BATTLE OF THE OLD-BOY MANAGERS
Lampard is aiming for the top while Arteta is in desperate need of a lift
TEN Premier League places and 11 points separate Frank Lampard, Mikel Arteta and their respective teams. Lampard’s managerial career is going from strength to strength as the 42-year-old plots a challenge for the title. Arteta, despite the most promising of starts, is more concerned with the bottom of the table than the top.
Today the two fledgling coaches meet at the Emirates both intent on finding success in the game of football management at the clubs where they shone as players.
That weight of expectation sits significantly heavier on Arteta’s shoulders now. His first eight months in charge were promising. FA Cup and Community Shield triumphs, wins over Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea had Arsenal supporters dreaming.
A run of one win in ten topflight matches has turned those fantasies into a nightmare.
Arsenal remain fully invested in Project Arteta and sources claim that his job is safe.
Drop into the bottom three, however, and t hat r obust support could evaporate.
‘The next seven to eight days are going to be crucial to see where we’re going to be heading to in the Premier League,’ said Arteta. ‘At the moment, to keep the team together, the team alive, and to be a team rather than a group of players, it takes a lot of energy.
‘When you are losing football matches, you have to lift them up and get them together. You have to get them to be positive to each other, to try to not start blaming any external f actors or any individuals.
‘The best thing to do when you are like that is to do things outside our site.
‘Get them together, change the environment — but at the moment we can’t do that. We are not going to be able to do that for a while, so we have to find other ways.
‘I don’t make any excuses. I think I’ve been very clear in many moments that we are l osing football matches.
‘That is my responsibility to put right and regardless of what happens, it’s been us. We have let ourselves down and it’s down to us to change that. I don’t think I have ever used an excuse.
‘ Mistakes, errors, whatever happens, I will support them until the last day.’
Lampard insists his search for success is the same challenge at Chelsea as he faced when he started his managerial career at Derby.
But he adds: ‘ To sli ghtly contradict myself on t hat, because I love (Chelsea) so much I probably put a bit more weight on my shoulders.
‘Having been a fan of the club, a person of the club, I really want to have success on a professional level but also because of the attachment I have to the club.
‘I’d l i ke to s ee it ( t hat attachment) as a positive and I like to see it as me working as hard as I can to bring success to my own club.’