TO understand the rise of Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, you must first remember the fall of Unai Emery.
Hired as Arsene Wenger’s replacement in May 2018, Emery’s tenure showed early glimpses of hope, reaching the Europa League final and narrowly missing out on the top four.
But he was sacked on November 29, 2019 after a seven-game winless run – at the time the club’s worst since 1992 – leaving behind a mess that would take years to be fixed.
The culture was toxic. The dressing room was divided. Big-money flops lacked motivation. The recruitment strategy was non-existent.
Rumours some players were openly mocking Emery’s thick Basque accent and poor grasp of English never went away.
On December 20, 2019, in came Arteta – a 39-year-old former Arsenal player raised by Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy and moulded by Pep Guardiola as an assistant at Manchester City.
Arteta had witnessed first-hand the problems just five days earlier, in the away dug-out as City romped to a 3-0 Prem win at a half-empty and miserably flat Emirates against a woeful Arsenal under interim boss Freddie Ljungberg.
He would later say about that game: “I saw what was going on and I felt sad. It wasn’t only the performance, it was the atmosphere and energy that worried me a little bit. So, let me help.”
Five years on, and Arteta has done more than that. Arsenal are a club reborn, revitalised, reinvented – considered a Prem titan again and competing with the very best in Europe once more – even if they are still chasing their first top flight title for 20 years.
But perhaps more impressively, Arteta rebuilt a crumbling culture from the ground up, brick by brick, with his non-negotiables and emphatic, obsessive desire for perfection on and off the pitch.
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During that process, experienced pros were brutally axed in favour of young, hungry stars, both from the academy and in the transfer market, who continue to follow Arteta to the ends of the earth.
Skipper Martin Odegaard joined permanently from Real Madrid in the summer of 2021 after a six-month loan spell. He said: “We were struggling a little bit with a lot of noise around the club.
“We didn’t perform as well as a club like Arsenal should, but I believed so much in the project after speaking to him and speaking to the club and seeing everything that was going on around here.
“He just gets everyone to work together and in the same direction, it’s unbelievable.”
Mikel Merino – who signed this summer – revealed: “Mikel is a coach who speaks with players every single day, there’s not a single detail in training sessions that he doesn’t take a look at.”
And Hale End product Myles Lewis-Skelly added: “It’s incredible the culture he’s built within the team, you can sense around the ground the energy’s always high and positive vibes.”
The journey has not been smooth, but for a manager so young, Arteta had a knack of making the right calls at the right time – most of them caught on camera in their All Or Nothing Amazon documentary in the 2021/22 campaign.
Bad eggs like Matteo Guendouzi, Sokratis, Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were ousted and shamed – the latter a ballsy move considering the Gabon star was his captain.
It did not solve everything. Bust-ups were snapped on the documentary, including Alexandre Lacazette and Cedric Soares having a tussle in training.
Arteta has his fingerprints all over the training ground, from the length and colour of the grass to the slogans donning any available wall space.
Yet Arteta himself is understood to enjoy confrontation. He recently admitted he wants to feel “uncomfortable” under the gaze of the owners Stan and Josh Kroenke, and did not always agree with former sporting director Edu on transfer targets.
He has also surrounded himself with assistants who are NOT ‘yes men’, the likes of set-piece coach Nicolas Jover and 29-year-old youngster Carlos Cuesta.
But Arteta also likes control at a football club, something he gained when his title was changed from head coach to manager in September 2020, and has made himself a strong voice in the recruitment team in charge of replacing Edu in the coming months.
Unlike more experienced managers, Arteta is heavily involved in training sessions, often laughing in joking with players as he takes part in heated rondos, on one occasion even nut-megging Odegaard before running off to celebrate.
Make no mistake, however, the intensity of these sessions have become infamous. Just weeks into joining the club, Merino commented: “I have never seen anything like it”.
That is partly down to his obsessive nature. Arteta has his fingerprints all over the training ground, from the length and colour of the grass to the slogans donning any available wall space.
In their inside training dome at London Colney – one that has just been ripped up and replaced to fit Arteta’s requirements – one of the walls reads: ‘Set-pieces win matches’.
There is also a slick new paint job in the press conference room at Colney – now with all-black walls and a new air conditioning unit after suggesting it would get too hot on occasion.
Arteta likes the colour black – it was his favoured kit in the 2022/23 campaign because he wanted his players to look and feel more intimidating during away games.
The Emirates has felt the Arteta-effect for that very reason. The Spaniard was desperate for a club anthem to rev up the atmosphere, eventually picking out Louis Dunford’s ‘North London Forever’ hit.
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Arteta has also been instrumental in pre-match inspirational videos to feature on the big screens before big matches.
But there are different sides to a man often so focused and serious on camera – a man Bayer Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso called a “competitive monster” this summer after a pre-season clash.
Arteta is devilish. He admitted to reporters he often toys with the truth when it comes to revealing team news before games in press conferences.
He explained: “I am not going to lie to you, but if I don’t want to tell you, I will keep you guessing.”
There have also been incidents where Arteta has deliberately had injured or unavailable players walk off the team bus in full kit with the squad for added mystery until the very last moment.
The devil is in the detail, suggesting this month he wants Arsenal to be the “kings of everything”.
Arteta will try anything to gain an extra edge, using props like lightbulbs and giant dominos, getting his players to squeeze lemons and hiring undercover waiters as football tricksters and pickpockets during team meetings.
Arteta is devilish. He admitted to reporters he often toys with the truth when it comes to revealing team news before games in press conferences.
In November 2021, before a trip to Anfield to face Liverpool, he played ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ on speakers by the training pitches to acclimatise his men.
They went on to lose the game 4-0, one that Arteta learned a big lesson from. A dug-out clash with Jurgen Klopp inspired a response from the home fans, coinciding with Liverpool taking the lead and Arsenal crumbling in the second half.
Despite his often frantic touchline appearance, Arteta has that game in his head at all times, notably at the Battle of the Etihad this term – refusing to react when Erling Haaland told him to “stay humble” at the end of the feisty 2-2 draw.
So, what could the next five years bring?
He has expressed a fanciful desire to one day field a starting XI with 11 academy players. So far, he has three in Bukayo Saka, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly.
But he remains an open book as a coach and person, currently in a WhatsApp group chat with figures from other sports like former England rugby boss Eddie Jones and New Zealand head coach Scott Robertson.
Knowing Arteta, he will already have the future painstakingly mapped out, starting of course with winning major silverware sooner rather than later, as well as leaving the shadow of mentor Guardiola behind him on his quest for top flight domination.
The Spaniard this week insisted that he has won three major trophies with Arsenal as opposed to just the FA Cup – if you include two Community Shields.
But now is the time to go for more.
The Gunners have spent the last two years edging closer and closer to the Prem title, with only Man City standing in their way.
It was always expected that Arteta would be the cream that rises to the top when Guardiola leaves England.
But despite signing on for at least another year, Guardiola finds himself in uncharted territory – with City spiralling in a run of poor form.
Arsenal should, in theory, be right up there, leading the title race.
But they are now behind both Liverpool and Chelsea.
If the Gunners don’t win the Premier League this season – and if City fall short – it will be considered a huge missed opportunity for Arteta.
Furthermore, a Champions League run is also crucial.
Arsenal are on the verge of securing automatic qualification to the knockouts.
But historically, they have rarely lasted too long in those when it comes to European football.
Now is time for Arteta and Arsenal to push on and prove they can win trophies.
Otherwise, he might not get another five years.
Arsenal have turned into a prolific team when it comes to scoring from corners.
The Gunners have now scored 22 goals from them since the start of last season – seven more than their nearest rival Manchester City and eight more than Premier League leaders Liverpool.
Two of them came against Manchester United – Jurrien Timber and William Saliba netting in the second half to earn Mikel Arteta’s men a vital win as they chase down Arne Slot’s Reds.
Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka were the architects with their deliveries, and each now have seven set-piece assists since the start of the 2023/24 campaign – more than any other player.
United legend Dimitar Berbatov joked Arsenal are the new Stoke City of the top flight – a side under Tony Pulis who terrorised the so-called “bigger clubs” with set-piece mastery.
