Mikel Arteta has been backed to restore Arsenal’s lost identity by defender Calum Chambers.
Arsenal became unrecognisable in the final weeks of Unai Emery’s reign and Chambers says new boss Arteta can bring back their passion and energy.
The Basque spoke to the players briefly before and after their draw with Everton and Chambers says he wants them to get back to basics.
“We just need to get our identity back,” said the centre-half. “I know he wants to do that.
“It will take time, but I know he can get that out of us. The message is we’re all excited to start working with him.
“His message before the game was be brave, take responsibility and work hard for each other. We did that on the pitch.
“He said afterwards it’s a good start and there’s things to work on. He was proud of the way we worked and how we worked hard.”
Freddie Ljungberg will switch from caretaker to be part of Arteta’s coaching team and the Swede says Arsenal need to get back to playing possession football.
“For me we are a big club,” he said. “We’ve been a bit low on confidence and it’s been a difficult time we’ve been going through.
“For me, the important thing for Arsenal FC is that we need to keep possession, we should keep the ball and dominate.”
Meanwhile, Arteta has been given the immediate task of qualifying for the Champions League this season.
Gunners head of football Raul Sanllehi said: “There are different degrees of success and we want the highest degree eventually.
“To get to one point you need to go through phases. Of course we want to be back fighting for all the titles that we can fight for in every season.
“In the short-term we want to turn this around and our ultimate objective for this season is to qualify for the Champions League because this is the place where we belong.
“We’re a Champions League club. We need to be in the Champions League. And then win the league next season? Eventually. Let’s leave it that way.”
