Mikel Arteta has been labelled the “hardest Premier League manager to deal with” as former referee Graham Scott concedes the Arsenal boss “gets away with too much” with his touchline behaviour
Mikel Arteta has been branded the “hardest Premier League manager to deal with” as former referee Graham Scott admits he “gets away with too much”.
The Arsenal manager has guided his side to the Premier League title, their first triumph in 22 years, and while his rise to the top has garnered considerable praise, there remains a more contentious side to his character that has drawn significant criticism.
Former officials are now acknowledging that he is the manager who gives them the most difficult time, given how he “pushes all of the limits all of the time”. Arteta has frequently been called out for routinely straying beyond his technical area, with Scott noting that this occurs particularly when opposition players find themselves in close proximity to him.
Scott spent a decade in the Premier League and acknowledges that, during his time as fourth official, it was Arteta who presented him with the greatest challenge — yet he conceded that officials themselves need to adopt a firmer approach with him, reports the Mirror.
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He said on the Athletic: “I know whatever I say at this point just gets me pelters and it will be ‘well that’s because you hate him’ but it is Arteta. He is the hardest work and he really does push all of the limits all of the time. I don’t mind that in many ways, he’s trying to get a competitive advantage for his team. That’s fine. It is part of his job, and he’s entitled to push those limits and it is for us to police them.
“But he does make your life extremely difficult. He’s out of his box all the time. I watched him recently in their game against Everton, and every time Everton had the ball anywhere near the touchline on his side, he was joining in the press! His toes were on the touchline and as a fourth official that’s a nightmare.
“Because if you step forward and do anything about it you’re being pedantic, you’re being petty, but the time you get there the ball’s moved on, it looks like nothing’s going on here. But he does get away with rather too much. The officials do need to be a bit tighter, and I was one of them who let him do that, I’m not going to deny that.”
While Arteta has acknowledged that he does occasionally overstep the mark, he has insisted that several of his fellow managers are considerably worse offenders who are seldom, if ever, held to account. So much so that he claimed to have amassed a body of evidence demonstrating that his behaviour pales in comparison to certain other managers.
“I do have to be careful. They should put sensors there,” he said. “There are managers who have the record in the league, 36 times in 10 minutes [they] leave the touchline – no yellows. I am clipping all of that so I have now a massive storage of images, so if somebody comes to me I can say, ‘I am not in the record yet’. Somebody else has the record so let’s see.”
