For Mikel Arteta, there has been no time to dwell on the pain. “Not now,” said the Arsenal manager when asked if he was emotionally exhausted after a week when his team were eliminated from the Champions League. “Probably because I have so much to achieve and do, and we need to improve and get done. That is what drives me every day,” he said. “But if there is somebody that has raised the standard and the expectation the highest, it has been me. Because I have been demanding and expecting much more, and after that much more.
“For me it is the only way to do it, for everybody to have really high standards and demands. We are very, very close to achieving it. I understand the disappointment, and the criticism. It is all part of it. At the end there is one winner and the rest of them aren’t going to win, so they need to reinvent themselves and do better. That is part of the cycle.”
