Former Premier League referee Graham Scott has described Mikel Arteta as the toughest manager to deal with in English soccer, pointing to the Arsenal boss\u2019s constant edge on the touchline and his persistent engagement with officials.<\/p>\n
Scott told The Athletic that Arteta was the \u201chardest work\u201d among Premier League managers, saying his behaviour regularly stretched the limits. He explained that while he understood the intent behind it, Arteta\u2019s presence made life difficult for referees and their assistants.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, the trite answer is: all of them when they\u2019re losing,\u201d Scott said when asked who\u2019s the most difficult manager to deal with. \u201cThe honest answer, I\u2019m afraid\u2014I know whatever I say at this point just gets me pelters\u2014but it is Arteta. He is the hardest work.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe really does push all the limits, all of the time. I don\u2019t mind that in many ways; he\u2019s trying to get a competitive advantage for his team. That\u2019s fine. That\u2019s part of his job. And of course, he\u2019s entitled to do it, and it\u2019s for us to place them, but he does make your life extremely difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s out of his box all the time. I watched him recently in Arsenal\u2019s game against Everton, and every time Everton had the ball anywhere near the touchline on his side, he was like joining in the press. His toes are on the touchline.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs fourth official, it\u2019s a nightmare, because if you step forward and do anything about it, you\u2019re being pedantic, being petty. 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\u2019m not going to deny that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he was just hard work. Really, really hard work all the time in a way that others tended to be hard work some of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta has also been outspoken about refereeing decisions in public. He has previously called some performances \u201ca disgrace\u201d and others \u201cembarrassing\u201d in press conferences.<\/p>\n
In 2023, he defended that stance by saying: \u201cIt is my duty to be defending my players,\u201d Arteta said back in 2023. \u201cSupporting my players, supporting my club, defending my people in the best possible way, and I do it time after time. And I do it not [through] the way I feel but with the evidence and being as clear as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a duty to express how we feel with the evidence that we have and the history of what happened,\u201d Arteta added. \u201cWe have to really stand for our people, our values and what we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only weeks ago, Arteta said he was \u201cvery disappointed\u201d the English FA did not overturn Max Dowman\u2019s Carabao Cup red card, a ruling he strongly disputed.<\/p>\n
He has also admitted that his emotional approach can reflect badly on the club. In 2023, Arteta said he was trying to \u201cchange\u201d after recognising that his reaction to decisions can sometimes go too far. \u201cSometimes, when I look at myself and I’m so agitated, I think it can sometimes give an image that is not the best, mainly for the club,\u201d Arteta recognized in 2023. \u201cSometimes it’s difficult with certain decisions when you are in the heat of the moment because you are representing the club, and you want to defend them. That\u2019s what drives me. It’s to defend the players, to defend the club. Nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Graham Scott says Arteta pushes limits and makes life difficult for officials in the Premier League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[1836,1066],"class_list":["post-22474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}