London: Ahead of the clash against Premier League champions Liverpool, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta hailed the opponents for their 'phenomenal' season and shed light on the factors which have helped the Jurgen Klopp-led side cruise to success.
"What they have done is phenomenal. Obviously the first two years it took them some time to rebuild the squad and to create a new culture, a new philosophy and a game model that suited the coach," the club's official website quoted Arteta as saying.
"Then they started to recruit every single player in relation to what they needed and that's where I think they were really smart. They bought with specificity for every position that was required. Financially they had a big backing and made some big signings which completely changed the club in my opinion," he added.
When Klopp took over in October 2015, the Reds were tenth in the Premier League. But less than five years later, they have been crowned champions.
Meanwhile, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has said that it looks like Arsenal will be a "proper challenger" again in the future as he praised "very exciting" coach Mikel Arteta.
"Mikel is part of this very exciting new coaching generation, or manager generation. Really exciting to watch; you can see the ideas behind obviously, influenced by Pep [Guardiola], he worked together with him. Probably they had the same idea already before when Mikel was still a player. Yes, you can see a massive influence of him," the club's official website quoted Klopp as saying.
"On top of that, obviously at Arsenal[there is] a really exciting squad, all the different offensive [players]. They have more experienced offensive players with massive quality and then coming up a lot of really, really good ones. So, yes, it looks like Arsenal will be a proper challenger again," he added.
Arsenal are slated to play against Liverpool on July 16.
