Arteta ready to get ruthless at Arsenal, dropping Ramsdale would be a huge call

There are two sides to Mikel Arteta. There is the folksy, tree-hugging, ‘let’s all hold hands and imagine winning’ team-talk hippy guru. And then there is the ‘steely little f*****’, as one of his past associates once described him, the colleague adding: ‘He’s very bright, I like him.’

For all Arteta’s emotional intelligence — ‘I can’t see players as just numbers, they are people, I need to understand them, what is happening in their lives,’ — there is also a slightly alarming intensity about him at times, perhaps the obsessional drive of a 41-year-old who will not rest until he has surpassed his former mentor and current arch nemesis, Pep Guardiola.

Arteta, who once admitted to cheating at childhood games, is not a great loser. Last season’s title capitulation cut deep. On holiday, he insisted to his family he was putting it to one side to spend quality time with them. ‘Probably I pretended I had stopped thinking about it,’ he said. ‘My wife would say something very different.’

He is fortunate to be at a club that, unlike past eras, is at a point where they can back him financially and are organised enough, with Edu and Richard Garlick to get deals done.

With Jurrien Timber, Kai Havertz and Declan Rice all signed before the pre-season tour, Arsenal are as well set up as they can be for Sunday’s Community Shield with Manchester City.

But it is in the signing currently being negotiated — goalkeeper David Raya from Brentford — that you see the ruthless Arteta.

Last week, current No1 Aaron Ramsdale released a hugely impressive open letter opening up about his stance on homophobia, trolls and, significantly, the emotional support Areta gave him last season when his wife suffered a miscarriage.

‘He was fantastic about everything,’