Mikel Arteta has warned he wants to see a "reaction" when his Arsenal stars return from their holidays and begin pre-season preparations.
The Gunners are set to resume training this weekend ahead of the start of the new Premier League season on 12 September.
Arteta steered Arsenal to eighth place after taking over as boss last December, replacing sacked manager Unai Emery, and was widely praised for bringing a more attractive brand of football back to the Emirates.
And Arsenal ended the season in style by winning their 14th FA Cup with a 2-1 win over Chelsea in the final earlier this month.
But Arteta insists his stars must be hungry for further success and he will be monitoring the mood in the dressing room during pre-season.
"'I have to look at the players, how they come back from holidays, how they come after winning. I want to see that reaction," he told Arsenal Digital .
"You know, are they going to be a little more relaxed because we've done something or are they going to come with: 'Okay, this is nothing that we've done. We have to go to the next level, we have to apply ourselves better, we have to improve in a lot of areas and we have to dominate many other aspects of the game that at the moment we cannot control'?
"If that is the mindset, then I am very positive that we will be sitting here in a year's time really happy. But I hope we take that road straight away."
Arteta is eyeing an improved league position next season after Arsenal slipped to their lowest finish for 25 years last campaign.
What should Arsenal's targets be for next season? Have your say here.
Key to his efforts to improve the Gunners' results is instilling a sense of "unity" in the dressing room, in stark contrast to the team in disarray he inherited nine months ago.
"I could have a sense from the outside of what was happening, everything I was reading, the people I had inside the club that could feed me some information," he added.
"But I think until the day that you walk through that door and start to really feel the energy and what is happening, it's difficult to predict what the role is that you have to take in terms of the impact you want to make.
"I was worried. I saw a lot of things that worried me in terms of the unity, the energy that was around the place.
"But I must say that straight away in the next few days, I completely felt that something was changing.
"The first thing was that I got everyone together, the staff and the players, and I told them what I thought about them and why this wasn't working
"If we were going to continue like this, it was never going to work - the first thing we had to do was get back all together with the same agenda and with the same intentions.
"Without that unity, we cannot drive this massive ship that we have to manage with Arsenal, and the expectations that are involved with the club."
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