The 2024/25 season gives Arsenal another chance to wrestle the Premier League title from Man City, with Mikel Arteta surely needing to break that duck to maintain any sort of credibility in the role.
By the end of the campaign, he will have been at the helm for five and a half years, and given the money that he’s spent in that period, it’s fair to suggest that he’s probably had long enough to try and topple City, and it might be time to let someone else have a go at doing so.
Of course, Arsene Wenger ended up being at the club well beyond his sell-by date which is something that came back to bite the Gunners.
Arteta is at the opposite end of his managerial career, particularly with the North Londoners, but there’s a real sense of things going the same way as the Wenger managerial situation, and that associated lack of silverware.
Stan Collymore believes that, in fact, it won’t matter if it takes Arteta 10 years to win the English top-flight title, because Arsenal will still keep him as their manager.
“Mikel Arteta could stay at Arsenal for 10 years and still not win the Premier League, and it’s unlikely to make a huge difference to the board,” he said to CaughtOffside for his exclusive column.
“I think that he’s almost hanging on by his fingernails at the moment waiting for Pep to go, and I know that a lot of Arsenal fans reading that would go ‘well, we’ve run them (Man City) very close in the last couple of seasons.’
“Once Pep Guardiola goes, then yes, there’ll be a few teams below them that are going to be in better shape to be able to take advantage, but let’s not forget the fact that Arsenal have only run them very close in seasons where Manchester United seem continually in flux, where Liverpool could have and should have done better, and where Tottenham were in transition with the new manager, Ange Postecoglou.
“So from that perspective, Arsenal have had very fertile ground to try and be successful, and they still haven’t done it when it comes to Premier League.
“The Arsenal board like Arteta’s work, his style of play and the players that have been brought in, and the first-team have been relatively successful.
“I almost see it as a sort of Gareth Southgate scenario but in club football.
“It sounds odd, but I genuinely believe that from where they were when Arteta came in – wasting money on players like Nicolas Pepe, other players not really wanting to go there, falling away in the title race and not challenging for a number of years – to where they are now, that should be considered a success in itself.
“At least now Arsenal can offer regular Champions League football again and it’s a place whereby on and off the pitch, there seems to be some sort of unity and enjoyment of the work process.”
Arsenal fans, with respect, haven’t been used to success for years now, and their last Premier League title came way back in 2004.
For a club with so much proud history, the odd domestic cup win here or there isn’t really good enough, so Arteta can count himself lucky that the Arsenal board appear to be a loyal and forgiving bunch.
Time will tell if the Gunners can overhaul Man City sooner rather than later.
The post Exclusive: Arsenal have a Southgate situation on their hands with Arteta says Collymore appeared first on CaughtOffside.
