Quote Originally Posted by IBK View Post
Yes - I agree that there would have been speculation - but Arteta could have simply said that it was an internal matter - or that his omission was for management reasons or something...

Yeah, I think it needed a little detail in this instance. The reporters were already there, and they knew something had happened - if we'd gone with silence then they would have just started speculating.

I'm not sure Arteta got it quite right here - as I said above, I think he could have buried this one by saying that Auba was late / held up in traffic / whatever and we simply had to start prepping the team to start the game with the players that were present. More details, if anything. But these are the things he's going to have to learn as he goes - he is a rookie, after all, and this current project is as much about his development as it is the team's...