It was dark and wet and late when we finally gathered to welcome Mikel Arteta to Arsenal. They had stolen him away in the night from Manchester City – the lights of the people carrier illuminating the private road on which he lived in fashionable Didsbury – and there had been bitterness over all that.
But as we sat with the man tasked with turning a great football back in the right direction, that familiar brooding darkness coloured his eyes as he punched the fist of one hand in to the palm of the other.
‘Everybody has to feel privileged to be here and the players will have to accept a different way of things,’ said Arteta, as he sat round a large oak table.
‘We have to build and change. If players like Bernardo Silva and David Silva at Man City don’t get bullied, it’s because they defend their position like animals.
‘From now on, that must be us.’
That was Christmas 2019. The world didn’t even know Covid yet. So it’s taken Arteta a while to get to where he said he would as he sat that Friday night around a large oak table and talked about a reboot in environment necessary at a club that long lost its way.
Mikel Arteta has guided Arsenal back to being Premier League champions after 22 years
The debate will rumble on about Arsenal’s style of play, led in the main by those who would take even a slice of what the new English champions have in a heartbeat
Arteta, who was presented as head coach in December 2019, has been rewarded for having a plan and sticking to it
But Arteta – the Arsenal manager – has been rewarded for having a plan and sticking to it, for realising that the weeds that had grown over foundations once laid by Arsene Wenger needed taking out by the roots. Arsenal, meanwhile, have been rewarded for their own belief, steadfastness and patience. It has taken six-and-half years for Arteta to take Arsenal back to the top of the mountain but they are there now.
The debate about the nature of the modern Arsenal’s style of play will rumble on, led in the main by those who would take even a slice of what the new English champions have in a heartbeat. That’s just the noise, though. It just doesn’t matter.
Arsenal are the best team in the land for the first time in 22 years and Arteta has taken them there on the back of footballing principles and core management beliefs that are as old as pig’s bladder footballs and metal studs.
Days before that media gathering at the Emirates, Arteta had been on the City bench as Pep Guardiola’s assistant as the reigning champions had embarrassed Arsenal 3-0. The Gunners had been two down within 15 minutes and Arteta had watched a team playing with no pattern, no discernible style, no purpose and absolutely no heart.
He set about fixing it all. He knew it would take a while and it’s probably taken a little longer than he hoped. But the Arsenal team that were finally delivered to their holy grail by Bournemouth are now a classic modern football team.
It is no wonder that Thomas Tuchel’s coaching staff will look to take some of Arsenal’s traits to this summer’s World Cup.
Defensively resolute, able to score goals in different ways, exemplary at set-pieces. It’s a combination that will serve any football team exceptionally well but Arteta’s route to glory started with the rooting out of poison, of installing a way of doing things that he knew would not suit the dilletantes that had been allowed to get comfortable in the Arsenal dressing room.
All of that needed to happen before he could even think about installing a way of playing acceptable and true to the traditions of the club.
Days before being appointed, Arteta had been on the Man City bench as they embarrassed an Arsenal side playing with no pattern, no discernible style, no purpose and absolutely no heart
Arteta’s Arsenal are now a modern team but he was helped in rooting out the poison from the club, with former sporting director Edu among those to have backed some of his biggest calls
Arteta’s axing of club captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was part of Arsenal’s efforts to set new standards
Mesut Ozil, Alexandrew Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Gifted players but not Arsenal players. Not Arsenal people. Not in the way they viewed their work. It took courage to get them out – Wenger had ducked the issue – and Arteta needed the confidence of those who had hired him in order to do it. Aubameyang, for example, had been club captain.
‘I asked sporting director Edu if he really was sure about this and I could tell he wasn’t,’ one prominent agent tells Daily Mail Sport.
‘Aubameyang was the club’s best player. They needed him. But Edu was determined to back Mikel.
‘I could tell they would see it through. Short-term pain. Long-term gain. New standards.’
Arteta’s Arsenal have passed through different phases of development. Players have been fundamental to certain stages and then moved on without sentiment.
Arteta knows loyalty but also understanding it’s a failing when indulged in a blind form. Kieran Tierney, Granit Xhaka, Aaron Ramsdale, Aleksandr Zinchenko. They were all useful and utterly fundamental until the very moment when they were not. Arteta’s pragmatic sense of ruthlessness is as good as any coach in the modern game, especially when it comes to his timing.
He has been too emotional at times and that hasn’t always impacted in the best way on his players. We have laughed at him on occasion, too. Some of his methods have appeared gauche.
Balancing pens. Tennis balls fired at players during training. Pickpockets employed to steal wallets during a team dinner. It’s the kind of stuff that is funny until the moment that it works. Arteta will doubtless believe it has. Others will dismiss it as frippery. Now at least he has a Premier League trophy to add weight to his side of the argument.
Arteta’s sense of ruthlessness is as good as any coach in the modern game with the likes of Aaron Ramsdale and Granit Xhaka moved on at the very moment they were no longer useful
Arsenal have endured setbacks, but Arteta and his side have used them to grow further
With the title now secure, Arteta and his team are within one big performance of arguably even greater glory in the Champions League final
More important, though, has been his own personal conviction, his resolute belief in himself and what he has been building. It has provided shelter from the criticism and helped him survive the disappointments of three second place finishes.
Last season, in particular, his Arsenal team should have run Liverpool closer. Had they done so, Arne Slot’s team may have buckled. Equally, those setbacks bred evolution and change and development. They led to introspection and thought and a broadening of ideas and resources and methods.
Some coaches are narrowed by failure. As a result, their teams wither. Arteta has not allowed that to happen. From setbacks, great strength has grown.
Arteta built a team and a style of play and then rebooted it all in order to take it to the elite level required. The Premier League title is now secure and Arteta and his teams are within one big performance of an arguably even greater glory in Budapest in ten days’ time.
Back in 2019, Arteta promised fundamental change. He promised to ‘shake the tree’. Maybe he needed to shake it a little harder than he envisaged. But medals have fallen from it in the end.
