Press conference

'It hurts so much but it's a beautiful challenge'

It's been a season of ups and downs on the red side of north London.

A 21st Heads Up FA Cup final has given us plenty of cause for celebration but struggles in the Premier League mean that an eighth-placed finish is the best we can manage this term, providing other final-day results go our way.

 

So how would Mikel Arteta assess it?

 

"I don't think the league table lies at the end of the 10 months with 38 games," our head coach said. "How long? Hopefully next season it will be very different.

 

"We have a beautiful challenge, a very demanding challenge but a beautiful challenge ahead of us. We have to get this right and bring this club back to where it belongs which is with the top teams in the country and in Europe. In order to do that we have to make a lot of good decisions.

 

"We haven't been consistent. Because we obviously had a lot of issues as well in the background, a lot of things that had happened. But at the end of the day, we weren't good enough to be with the top teams. That's not a lie and it shows the big room for improvement and the gap that is still there and has to be minimised really, really quickly in order to be in a good position to challenge those teams.

 

"It hurts so much," Arteta added. "When I said it's a beautiful challenge, and as well from my side, it's to bring the club into those positions again. I know how difficult it's going to be because you can see the other teams, what they're doing, what they've been doing the last few seasons. The road and the direction we have to take in order to be quick in that transition... I'm very positive that we're going to be able to do it."

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