To be fair, to him, that culture is the thing that had Arsenal players and media pundits a few short weeks ago. The last week has been crushingly disappointing, but it doesn't invalidate what came before it. I don't doubt Arteta could have handled Auba differently, I wish he had, but then I also wish Auba - our club captain, don't forget - had treated his position, the football club and, ultimately, the rest of the first team squad with a bit of respect.
The notion that Arteta would have willingly sacrificed 25 goals a season out of this team (which, by the way, much as I loved Auba he was not going to deliver this year) behind some kind of high minded ideal for living is ridiculous to me. As he said the other day, he needs players to jump on the boat. Auba was very clearly not on the boat. At a cost of £300k p/wk by the way.
On Xhaka, I have a bit of sympathy with Arteta actually. Particularly when it comes to what happened with the fans at that Crystal Palace game (why have they become the opponents that initiate a psychodrama every time we play them now?). Yes, it was awful that Xhaka did what he did, but it also happened two and a half years ago now and very much before Arteta's time. I manage people as part of my day job and it really, really wouldn't be fair of me to judge them based on what they did before I worked with them - or what has happened long ago. A clean slate may have been unpalatable to us, but as a manager, what else could Arteta do?
I suspect the madness that comes with Xhaka is even more frustrating for Arteta than for us, but I think, as you say, it's also something that Arteta has decided he can live with.
Although, let's not forget, had Roma not been stupid last summer, there's a fair chance we wouldn't be having this conversation now.
