We all know when Mikel Arteta took over Arsenal, the club were in a bad, bad place. Both on and off the pitch.
He took over a team 10th in the league with just one win in eight games. we had an ageing overpaid squad filled with egos who were not playing for shirt.
If you look at Manchester United now, finishing 15th and getting knocked out of the League Cup by Grimsby, we were heading that way.
The board plucked for Arteta, and he has rebuilt the club from the bottom up.
Training facilities and scouting have improved, the academy is producing superstars, and the senior team is now challenging year after year for titles. But it is easy to forget where Arteta’s Arsenal started.
Looking back, Arteta’s first line up was a nightmare.
Ego driven superstars in Aubameyang and Ozil were ripping the club apart. Underperforming senior players in Lacazette, Xhaka, Luiz and Sokratis disinterested. And youngsters Saka, Maitland-Niles and Nelson were overburdened.
The fact this was the strongest XI Arteta could put out against Everton back in 2019 is shocking.
Arteta gets mocked for his talk about “phases”, but he is completely right to look at the evolution of Arsenal in a series of phases.
We were never going to go from 10 to title challengers quickly. And I think we were surprised how quickly we did it. The plan was for progress each year, with different targets in place, and different players targeted. you don’t build the roof before you have done the foundations.
Phase One was returning Arsenal to the Champions League.
It had been about 3-years since we had qualified and the club was struggling with the financial hit, and in turn struggling to attract the top players we needed to enable us to return to Europe’s premier competition.
Phase One involved getting those underperforming, highly paid hasbeens of the payroll and replacing them with young, hungry talent. Player who might not be top, top class, but players who could drive us towards top 4 at least.
The club found the prima-donas tough to shift. Old, past their best and on huge wages, no one really wanted them.
Gabriel and Thomas Partey were recruited as the rebuild began, and then Ben White, Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Martin Odegaard. Beyond Partey, none were really an elite European player, but they all had the talent and hunger to reach those heights.
Phase Two of the project was to turn us from Top 4 challengers to title challengers. It would take both the development of the new players by Arteta to get us out of Phase One and the recruitment of best level players to make the hill.
We kind of skipped through Phase Two quickly. The players we recruited to take us through Phase One progressed quickly and drove us towards the title. Phase One and Two quickly merged without the need of drastic changes.
In a blink of an eye we went from 5th to challenging for the title. The back end of Phase One was leapfrogged and we were looking at quickly being through Phase Two as well. The quick progression certainly raised fans expectations and Arteta attempted the quell them by saying we were 1-2 years ahead of schedule.
Phase Three of the project was turning our one off title challenge into becoming consistent title challengers.
We challenged for the title in 2022/23 with a paper thin squad. Arteta only trusted 13-15. We were not in the position either financially or status wise to build the strength in depth that the likes of Liverpool and Man City had.
What we now needed was to move from having a squad of 13-15 first teamers to a squad of 25. It is that squad depth that drives you not only towards the title, but also competing on multiple front and year after year. Without unlimited riches it was always going to take a few summers to get the squad depth we needed.
We are now well into Phase Three and things are looking bright. The squad depth is highlighted by our second string which, if Piero Hincapie join, is probably better than the XI that Arteta had in his first game with the club.
The evolution of the club really is highlighted when you put the two XIs side by side.
It is filled with expensive players on their way down, whilst our current 2nd XI is filled with a mixture of exciting young talent and serious 2nd choice senior pros who are proper solid players.
Now some who have got to this point will say “well now Arteta has the this great squad, not winning the league is a failure”. But that does not take into account that Manchester City and Liverpool also have equally fantastic starting XIs and squads.
The evolution of Arsenal under Arteta has not missed a step. we are now have a squad of 25 and ready to challenge on multiple fronts. We now just need the silverware.
**Keenos**