Ray Parlour has praised Mikel Arteta for removing the ‘deadwood’ from the Arsenal dressing room and believes the club have a realistic chance of securing a top-four finish in the Premier League this season.
Arsenal’s campaign got off to the worst possible start with three back-to-back defeats at the hands of Brentford, Chelsea and Manchester City, but the north London giants have bounced back to put themselves firmly in contention for Champions League football next term.
The Gunners’ recent 4-1 victory over Leeds was their third on the bounce in the English top flight and Arteta’s men will look to close the gap on third-placed Manchester United with three points away to struggling Norwich on Boxing Day.
Looking back on Arteta’s opening two years at the Emirates, ex-Arsenal midfielder Parlour told talkSPORT: ‘It has been a rollercoaster ride, lots of changes since he’s been at the club.
‘He had those problems with the players that he wanted out, [Mesut] Ozil, [Shkodran] Mustafi, there was a lot of deadwood and people causing lots of problems behind the scenes in the dressing room which didn’t make it a steady ship so he did really well to get those guys out.
‘He’s slowly brought in a few players. [Takehiro] Tomiyasu has been a fantastic signing at right-back, he’s given the young players an opportunity to get a chance so he’s made a lot of changes.
‘They have spent some money, they have backed him. I don’t think he can complain about having no money to spend because he went out and bought Ben White for £50m so he spent some big money in that respect.’
Parlour is confident Arsenal have finally turned a corner under Arteta feels the Spaniard’s bold decisions – like stripping Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of the captaincy – are beginning to pay…
Source : metro
