Mikel Arteta has put pen to paper on a brand new deal that’ll probably take him through to 2030 with Arsenal. That’ll give Arsenal 10 years with their ex-captain.
He left Arsenal after his playing career with three offers, one from Arsène, one from Pochettino, and one from Pep Guardiola. As any real student of the game would have, he took the move to learn under the greatest of all time, a true Harvard experience and entry into the world of elite-level management.
Things went well working for Guardiola. Anyone who knew of Arteta had an inkling he was going to be great. People I had spoken to told me very early that there was no doubt he would manage and that he’d one day be a Premier League and Champions League winner. His major work over at City was his IDP work with the Man City forwards. He helped players like Sané and Sterling develop their games and be more effective in the final third with their movement and how fast they’d rip off shots in the box.
But… he wanted a big ticket job. He had worked the system with Ivan Gazidis when he was at Arsenal, and he was under consideration for Arsenal when Wenger left. The story is that it was Arteta who presented an incredible deck to the board, though that later morphed into Emery as being the one with the outrageous presentation skills… I think we all know who was zipping through slides better. Emery was brought into the process last minute, did his interview without being able to speak English, and Arteta missed out.
Some things are meant to be. The desperately poor period under Unai Emery broke the fans, it depressed ownership, and it showed that Wenger had built an incredibly toxic squad of highly paid big names who were going to be problematic. Emery exited, this time Edu was put in charge of the recruitment, and he was the guy who was blown away by Arteta in his home in Manchester. Arsenal had nothing to lose this time, they cemented the deal, took a flyer on a young coach, and they did it with good reason.
Mikel Arteta had been an Arsenal captain, so he knew the weight of the badge.
He had absorbed Manchester City IP, working with the greatest.
He was a salesman, extremely passionate, and knew how to get the most out of players.
He wanted the job more than anyone else on the planet. This wasn’t Arsenal bringing in Conte, a man who would have thought he was bigger than Arsenal. This was someone who felt the pain of seeing Arsenal in the gutter.
I also think there was something quite unique about a player who had sat in the dressing room and watched his team get zero help tactically. He saw players bullied week in, week out. He knew the guys who were pretending to be sick for tough away days. All the meekness was familiar, because he’d sat amongst it.
I wrote extensively about Arteta joining both times because the idea made sense on so many levels… but never forget how many people spent the first 3 years complaining about it, even when the progress was absolutely clear. That is the nature of sport, even now, just look at the muppets challenging Bukayo Saka’s importance at the club. Everyone has a voice and the dumbest opinions gain traction faster on these platforms.
But where are we now? Arteta was the generational manager. Those who didn’t recognise it have to accept their time, ringing that shame bell, as they walk Holloway Road. He is the best coach on the planet, no one can hold a candle to him for what he has done to Arsenal. It’s been a rebuild job of the highest calibre.
Arsenal won’t keep him forever, I suspect he’ll do a decade with us, then move onto something new. Managers don’t want the 20-year dynasties these days. This contract takes this current Arsenal squad to its peak, hopefully it’ll give the club its first ever Champions League, another Premier League title, and loads of wonderful memories.
The money will be staggering, he’ll be taking between £20m and £25m. That is the going rate for greatness and he deserves it. I would also imagine the contract came with assurances that Arsenal would continue to spend money and build. We have clear gaps in the squad right now, there are players who will attract January bids, so I’d hope there are moves to be made in the areas that weren’t added to in summer.
More broadly, this contract for me represents something we’ve not had in a long while at Arsenal: total stability.
Enjoy it. It’s a rare occurrence. Players, coaches, and form… rock solid stable. No other club has what we do right now. We’re a true rarity in the game. It won’t last forever, and when it’s gone, you’ll miss it.
So, in short, great news for Arsenal. Great news for Mikel. We have another chapter to get through with a manager who is determined to make himself the greatest ever Arsenal manager by winning a trophy we’ve never laid hands on. That’s pretty exciting. x