premier League and finished runners-up in each of the last three seasons.
When it was put to the Spaniard that the only thing missing was silverware, Arteta admitted: ‘Yes and we’re very close to that with the amount of points and the things that we’ve done consistently.
‘You look at the performances, all the records that we had that they were breaking in the history of the club and we still haven’t managed to do that, but that tells you the level that we are in, which is a level that the Premier League has never experienced in the past.
‘And that we want to achieve even higher goals. And if we do that, I think we are in the right path to winning.’
