Home. That was the fourth word Mikel Arteta officially uttered as Arsenal manager. In his maiden press conference, in December 2019, with his smooth hair and youthful face, in a red polo shirt that looked fresh out of the packet, with everything in front of him — some things he expected and others he could not possibly imagine — the first expression that came to mind suggested he was at his happy place. “I feel back home,” he said.
As an opening sentence, it struck a chord because it was maybe a little unexpected to realise how much Arsenal had got under the skin of a player who represented six clubs in four different countries during his career. Although his time as a player was recalled fondly enough, it was not the easiest chunk of time in the club’s history.
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There he was, Arsenal’s new head coach, ready to take the plunge into his first job at the sharp end. He was 37 and despite his high-calibre experiences as an ambitious assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, he had never, at that point, managed a single game. He was parachuted into a high-profile job made particularly demanding because the squad was not in a good place. Even today it seems a little mad — although the best ideas usually are.
Spooling back to that day in 2019 gives real context to the news he is committing to stay on at Arsenal for the long term. The club were reeling a little at the time from all the flux that followed the transition from 22 years of Arsene Wenger to a new way of doing things. They had tried to put a new infrastructure in place, with a head coach and sporting director model. That was the plan and it was reasonable to predict the days of a long-term manager were over. Arsenal might not have wanted to go full Chelsea revolving door but nobody could have expected another legacy era any time soon.
Arteta at his first press conference as Arsenal manager in 2019 (David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Unai Emery had 18 months but it was fairly unsettled. Freddie Ljungberg took over for a few weeks as interim coach. Then Arteta was chosen. Very quickly, everything changed to the point where they ripped up the head coach title and went back to manager, giving their new man influence across the club far beyond the first-team dressing room.
And now, here we are five years down the line with a new contract which will take him to 2027 and close in on a decade in charge. This is at a time when, according to UEFA’s study from a year ago, the average tenure for a manager across their top divisions is 1.3 years.
Arteta has inspired a renaissance at Arsenal. True to his own ideals of “non-negotiables” fuelled by the “energy” he transmits, standards have risen to the point that Arsenal are back in the Champions League and challenging in the Premier League. The next step is to add more silverware to the FA Cup he won in his first season. Ideally, it would be one of the big ones — tough as those peaks are to climb.
But, beyond that, he has also done something that measures on the emotional scale. He has given supporters who had felt disheartened and disenfranchised a team and club to believe in and one they want to be part of. Something to love again.
Such is the relationship between the club and manager now, it is sometimes hard to detect who is pushing who. Is Arteta pushing Arsenal? Are Arsenal pushing Arteta? It has become symbiotic. The owners, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE), know it is on to a good thing and for that reason have backed him in recent years to bolster the squad in the ways he wishes.
Since the great Herbert Chapman was appointed Arsenal manager almost 100 years ago, the club have had only 15 permanent managers (plus a handful of caretakers). Historically, Arsenal have loved a bit of stability. In 2019, it felt like that sentiment had been quashed. Yet, here we are, and here Arteta is, pushing his players, pulling his supporters along for the ride, keeping his coaching staff close, lifting his club, winding up opponents, drifting out of his technical area and not exactly befriending officials.
Not many managers take a first job and handle it so well they stay for so long. Feeling at home, and making that home as perfect as possible, has served Arteta and Arsenal very well.
(Top photo: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
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