Two title challenges, one fly-on-the-wall documentary, North London Forever, a global pandemic, lightbulbs, a banished captain, pickpockets, fogging standards, late wins, trust the process, Martin Odegaard, all the left-backs, Saka & Smith Rowe, our worst start ever, record signings, Ozil and Gunnersaurus, painful defeats, set piece mastery and an FA Cup triumph.
Five years of Mikel Arteta in charge at Arsenal has seen a bit of everything – and the boss believes “the best is yet to come.”
It feels like only yesterday that 37-year-old Arteta arrived at London Colney with a steely determination to get Arsenal back to the highest level.
While he’s made significant progress in delivering on that promise, a major trophy has remained out of reach for over four years, leaving plenty of room for the next chapter to be even better.
Facing the media on his fifth anniversary, the Spaniard reflected: “I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s gone really, really fast. I’m really grateful to be in the position that I’m in right now. I have a lot to learn, a lot to improve and the best is yet to come.
As for winning trophies, he continued: “This is what we want, to win the big trophies now, without losing the rest of the things that we have built. That’s very important.
“From my point of view, the unity, the connections \[with the fans\] and the fact that we are competing on big fronts right now \[is the biggest change\].
“We haven’t managed to do that in the past years. That’s positive, but there’s still a lot to do.”
He added: “I really enjoy working with the people I work with every single day, that we have built something together, and so many people have contributed in a big way to achieve that, and the fact that everybody is hungry and ambitious, that now we have to go to another level.”
As we’ve listed above, it’s not been plain sailing for the manager who has been central to a series of difficult and headline-making decisions on the way to establishing a new club culture focused on respect, commitment and passion for the cause.
Asked if any particular decision stood out as the toughest, he took a moment to think before answering:
It’s a good question. First of all, I don’t make decisions by myself. Always a lot of time we share that with the club, with the people in the past, the people right now, and as well with my coaches when we have to make decisions like that. So it’s very difficult to point to one of those.
“What I would say is that I haven’t regretted decisions, because we have made them with a lot of analysis and after a very thoughtful process with a lot of people, and some were right and many were wrong, unfortunately.”
Remarkably, given the stresses and strains of such a high-profile job, Arteta has done a fine job keeping signs of ageing at bay.
His ‘lego’ hair still looks pitch black and, despite the appearance of a few wrinkles, he’s as handsome as he ever was.
Asked how he’s managed not to change, he laughed: “I have, I have. I think I have changed. Things are different!
“Looking back, it’s gone so, so, so fast, I enjoyed every minute of it – when we have bumps in the road, when we have good moments, and that’s about it.
“I’m here because I’m so passionate about what I do, because I love this football club, and I want the best for it.
“I just try to give my best version every single day, and think about what is the best possible manager for Arsenal Football Club and its players, and try to become that manager.”
As for what areas he feels he can improve himself, he said: “In all of them. Probably when I arrived I was very, very obsessed with the tactical aspect of the game, and then straight away, two or three months after I took the job, I realised that there was no tactics to do, we were at home sitting with COVID, so we had to look after the club and the players in a different way, and the emotional and the physical part was a very important one.
“That evolution, probably putting the priorities in other aspects as well, the focus and spending time in other things, and that’s what I think I try to do.
“I think the team has always certain requirements, but they can change and they can shift in relation to moments, individual players or collective momentum that we have as a team, and the coach has to be able to adapt and prioritise those things to help them as much as possible.”