Mikel Arteta is confident he will take Arsenal to the ‘next level’, and has not given up hope of playing in the Champions League next season.
The Gunners face Everton at the Emirates on Sunday afternoon, they need to win and Tottenham lose against Norwich at Carrow Road to take fourth place in the Premier League.
Arteta believes that Arsenal are moving in the right direction.
Arteta’s side had Champions League qualification on their hands with three games to play, but suffered defeats to north London neighbors Spurs and Newcastle, leaving them in need of a miracle on the final day.
But Arteta feels this season as a whole represents clear progress for his young team, whatever the result on Sunday, having finished eighth in the last two seasons.
And he is still hopeful that Arsenal can overtake bitter rivals Tottenham to fourth place.
“It has been a long and very challenging journey this season, but I think we have come a long way as a club. As a team I think we have once again transformed the energy, the vibe and the expectations of this club and we have done it together”, said Arteta.
“I have hope and expectation to take this club to the place it deserves. We’ve done it the way we predicted with the project we set up a year ago, with a lot of young players, with veteran players and with our crowd in our stadium with a real sense of connection throughout the venue.
“We are back in Europe, we don’t know where and it will be decided (on Sunday). Hopefully it will be the Champions League because I think we will do what we have to do and encourage Norwich to do what they can do.
“After that we will take the club to the next level and that is the ambition. To do that, we have to again have a very clear plan for how we want to do it and execute it.
“It is no secret that we need resources and we need to increase the quality and depth of the team, as long as we at the same time maintain who we are as a club and the people we have around us. That will be the challenge next season, but hopefully in front of our people we will have a great day (Sunday)”.
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Arteta refused to be drawn into the comments but explained how this campaign has seen the club resolve deeper issues off the pitch.
“We have created expectations that this club deserves and this club has to be, but in the last two games we have not been able to meet those expectations,” he said.
“Overall, looking back at where we were, you also have to be clear on what we had to do and we’re clear that it’s not where we want to be.
“We want to be in a completely different position, challenging the top teams, and that is the goal.
“This is not going to stop here, there is one more step but it was very necessary. Not only about where we are in the league table, we had much deeper problems at the club than in the league table, in my opinion now they have been resolved and now they look very strong.
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