40

Mikel Arteta has hit 40.

Happy Birthday to him.

Hard to believe he’s not happy this year.

He’s established a playing identity, the club is on track with his vision, and his first game in his forties will be the start of a 10 game run where Arsenal actually has an interest.

I suspect Arsenal wise, outside the team stuff, his happiest achievement of the last year is getting the fans on side. Listening to them sing his name at the last away game was special. He has been fully accepted, he is mainstream, the loudest voices that heckled the process have caved to the reality: He is good. He is delivering. When Pedro said he had sauce… he was correctomundo.

Arsenal took a game on a youthful idea, it’s paid off, we can now boast one of the best young managers in world football.

Hopefully Arteta can establish himself as one of the best coaches in the world without the need to prefix it with ‘young.’ To do that, he’ll have to win the Premier League, if we play the long game here, I’ve no doubt that we can get to those sorts of levels.

The next 10 games will be telling, we’ll have to win a lot of away games, we’ll have to beat some big teams… if we do that, the belief going into next season will be next level.

Remember: Champions League qualification this season puts us ahead of schedule. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. That people feel we should be doing it now tells you how well the project is going.

Back to getting to to top:

Add a best in class young striker in the shape of Darwin Nunez, a top class midfielder like Tielemans or Neves and we’ll be cooking for next season.

We have the best platform out of any team in the league to move to the next level.

Even if Spurs pip us to the Champions League, they have arsonist manager, they will have to start thinking about replacing Kane and Son soon (reality: you can’t do that), and Lloris is no spring chicken.

Manchester United are going to need a huge reboot this summer. The toxic players will have to be moved. They’ll bring in a new manager that will make them do hard things. It’ll be difficult.

Chelsea is a mess. That won’t get better with new ownership. They are losing Rudiger and Christensen this summer. They have striker issues. They will NOT have fuck you money.

The teams to chase are Liverpool and City. We are well positioned to do that if we’re smart.

The young players will be better. We’ll bring back Saliba into the squad, the idea that he’s going anywhere feel rich, unless there’s a mega offer of course. I also suspect we’ll start next season a touch better than 3 losses on the bounce.

The biggest shock to the system will be Champions League or Europa if we land it. But with more money, you suspect will come a deeper squad.

The fact I can write so positively about Arsenal shows you how far we’ve come, a large chunk of that is down to the birthday boy.

Good times.

Short post today, see you in the comments. x