Mikel Arteta revealed he was offered his new contract after Arsenal’s recent run of three successive defeats.
Arteta signed an improved three-year deal that will run until 2025 on Thursday and detailed how the timing of the offer as well as the extension itself was a show of faith from the Arsenal hierarchy.
Arsenal looked like they were in danger of throwing away their top four hopes last month after suffering successive defeats against Crystal Palace, Brighton and Southampton which saw them fall to sixth.
They have now regained the advantage in their race for the Champions League places with their fierce rivals Tottenham after winning their three most recent games against Chelsea, Manchester United and West Ham.
But Arteta said: ‘The club offered me the new contract when we lost three matches and that day I went like this, chapeau, and go. That doesn’t happen in football.
‘That’s a part of what they think, the conversation I have, the belief that they have in myself, the coaching staff, in what we’re doing and the people that we have now owning this football club and leading this football club and I haven’t ever seen it and I just got emotional when I saw it.
‘I just said these guys are serious and they are committed so I better push forward.
‘Words and facts are very different things and in football they can be extremely different in relation to results and it’s not the case.
‘They meant something for many months and [the] conversations that we had and they put it in a piece of paper after that day so for me there is not a better way to describe the people we have at the club.’
