Copyright bbc
The teams I lifted the top-flight title with in 1998, 2002 and 2004 all have something in common with Arteta's current side - all of them have suffered the pain of not winning something. In 1998 we had gone six years without a title. In 2002 it came after we finished second behind Manchester United for three years in a row and again before the 2004 'Invincibles' season. This team has finished runners-up for three successive seasons and it's a collective thing, the energy that comes out of defeats, you get to the stage where you're so incensed and so motivated to try to win. It was mentioned to us that we were second best as a group because we kept coming second to Manchester United. That breeds an inner feeling of 'over my dead body, this will not happen again, we're going to make sure we win this'. I can see all the similarities with this group. The mentality changes when you see other teams picking up trophies and you're subjected to everybody else winning silverware, and the only thing you don't have is that same celebratory feel that comes at the end of any success. Those first photographs, they're not there yet. You're not going to stop until that changes, until trophies start coming through the door. It just sort of galvanizes and I'm seeing all of that now. It's like a fight breaks out, and there's three people that turn up at the fight. It's maybe the wrong terminology to use, but you're never on your own. You never look around and think, 'I'm in trouble here'. There's always somebody who has your back because they're all of the same mentality, all of the same mindset. Two or three years ago, I thought we're back in the fight again. Arteta has got that Arsenal fight. It had disappeared, that DNA disappeared and since Mikel came in, he has done a magnificent job of changing the culture. I think there's been an internal fight for places that's made everybody go that little bit extra to add to the mix. Gabriel looks like he's a leader. Declan Rice looks like he's a leader. I think Gyokeres looks a character. You want personality. You want character. I remember the dressing room under Wenger and the pinnacle of that group - there was such an aura about the group, and there were so many leaders. I can't chose between Sol Campbell and Tony Adams, Lauren or Lee Dixon. It's like asking me to choose between siblings. All I can tell you is every one of those was affected by the other, and all of them took that baton and that mood and that behaviour. Some people, like maybe Nwankwo [Kanu] would only speak occasionally, but when he did, everybody listened because it really was impactful. I probably would have been more vocal than most. Everyone spoke. Everybody cared.
