BACK MIKEL AND IT WILL PAY OFF
Pep insists Arteta can lead Gunners to glory... if he’s allowed to spend
PEP Guardiola believes Mikel Arteta will bring sustained glory back to Arsenal if he is backed financially by the club’s board.
Guardiola’s Manchester City meet Arteta’s Arsenal in the first FA Cup semi-final at Wembley this evening.
It is only seven months since Arteta left his job as Guardiola’s assistant to take over in north London.
‘I’m pretty sure the right person to bring them back up is there now,’ said Guardiola. ‘When the club support him, they have the right man. I’ve a feeling he is creating something unique, if they give him what he needs they’ll be a contender in future years.’
Arteta spoke in midweek of the need for Arsenal to buy new players. He insisted yesterday that he was not meaning to criticise the club and admitted the Covid-19 pandemic had impacted on the club’s financial outlook.
‘We are facing a lot of uncertainties,’ said Arteta. ‘Covid-19 has hit all the clubs and it’s obviously a really big worry.
‘We’re going to have to sit down at the end of the season and see what we are able to do.
‘In the last few months, we’ve put different plans together to see how we can minimise these uncertainties.’
On the field City are heavy favourites tonight. They have won their last seven games at Wembley and their last seven games against Arsenal, six of them while scoring three goals.
Their latest victory came on day one of project restart when City’s 3-0 win at the Etihad featured a shambolic performance by Arsenal’s David Luiz, who was sent off.
Last night Guardiola said of the Brazilian: ‘I have an incredible respect for him and for what he has done in his career.
‘He is an exceptional player and has an incredible mentality. I laugh out loud when I hear the pundits. A lot of them were defenders and they believe they didn’t make one mistake in their career.’
This weekend’s FA Cup action will feel strange. How can it not when Wembley will host no fans as City take on Arsenal tonight and United and Chelsea meet tomorrow?
But at least it is on. At least we will have a final and, in a fortnight, a winner. In these strange and uncertain times, that feels important. The last world event to get in the way of an FA Cup competition was World War II. The Covid-19 pandemic has not managed it and thankfully the four semi-finalists come from four clubs that continue to take the FA Cup seriously.
Guardiola said: ‘My memories of English football are from watching the FA Cup Final, not the Premier League or Champions League.
‘In Spain we could see the English final, the tradition, everything so nice.
‘I think the Spanish cup is interesting but here hundreds of small teams start out in the FA Cup. That makes it special.
‘I think in this country, tradition is part of culture and the tradition of the FA Cup is great.
‘We cannot play with our fans, so it’s not perfect but it’s good enough. We are so excited to go and play the game.’
The FA Cup has undoubtedly been damaged as modern football has changed. The growth of the Premier League and the financial rewards offered by European football has diverted the attention of many big teams. Semi-finals at Wembley and the shifting of kick-off times has not helped.
The record TV viewing figure for a final stands at the 28.5million who saw the Leeds versus Chelsea replay in 1970. Last year, 7.5m saw Guardiola’s City dismantle Watford. Even as recently as the 1990s, you could regularly add another 5m to that figure.
If the current generation of players and supporters, raised on a diet of bigger, more glamorous competitions, are to really tune in, it will take more coaches like Guardiola to lead.
Do Premier League players from Africa and South America, for example, really have a place in their hearts for this stuffy old competition when there is so much in their own football culture and heritage to cherish?
Guardiola seems to think so, at least, as does Arteta who was captain when Arsene Wenger’s team won it in 2014.
‘I think it is still important,’ he said. ‘A lot of clubs used to use this competition to give opportunities to young players or change the squad. ‘But look at the semifinals this year. Look at how much everyone wants to win a title.
‘The big clubs know how difficult it is to win the Premier League and the Champions League. So they need this title and they throw everything at this competition.’ Again, it’s possible to query the viewpoint. Analysis of the teams fielded by many Premier League managers in the FA Cup’s early rounds tell you everything you need to know about how survival in the top division replaced a yearning for cup glory long ago.
Still, one of the most welcome parts of Guardiola’s four years at City has been his instinct to take both domestic cup competitions seriously.
It was not long ago that talk of the resumption of the current season seemed overly optimistic. That we have reached this stage at all occasionally still feels like a miracle.
It is time to cherish semi-final weekend, whatever it feels and looks like.