Today marks six years since Arsenal unveiled Mikel Arteta as their new head coach.
His tenure feels as though it has flashed by, yet starting just months before the first Covid-19 lockdown, it also straddles two very different eras. So much has changed at Arsenal – and in the world more broadly – that it feels strange to think back to that first day, when the 37-year-old Spaniard outlined his plans to reshape the club’s culture and return the team to the highest level.
With an early FA Cup, a couple of Community Shields, three second-place finishes in the Premier League and a run to the Champions League semi-finals to his name, Arteta has largely stayed true to his word. The Gunners are competitive again – in a way that did not seem possible during the darkest days of the Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery eras.
Off the pitch, a deep sense of togetherness now runs through the club. Ahead of his first meeting with staff and players in December 2019, Arteta famously turned every chair and table upside down. The message was simple: this is what a mess looks like – and we are a mess. These days, the furniture is very much in order.
Ahead of his anniversary, it was put to him that changing the club’s culture has been his biggest success.
“It was one of them,” he admitted. “It was the first foundation that we had to see, and I think it was done pretty rapidly. Maintaining it is something that is very, very difficult, and you need a lot of good people and very aligned people to achieve that.
“I think we have that in a really strong and solid way, but all the things, socially, the transformation has been around the club in terms of the size, in terms of revenues, in terms of the squad that we built, the value of it, the sporting success that we had. Even though we haven’t won any major trophies yet, I think it’s very, very consistent, so we’re in the right place.”
While there has been huge turnover in personnel along the way, affecting every level of the club, Arteta credits all those who’ve bought into his project for helping move it forward.
“One man cannot really change anything, especially when you talk about the size and the history of this football club.
“You need a lot of good people, very committed people around you with the same vision, the same work ethic, the same passion and I’m very lucky because I had some of that.
“Then at the end you need a lot of support, starting from upstairs with everybody that makes decisions alongside you, but the most important ones are the players.
“I think the players have to buy into what you say and what you do, and I feel very lucky because those players, they give you 100% in the direction that you want every single day.”
Having raised expectations in the fanbase, the next target for Arteta is major silverware – the only way to shut up the “second again” naysayers and to cement his own place alongside the club’s greatest managers.
He also thinks it’ll be an important factor when it comes to contract discussions.
Arteta has 18 months left on the deal he signed in September last year and while he can see himself penning an extension that takes him beyond 2027, he isn’t taking it for granted.
“Yes, but it is about today. And a lot of things have to happen in the next few months as well, to earn the right.
“I think the manager has to earn the right to be here tomorrow. That is how you react, how you talk here, how you go in the dressing room, the message that you send, how much the players follow you.
He added: “For six years, I have seen just players with a level of attention and desire to learn and give the maximum to the team. That is what keeps me in this job. Nothing else. And, obviously, winning a lot of football matches that, percentage-wise, I think is quite high. That is the only way. If not, you cannot survive in this environment.”
Of course, Arteta’s future is very much of interest to his players. Many have committed to new contracts based on their belief in his football vision and coaching methods. Others, including Jurrien Timber, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice, have that decision to make.
Asked whether the first team squad press him on his future, he admitted: “They do ask me but I cannot lie to them. I don’t know. It is something that does not depend on me.
“Are you really happy here? Do you feel that you have the energy and you feel you can take this club \[forward\]? Yes. 100% yes.
“But I think it does not depend only on me. And they have to make a decision based on what they feel about it.
“And again, that is another sign when you sit with a player and he is talking to you in those terms and they really want to stay and they don’t want to list to another options, that is a good sign as it means the clubs looks after them in the right way and they believe that this is the right club for them to achieve the goals they want in their life.”
Anniversaries always invite reflection, but Arteta’s answers betray a man still far more interested in the next training session than the last six years.
The job, as he sees it, remains unfinished. And perhaps that restless dissatisfaction is exactly why Arsenal continue to move forward.