Mikel Arteta and Fabian Hurzeler Set for Clash at Amex
Mikel Arteta insists the feud is finished. The cameras will check that for themselves on Saturday.
The Arsenal manager returns to the Amex to face Brighton and Fabian Hurzeler for the first time since their touchline row last season, when the German openly attacked Arsenal’s approach after a 1-0 defeat.
Back in March, Hurzeler fumed that “only one team tried to play football” and accused Arsenal of “making their own rules”. It was a pointed swipe at the eventual champions and at Arteta’s methods, and it lit up the post-match debate far beyond the south coast.
Now the pair meet again with Arsenal arriving as defending Premier League champions and in ominous form. The storyline writes itself: old words, new stakes, same dugouts.
This week, Hurzeler refused to walk back his comments when reminded of them.
“I think it’s very important that in football there are opinions,” he said. “I will definitely always share my opinion if I am asked. But, in the end, I congratulate Arsenal for being deserved champions. They deserved it.”
Arteta, speaking on Friday, chose not to fan the flames.
“That’s all done. That’s all in the past,” he told reporters. “I have huge respect for Fabian, and what he’s done and what Brighton has done as a club. It’s just remarkable, and tomorrow is going to be a beautiful game to watch, I’m sure.”
Beautiful, but brutal. Arsenal travel down in full stride.
Champions in full flow
Arteta’s side have opened their title defence with four straight Premier League wins, a perfect start that has them sitting on top of the table. They have already banked a statement victory in Europe too, winning their Champions League opener against Napoli, and they marched into the League Cup fourth round in midweek by beating Ipswich.
Including the Community Shield triumph against Manchester City, Arsenal have strung together seven consecutive wins. One more on the south coast would equal a 123-year club record for the best start to a season.
“We know how complicated it is to win a football match at this level. So, to win seven, it tells a story,” Arteta said, quoted by AFP. He pointed back to the uncertainty that followed the World Cup and the lack of preparation time with his squad.
“After the World Cup, there were a lot of unknowns about how the players and the team were going to react. We didn’t have any time with them to work together. But I said from day one, the attitude and what I was seeing, I was really impressed with. Then you have to put it down to performances.”
Those performances are coming from all corners of the squad.
A 16-year-old kicks the door
At Ipswich on Tuesday, it was Max Dowman’s turn to grab the spotlight. The 16-year-old playmaker, making his first appearance of the season, scored twice and showed exactly why he is being talked about as one of the Premier League’s brightest young prospects.
He had spent the opening weeks as an unused substitute. Ninety minutes in Suffolk changed the conversation.
Asked whether the teenager had been knocking on his office door to demand more minutes, Arteta’s response was blunt and revealing.
“The best way to knock on the door is to do it on the pitch, not in the office,” he said. “Then you just leave out the arguments. When a player delivers constantly on the pitch, every single day in training, that’s the best way, that’s the best signal for the manager.”
Dowman has sent that signal. Whether Brighton see him from the start or off the bench, his emergence adds another weapon to a squad already humming with confidence.
Contract talk on the back burner
All of this is unfolding against a familiar backdrop: Arteta’s contract situation. Negotiations over an extension have been running for months, but the Spaniard projects calm.
“I think we are all very much aligned, whenever the time is right we’ll get that done. There is nothing to be concerned about,” he said.
For now, the only deadline that matters is Saturday afternoon.
Arteta arrives with a winning streak, a teenage star on the rise and a chance to match a record that has stood for more than a century. Hurzeler stands in his way, unrepentant about last season’s barbs and determined to turn words into a statement result.
The row, Arteta says, is over. The rivalry? That gets its next chapter at the Amex.
