David Luiz Hails Mikel Arteta For “Changing Everything” At Arsenal

David Luiz hails his former manager’s impact…

Former Arsenal defender David Luiz hailed the impact his former boss Mikel Arteta has had in north London, crediting him with turning around the fortunes of the entire club, talkSPORT reports.

Luiz was present to witness Arteta’s arrival months after being brought in by Unai Emery in an £8million deal from Chelsea on deadline day in the summer of 2019.

Arteta viewed Luiz as an allay and one of the leaders in the dressing room he needed to embrace, choosing to trigger the extension in the Brazilian’s contract following Project Restart.

The former Benfica man was subsequently instrumental in our 2020 FA Cup final win against his former side and left the club amicably in 2021.

Luiz recently hailed Arteta’s stewardship and stated that he was worried about the lack of ambition in the dressing room when he initially joined the club before the Spaniard’s arrival.

“After one year I started to understand, a club that was not used to winning for a long time, so they started to not believe a lot,” Luiz was quoted as saying.

“And then came Arteta, and Arteta changed a lot of things in the club and he started to make everybody believe the process.

“The club got the right mentality again as they had under Arsene Wenger, they got it in a good way.

“And now I’m happy because I see many young players that I was trying to help in the beginning, to believe that at the start of your career, you have to win big things,” the 36-year-old added.

The send-off the club gave Luiz baffled fans immensely given their perception of him, but it spoke to how the experienced defender was viewed internally.

A number of our younger stars noted him as the senior star that took care of them and I’d imagine Arteta valued having a player of that stature buy into his methods immediately.