Chelsea legend David Luiz was shocked at Arsenal’s lack of ambition before Mikel Arteta changed everything
David Luiz says Arsenal lacked a winning mentality when he first made the move from Chelsea in 2019.
Signed by Unai Emery, the Brazilian defender spent two years at the Emirates Stadium, where he featured in 73 games in all competitions.
An £8million arrival, the 36-year-old joined the Gunners alongside Kieran Tierney on deadline day ahead of the 2019/20 campaign.
Following a stuttering start to the season where Arsenal won just once in nine games, Emery was dismissed in November.
Arteta, who retired at the Emirates as club captain in 2016, returned to north London where he was appointed in what remains his first managerial role.
And Luiz has credited Arteta for bringing ambition back to Arsenal, with the pair winning the FA Cup and Community Shield together, where the former scored in the penalty shootout victory over Liverpool in the annual curtain-raiser.
Speaking to talkSPORT's Jim White, Luiz was asked what Arsenal means to him, to which he said: «A lot, because I went there — it was my decision.
»A club which had a lot of potential, but it was missing a lot of hunger to win titles.
«I remember my first meeting with the players and with everybody, we were talking about our goals for the season — nobody was talking about winning the Premier League.
»I said, 'Stop! We are just at the beginning of the season, the first thing is you need to have ambition, you need to think about the title!'
«And then after that, it was the top four. After one year I started to understand, a club that was not used to winning for a long time, so they started to not believe a lot.
»And then came Arteta, and Arteta changed a lot of things in the club and he started to make everybody believe the process.
«The club got the right mentality again as they
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