Mikel Arteta revolution: How Arsenal is being rebuilt

For two decades, Arsenal fans have missed the feeling of their team winning the league after repeated mediocre seasons.

In the 2003/2004 term, the Gunners went through an entire campaign without suffering any defeat and won the Premier League.

Until 2020 when Liverpool threatened to do the same, no other team has come close to achieving that feat, yet Arsenal could not build on that success.

Arsene Wenger remained their manager for 15 more years after that triumph, but the Frenchman could not win the title for them again.

When he left in 2018, Arsenal made Emery their manager and wanted quick success from a man who is an expert in European football and had won the league in France with PSG.

But Emery struggled to keep the team on his side for a long time, and the Spaniard soon lost the dressing room, which led to his sacking.

Mikel Arteta had been tipped to become their manager before Emery was chosen, but the Gunners felt he was not ready at the time.

Their ex-midfielder had just retired two years earlier, but eventually, Emery flopped and they turned to Arteta at the end of 2019.

It was an appointment that even some senior Arsenal players did not think made sense because the Spaniard had not occupied any managerial role before moving to the club.

However, Arsenal was sure about their decision and based it on the fact that Arteta has worked with arguably the best manager ever, Pep Guardiola, at Manchester City.

The Mikel Arteta revolution

When Arteta joined Arsenal as their head coach, he had been an assistant manager for City since 2016, when he stopped playing and won two Premier League medals.

This was a good way for him to prepare to lead a top club like Arsenal, and the Gunners’ board was certain he was the right man for the job at the Emirates.

Arteta was also taking a huge challenge by accepting Arsenal’s offer as his first managerial job, this meant he was following in the footsteps of Guardiola, who also became Barca’s manager without prior senior managerial experience.

The Catalan immediately knew something was wrong at Arsenal when he began his job and could tell that the culture was very different and poorer than that of City.

This is why the team had struggled to get close to winning trophies for so many years and he wanted to change that for Arsenal tickets holders.

Arteta met a team with top players who were punching below their weight because they had gotten used to mediocrity.

He knew he had to sacrifice some of his top players for new, younger stars who will buy into his philosophy and plans.

The likes of Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang fell foul of his demands and were quickly shipped out despite being on big-money deals.

Arteta’s work to ensure the right culture is developed at the Emirates saw him sign some world-class players and transform the performances of others.

Gradually he got rid of the bad eggs in the group and nearly every player he met at the Emirates has left, apart from the youngsters who were at the start of their careers.

This led to the team competing for the Premier League title last season and they nearly won it in remarkable fashion.

Arsenal did not even qualify for the Champions League in the 2021/2022 season, but last term, they were pacesetters in the title race before Manchester City won the title ahead of them.

Mikel Arteta’s side is now challenging to win the title again and it is the first time they have challenged for the league crown in back-to-back seasons since the 2010s.

The Spanish gaffer has revolutionised his team and made Arsenal a club that is respected again among sports lovers around the world.

This season has been special for them in so many ways, and they have a genuine chance of ending the term as champions of England twenty years after they won their last title.

Top signings

One thing we associated Arsenal with for many years under Arsene Wenger is their reluctance to splash the cash on new players.

The Frenchman earned his name by signing relatively unknown or cheap players and turning them into star men before selling them for profit.

For several years, players used the Gunners as a launching pad for their careers, with the likes of Emmanuel Adebayor, Samir Nasri and Gael Glichy leaving them for more money at Manchester City.

This affected them for several years and allowed the likes of Liverpool and City to overtake them as one of the top clubs in the country.

However, under Arteta, the club’s board has shown more willingness to splash the cash on new players and they have broken their transfer record to bring new men to the Emirates.

As covered before, Arteta met mediocre players who could not help his team and the club supported him in replacing them.

He signed Gabriel Magalhaes, Ben White, Jakub Kiwior and Oleksandr Zinchenko for his defence to replace the likes of Rob Holding, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, and Sead Kolasinac, among others.

Arsenal’s current midfield has the likes of Thomas Partey, Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz, but Arteta met Lucas Torreira, Denis Suarez, and Matteo Guendouzi, among others.

Their attack was led by Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, two talented but unmotivated strikers, but he now boasts the likes of Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz, with Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli becoming better players.

One important key to Arsenal’s success this season has been their signings under Arteta, as the Spaniard has hardly signed a poor player.

He seems to know the ideal profile to add to his group and make it better than it is in every stage of a term, and the Gunners are ever-improving because of this.

Will Arsenal win the Premier League?

Having come very close to winning the Premier League last season, Arsenal started this term as one of the favourites, but most people expected last term to be a one-of-kind type of season.

This means Arsenal was not expected to get close to the top of the standings again, but those predictions have proven to be false.

The Gunners are in the race again and after 31 matches, they top the standings on goal difference.

This is one of the tightest title races in history and Mikel Arteta’s side continues to prove everyone wrong about them as often as doubts creep in.

They seem to have the hardest fixtures in the run-in among the three clubs chasing the league crown, but Mikel Arteta’s side has shown that they are not a team we should doubt.

Their stunning form in 2024 means they are the favourites to win the league, and until they suffer a defeat in that competition, we have to consider them champion material.

We may doubt if they are now mature enough to win the title, but if Arsenal keeps winning, it will be difficult for them not to be champions.