Mikel Arteta hit out at undermining forces who were previously hurting Arsenal from within.
The Gunners boss strongly hinted how exiled players like Mesut Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac were acting like a virus at North London.
“The best thing has been to keep a team, a staff, employees and everybody together,” said the Arsenal boss.
“In those circumstances when you are not winning and when there are so many people, some inside and some outside trying to hurt.
“To keep them together and block that out and be so strong, I think that is some achievement. Normally when that happens it cracks and everything falls and it didn’t.”
Asked directly if those people were still inside the club, Arteta said, “No.”
Since the trio’s departure and several others, Arsenal have maintained the second-best record in the Premier League, only behind Manchester City. There is still plenty of changes to come, not to mention another exodus of talents fan can expect for this summer.
Arteta ideally would have liked to wrap up all transfer activity prior to the 2020 European Championship but that seems unlikely.
“That would be ideal to do everything as early as possible and have all the players who know they will continue here on the first day of preseason but it’s not going to happen,” he said.
“We have the Euros and everything is going to be delayed. There are many things to be done that will take time. But we know how key it will be and what we don’t want is what happened last year.”
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