Mikel Arteta walked into his press conference this week to find a storm already swirling around his forward line – and not the one he expected.
First Gabriel Martinelli, then Gabriel Jesus. Two Brazilians, two exits in motion or completed, and a wave of headlines painting a picture of a manager at war with his own strikers. The reality, as so often, was far less dramatic and far more revealing.
Arteta, Jesus and a “row” that never really caught fire
“Very surprised, to be fair,” Arteta said when asked about Jesus’s comments on his Arsenal departure. That line was all it took for some to declare a feud. The rest of his answer told a different story.
Arteta explained that he had held an individual conversation with Jesus in the dressing room. The tone, he said, was defined by “gratitude”. Both ways. He stressed he didn’t know exactly which words had been reported, and he did not bite back. He chose to explain.
Sometimes, he said, a manager has to be the “bad cop” when delivering news a player doesn’t want to hear. That is the job. That is the reality of a squad trying to go from contenders to champions. Some players get nudged aside. Some get sold. Some don’t like it.
Arteta didn’t rant. He didn’t accuse. He described.
He talked about what really matters to him: what the relationship looks like “three months later, six months later” when emotions cool and careers move on. He pointed to Leandro Trossard, once a potential threat to others’ minutes, now part of the core. He said that with “all the players that they left, at some point their relationship has been really good”. And he added, pointedly, “I hope that’s the same case” with Jesus.
For all the talk of a “row”, this was not a manager lashing out. It was a manager defending his decisions while leaving the door open to mutual respect. Arsenal’s dressing room will have heard that tone, not the headlines.
Martinelli, money and the myth of a revolt
The same applies to the noise around Gabriel Martinelli. Reports framed Arsenal’s players as “unhappy” and hinting at a revolt over the “despicable” treatment of the winger, who has been left out of squads as a move that will make him extraordinarily wealthy edges closer.
Strip away the hyperbole and it comes down to a familiar, uncomfortable truth: a player on the brink of a lucrative transfer does not always play every minute of every game. Managers protect assets. Clubs protect fees. Players protect bodies.
Arteta’s handling of Martinelli has been painted as cruel. In reality, it sits firmly in the modern playbook of elite clubs managing exits. The squad may grumble – footballers always do when one of their own is sidelined – but this is not open rebellion. It is the friction that comes with ambition and money colliding.
If Arteta is guilty of anything, it is of being blunt about his role. He accepts he must sometimes be the one who delivers bad news. He is not pretending otherwise.
The Premier League, Pochettino and a title that isn’t coming back
Elsewhere, the week delivered another reminder of how quickly football can spin away from reality.
Mauricio Pochettino’s suggestion that Tottenham should be awarded the 2016/17 Premier League title, with Chelsea stripped of the honour, was always going to draw a response. Not from a tribunal. From the league itself.
The answer, of course, was as predictable as it was firm. Premier League chiefs “insist they did not let Chelsea off lightly amid the storm surrounding their 2017 title”. Of course they do. The alternative – admitting they had gone soft on a champion club – would have been the real shock.
The comments doing the rounds are not fresh. The quotes are at least a month old, repackaged as if the league had suddenly revisited the case. The framing suggested something seismic. The substance was the opposite: the Premier League standing exactly where it has always stood.
There will be no retrospective coronation for Spurs. No stripped titles. No decade-old table rewritten because a former manager feels his side were wronged. The fantasy sells; the reality stands.
Boxing Day “tradition” and a calendar doing what calendars do
On the domestic front, another storyline tried to dress up the ordinary as extraordinary.
Boxing Day fixtures will fall on a Saturday this year rather than a Friday. That’s it. That is the “big” change. The rest is noise.
The hand-wringing over the supposed erosion of English football tradition has become its own seasonal ritual. One year, Boxing Day is “a goner”. The next, its return to a weekend slot is treated as some kind of restoration project.
The truth is simpler. The calendar moves. Broadcasters push. The league adapts. Fans still turn up. The “tradition” never really disappeared; it just shifted a little on the grid.
Nkunku, Amorim and a “slam” that never landed
The art of exaggeration did not stop there.
Christopher Nkunku’s reflections on his time at Milan were presented as him having “slammed” former Manchester United target Ruben Amorim. The word promised fury. The quotes delivered something else entirely.
Nkunku said Milan’s decision should be “respected”, admitted he did not know why they acted as they did, and said he was “surprised”. He wished them a good season. He spoke about a different footballing vision and taking the chance to return somewhere he felt he could play his football.
That is professional disagreement, not a personal attack. It is a player explaining why a move did not work, not torching a bridge. To call that a “slam” is to drain the word of all meaning.
City, Old Trafford and a “hoodoo” that isn’t
Even Manchester City’s recent record at Old Trafford has been dragged into the theatre.
Talk of a “hoodoo” at Manchester United’s ground hinges on the fact City have not scored there since 2023. Omitted from that framing is a basic detail: they have only played there twice in that span, one of those matches ending in a 0-0 draw.
A defeat and a stalemate after a 3-0 thrashing three years ago is not a curse. It is a blip. City have dominated the rivalry often enough in recent seasons to know the difference.
They travel across town now with talk of “squad unity”, standards being hammered into newcomers, and Enzo Maresca adding a “missing ingredient”. The motivation is clear: they want to win at Old Trafford because they are Manchester City and that is what they expect of themselves, not because they are haunted by the place.
The reality behind the noise
Across all of this – Arteta and Jesus, Martinelli’s omission, Pochettino’s title fantasy, Boxing Day’s calendar shuffle, Nkunku’s polite honesty, City’s supposed hoodoo – a pattern emerges.
The volume keeps going up. The facts stay largely the same.
Arteta has not torn into Jesus. He has explained his position and accepted his role as the man who sometimes has to say what players do not want to hear. The Premier League has not reopened the 2016/17 title race. Boxing Day has not been rescued from oblivion. Nkunku has not launched a tirade. City are not cursed at Old Trafford.
The season will move on. Arsenal will reshape their attack. Chelsea will live with their history. City will return to Old Trafford and try to impose themselves again. The real questions will be answered on the pitch, not in the gaps between headlines and what actually happened.
