Mikel Arteta is confident he has the unequivocal support of Arsenal fans despite the club coming up short in their bid to land a trophy.
The Gunners ensured their place in next season’s Champions League with a 1-0 win against Newcastle on Sunday, a result which puts them on course to finish second in the Premier League for a third consecutive year.
Following Arsenal’s final home match of a campaign which saw them eliminated at the semi-final stages of both the Champions League and the Carabao Cup, Arteta delivered an emotional address to the club’s supporters in which he insisted the club is on the brink of winning silverware.
A number of the 60,000 fans inside the Emirates had left before Arteta’s on-pitch speech – but when asked if he believes the supporters are 100 per cent behind him and his players, Arteta replied: “That is what I feel, but I don’t know.
“With the ones that I see every day in the street, the ones that contact me and the ones that I see every day, I would say there are 100 per cent.
“But they want more because we have set expectations and they have seen the team is capable against any opposition to compete against them. We need to believe that we are going to do it together.”
Arsenal will travel to Southampton for their final match of a campaign which failed to yield the club’s first trophy since they won the FA Cup in 2020 – Arteta’s sole silverware of his five-and-a-half year tenure.
It is set to be an important summer for Arsenal as they target a striker with RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko, Sporting’s Viktor Gyokeres and Newcastle’s Alexander Isak all possible contenders to move to north London.
Isak has scored 27 times this season and was a notable absentee in Eddie Howe’s line-up at the Emirates after he sustained a groin injury which threatens to keep him out of Newcastle’s crucial final-day fixture against Everton as they bid to secure a Champions League spot.
Howe will hope that a top-five finish will persuade his star striker to stay at St James’ Park for another season.
But when asked if he could guarantee Isak will be in a Newcastle shirt beyond the current campaign, Howe said: “I never make those guarantees about any player.
“It’s not to do with Alex’s future, I’d be foolish to sit here and do anything like that.
“We want to keep our strongest players. I have said that as long as I’ve sat in this seat.
“We have to try and keep our strongest players and bring in more good players to make us even stronger because of the ambition of the club and everybody connected with is long-term success. And that’s the only way we can get that.”
