Premier \u2060League champions<\/a> \u2013 but Mikel \u2060Arteta, who led Arsenal to their first league title in 22 years, was not watching.<\/p>\nThe manager had planned to be at Arsenal\u2019s training centre in London Colney to watch the game with \u2060his players, but could not find the energy to make the trip, and chose to stay at home.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI went outside to the garden, I started to build some fire. I started to do some barbecue, I didn\u2019t watch any \u2060of it,\u201d Arteta told reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n
After finishing second three times in a row, Arteta heard the news of their long-awaited triumph from his eldest son, Gabriel, who plays for Arsenal\u2019s Under-18 side.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy eldest son opened the garden door, he started to run towards me. He started to cry, gave me a hug and said, we are champions, daddy,\u201d Arteta said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen \u200cmy other two boys and my wife came over, and it was beautiful, just to see the joy on them as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Videos shared by Arsenal on social media showed players dancing and chanting at their training centre after their league title was confirmed with a game to spare.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was their moment. And they have to be themselves in that moment. And if I\u2019m there, I think it wasn\u2019t going to be the same,\u201d Arteta said.<\/p>\n
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard called Arteta soon after, asking where the manager was.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, guys, enjoy for a while and \u2060see you in a few hours somewhere in London,\u201d Arteta recalled with a smile.<\/p>\n
Arteta questioned whether he could lead Arsenal to EPL title<\/p>\n
It is Arteta\u2019s first league title as manager, and he admitted that he doubted himself during a high-pressure campaign, where they were often a slip-up away from losing their lead in the title race.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo play with that on your back \u2060constantly is not easy. That has been one of the toughest moments\u2026 we showed very important values not only in sport, but in life. Which is perseverance, to be \u2060resilient, to be composed in moments when people are doubting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd \u2060to be vulnerable. I\u2019ve asked that question to myself, am I good enough to lead these players to win a major trophy? Until you do it, you cannot validate yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta said the mood in the club had changed after winning the Premier League, buoying the team\u2019s confidence ahead of \u200ca Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain on May 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt changes because the level of emotion you feel, it\u2019s something I haven\u2019t felt before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Arsenal will conclude their league campaign and lift the trophy at Crystal Palace \u200con \u200cSunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have a window to celebrate and lift the trophy and connect with the people we have constantly around us. Then we have six days to write new history in this football club,\u201d Arteta added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal will lift the Premier League trophy for the first time since 2004 after Sunday\u2019s match at Crystal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,2057,596,44,588,85,3586],"class_list":["post-685613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-europe","tag-football","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}