{"id":575525,"date":"2020-12-23T05:49:35","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T10:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=575525"},"modified":"2026-01-30T16:30:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:30:31","slug":"pep-guardiola-believes-arsenal-should-stand-by-mikel-arteta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/12\/23\/pep-guardiola-believes-arsenal-should-stand-by-mikel-arteta\/","title":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola Believes Arsenal Should Stand By Mikel Arteta"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pep Guardiola has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/55419850\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">urged<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=arsenal\" target=\"_self\">Arsenal<\/a> to stand by manager Mikel Arteta, stating that sacking him would be a \u201cbig mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Guardiola\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/manchester-city\/\" target=\"_self\">Manchester City<\/a> defeated Arteta\u2019s side 4-1 in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=carabao+cup\" target=\"_self\">Carabao Cup<\/a> quarter-finals on Tuesday, leaving the Gunners without a win in eight domestic matches.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Pep Guardiola Urges Arsenal to Stand By Mikel Arteta<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Sacking Arteta Would Be a \u201cBig Mistake\u201d, says Guardiola<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/55419850\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Speaking after his team\u2019s victory<\/a>, Guardiola said: \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure they are going to trust him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey will do a big mistake if they are thinking [of dismissing him].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Arteta spent three years as Guardiola&#8217;s assistant coach at the Etihad Stadium, winning two <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=premier+league\" target=\"_self\">Premier League<\/a> titles, an FA Cup and two EFL Cups, and his former boss believes he has the quality to succeed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know his incredible quality as a human being and especially as a manager, how he is involved in everything,\u201d Guardiola continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFootball changes in one week so quick. I can speak about my experience alongside him \u2013 one of the most incredible, successful teams in English history we had, and he was part of this success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would not be possible without him. To create something like this you need time like I had in my first season.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Arteta at Arsenal: FA Cup Highs to 46 Year Lows<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Arteta<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2019\/12\/20\/mikel-arteta-arsenal-prepare-everton\/\" target=\"_self\"> replaced<\/a> Unai Emery as Arsenal head coach last December, taking charge of his first game on Boxing Day with the Gunners languishing in 11<sup>th<\/sup> position.<\/p>\n<p>The Spaniard endured a slow start to managerial life, winning once and drawing five in his opening seven matches, before a run of eight wins in the final 13 games of the season lifted the Gunners to 8<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>After earning Europa League qualification off the back of their FA Cup success and defeating <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/category\/premier-league\/liverpool\/\" target=\"_self\">Liverpool<\/a> in September\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=community+shield\" target=\"_self\">Community Shield<\/a>, Arsenal headed into the new season in positive spirits.<\/p>\n<p>However, Arteta has been unable to replicate last season\u2019s late form and finds himself under huge pressure following Arsenal\u2019s worst start for 46 years.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners currently sit 15<sup>th<\/sup> in the table, without a win since November 1<sup>st<\/sup> and just four points above the relegation zone.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"ILjXDv_xSqhIuKy3hMlCjA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1229126916\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ILjXDv_xSqhIuKy3hMlCjA',sig:'kK2pNBr6rP_Jmw-GFGj5QAHNNR7jdhzD61ha3b-NLVQ=',w:'594px',h:'353px',items:'1229126916',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pep Guardiola has urged Arsenal to stand by manager Mikel Arteta, stating that sacking him would be a \u201cbig mistake\u201d. Guardiola\u2019s Manchester City defeated Arteta\u2019s side 4-1 in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals on Tuesday, leaving the Gunners without a win in eight domestic matches. Pep Guardiola Urges Arsenal to Stand By Mikel Arteta Sacking Arteta [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3531,"featured_media":575528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,8,17,3],"tags":[32739,32738,1602,100,4372,181,40,136],"class_list":["post-575525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-arsenal","category-manchester-city","category-premier-league","tag-arsenal","tag-arsenal-fixtures","tag-carabao-cup","tag-manchester-city","tag-mikel-arteta","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-premier-league","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664254,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575525\/revisions\/664254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}