‘I didn’t see this’: Joleon Lescott admits Arsenal man has shocked him, he’s way better than he thought

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Mikel Arteta has been the manager of Arsenal for quite a while now, and he’s taken to elite coaching like a duck to water.

While some of his contemporaries such as Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard have struggled to really get a footing in the game at this level, Arteta has established himself as one of the very best gaffers around these days.

Many of his former teammates have said they could see this transition coming a mile off, but, interestingly, Joleon Lescott has claimed on Filthy Fellas that he’s been shocked by Arteta’s development as a manager.

Indeed, Lescott says that he had no idea Arteta would be this good of a manager, saying that he didn’t see him being this successful this early.

Arteta shocked Lescott

Lescott spoke about Arteta’s foray into management.

“Did you know that Arteta was going to go into management?” Lescott was asked.

“Nah, I knew he had the intelligence, I knew he had the tactical awareness, that didn’t surprise me, but I didn’t see this to be fair. I didn’t see the level of success this early in his management career. Mikel knows the game, he was a left winger who turned into a holding midfielder and was playing it properly,’ Lescott said.

Doesn’t take long

Lescott says he’s surprised at how quick Arteta has taken to management, but if you have the right footballing brain, it really doesn’t take long.

Pep Guardiola was winning everything there was to win pretty much from day one, the same goes for Zinedine Zidane, and while Arteta has taken a little bit longer to warm up, he’s hit that elite level just a few years into his managerial career.

Of course, he still has a long way to go in terms of winning silverware, but it’s surely undeniably now that Arteta is one of the best managers around.