Mikel Arteta has called for Arsenal to be ambitious and go again in pursuit of the Premier League title next season.
Arsenal finished as runners-up in the Premier League for the second straight season despite a 2-1 win over Everton on the final day.
The Gunners came from behind to win in North London courtesy of goals from Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kai Havertz, but Manchester City’s 3-1 win over West Ham saw the Citizens crowned champions for the fourth consecutive season.
Arteta said he was proud of the performance from his team this season, whose 28 wins were a new club record in the Premier League, before congratulating Manchester City on their title success.
“I’m very proud. First of all congratulations to Manchester City, they are the champions, they’ve been incredible since December. We have tried with everything that we had. You can sense how much we wanted it, we really tried. It wasn’t enough unfortunately,” Arteta said, speaking to TNT Sports.
“It feels good because success can not only be measured by comparing to somebody else, we need to understand what we are doing. We’ve beat every record this club ever had apart from winning it. This is the most competitive league ever in the history and we have to be better. Now we need to find ways we have to improve.”
Arteta spoke on his pride at reconnecting the club with its fanbase in recent seasons and called on Arsenal to be ambitious in their pursuit of a long-awaited title next season.
“That’s the most fulfilling thing. One of the dreams I had when I joined was to reconnect everybody, to really bring this place to a different level. We are on that journey right now. I feel sad because I really wanted to deliver that trophy today because it would mean the world to them but we are closer, that’s for sure.
“Now we have to be more determined, very courageous, very ambitious, and we need to go to a different level. We need to deliver.”
