Mikel Arteta left Manchester City to become Arsenal head coach and brought Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko along with him three years later.
The Spanish coach was an assistant at City under Pep Guardiola. Arteta got the call to manage Arsenal in 2019 after the club had gone through a tough period.
The gunners had finished outside the top four in the Premier League two seasons before Arteta joined. The Spaniard won the FA cup in his first season with the club.
Arteta has since turned the clubs fortunes around, and transformed Arsenal into Premier League title contenders. The Gunners have qualified for the Champions League two years straight and finished in the quarterfinals last season. Jorginho spoke about how Arteta transformed the mentality in the team.
Oleksandr Zinchenko reveals wages at Manchester City
17th August 2024 Emirates Stadium, London, England Premier League Football, Arsenal versus Wolverhampton Wanderers Oleksandr Zinchenko of Arsenal warms up PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxUK ActionPlus12682180 SalvioxCalabrese
Before the Ukraine international joined Arsenal in 2022, he spent six seasons at Manchester City. He joined the club in 2016 as a highly rated talent and in the next year found himself as a starter in the team at left back.
As a natural midfielder, Zinchenko was tailor made for Pep Guardiola’s inverted fullback role and thrived in the position. However, the 27-year old revealed in his new book ‘Believe’ that for three seasons at the Manchester club, he was on academy wages without his knowledge:
“The City lawyers said: ‘Look, this is an academy player contract, right? As soon as you make your first official game for City, we’re going to extend your contract with the real money that we pay full professionals. Not this academy player deal. So trust us.’ Of course I said yes. Follow the dream. But do you know when my next contract came? The one that put me on full professional money? After I had played 43 games in the Premier League! I won two Premier League titles playing on an academy contract.”
The Ukraine international went on to win four Premier League titles with the Manchester club.
Arsenal star narrates incident with Pep Guardiola
Zinchenko also recounted an incident in training at Manchester City. The player talked back to the Spanish coach during a training session, and Pep ended the training and sent everyone back into the dressing room:
“Out loud I said: ‘Mister! Like, I just did one wrong pass, you know?’ And his reaction was incredible,” Zinchenko writes in his book. “‘Oh, OK, sorry, sorry, Mr Zinchenko. Sorry,’ said Pep. ‘OK, guys, thank you, everyone inside.’ And he went in, walked to the changing room. Training over, all because I talked back. I knew I was in trouble.”
The incident in training lead to the midfielder being benched for the next game. Zinchenko eventually apologised to Pep Guardiola, as he told the Guardian in an interview:
“Listen, first of all, I was not right,”
“I understood straight away, but it would have been silly if I went right to his office and apologised. It was game day minus one and I knew his head was totally on the gameplan. But I did apologise after the game.”
Arsenal’s next game is in the Champions League against Shakhtar on Tuesday night. Mikel Arteta has told the team to focus on winning in upcoming games.
