Arsenal told to sack Mikel Arteta and hire Patrick Vieira

Arsenal have been urged to replace Mikel Arteta with Gunners legend Patrick Vieira by his former France team-mate William Gallas. The pressure is mouting on the Spaniard to turn things around in north London despite receiving the public backing of the Arsenal hierarchy.

The club have now lost four of their last five Premier League home games and this is the worst start to a season in 46 years.

Arteta will be given time to turn things around by owner Stan Kroenke and technical director Edu but some supporters are beginning to lose patience with his ideas, just one year into his tenure.

Gallas is one of those and the 43-year-old, who spent four years under Arsene Wenger at the club, thinks the board made a mistake hiring Arteta in the first place.

He told Ladbrokes: “What’s going on at Arsenal? It’s a question I think everybody has asked this season. I don’t know the answer. I think maybe the issue at the moment is that Mikel Arteta is not the right manager. For me he doesn’t have that experience to manage a big club.

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In the opinion of Gallas, Arteta’s lack of experience in the dugout is beginning to show and the retired defender is convinced the club should jump at the chance to appoint former Arsenal captain Vieira, following his dismissal at Nice.

Gallas added: “If you’re managing a side and the players you’re starting don’t perform well, the players who are on the bench will be upset. After a few games the players who aren’t playing will end up being frustrated. And maybe those players don’t respect the manager anymore.

“Especially if that manager doesn’t have experience. If it was Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho or Arsene Wenger, you will respect their decision because they’ve all done something in the past. But Arteta hasn’t.

“If I was a player at Arsenal now, I think it all depends on whether you’re a young player or a more experienced name. The young players will respect Arteta, but the players who have more experience, maybe not.

“The players who aren’t getting into the team will be saying to themselves ‘OK, I’m on the bench, we haven’t been getting good results; what’s going on? Why am I not playing?’ And it will start from there.

“When they chose Mikel Arteta to come in and replace Unai Emery, in my mind Patrick Vieira was the name I thought they should have gone for. I don’t know how close he was or if he was in the running at all, but I was surprised they didn’t even mention his name.