Mikel Arteta - Arsenal
Buying a player who is not first choice at Manchester City has become a familiar Premier League shortcut. The hope is that a footballer who already knows how to win the league will walk into a new dressing room and raise the standard overnight.
Sometimes that bet comes off. A slightly surplus attacker or full-back can look like a bargain once they are starting every week somewhere else.
Sometimes it does not. The fee stays huge, the minutes arrive, and the table still refuses to move.
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Tottenham’s 3-2 home defeat to Aston Villa on Saturday left them in a mess after five Premier League games. They sit 18th, third from bottom, despite spending around £350million in the summer.
Two of those arrivals looked like a direct attempt to copy what Mikel Arteta did in 2022. That summer Arsenal signed Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko from City, two players who were not automatic starters under Pep Guardiola.
Both became central to Arteta’s side. They helped turn a Champions League hopeful into a title contender, and they brought a winning habit that the squad had been missing. They were later moved on, but the first impact was real.
Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur have lost the same amount of top flight matches at their current home stadiums.
50 defeats each.
Arsenal moved into the Emirates Stadium in 2006.
Tottenham moved into their new stadium in 2019.
13 years difference… 😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/j3S0Lk6rTu
— now.arsenal (@now_arsenaI) September 19, 2026
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Spurs tried the same idea this summer. Savinho arrived from City for £85million. Omar Marmoush followed on an initial loan with a £60million obligation to buy. That is £145million on two players with Premier League experience, signed to deliver the same jump.
So far it has not happened. Savinho has shown flashes without the goals and assists the fee demands. Marmoush has barely registered.
The rest of the spending has not papered over it. Five games in, Tottenham still look short of a clear pattern, and a home loss to Villa keeps them looking down rather than up.
Arsenal, by contrast, are defending the title they won last season. The north London gap is not only about points. It is about a method that worked four years ago being copied without the same effect.
Imitation is easy to spot in a transfer window. Jesus and Zinchenko arrived at a club that already had a plan and a manager who had been building towards it. Dropping two City players into a side that has just spent a fortune and still sits 18th is not the same trick.
There is time for Savinho and Marmoush to grow into the season. After a 3-2 home defeat and five games without a convincing lift, that is hope rather than evidence. Arteta’s version of this move changed Arsenal’s ceiling. Tottenham’s version has not changed theirs yet.