How Mikel Arteta rebuilt Arsenal into Premier League champions

It’s hard to pinpoint when Arsenal Football Club reached its recent version of rock bottom, but December 2019 seems as good a place as any.

Unai Emery had recently been dismissed as head coach after the club’s worst run of form since 1992, the team lingered around the middle of the Premier League and a humiliating performance against Manchester City sent heads hanging all around the Emirates Stadium.

As the reigning champion raced to a 3-0 first half lead, home fans flocked towards the nearest exit and the gap between the best in the business and Arsenal had never been wider.

But the performance on the field wasn’t the biggest cause for concern that night for the Gunners – the most damning indictment was the apathy surrounding the club. Fans had become indifferent to disappointment and defeat, and drastic change needed to happen. Such was the detachment, it’s hard to recall fans even mustering the effort to let the players know of their disapproval.

Sitting on the opposite bench that night was a former captain of the club. Mikel Arteta had spent five years as an Arsenal player before retiring and joining the coaching ranks of City with Pep Guardiola.

Less than a week after that defeat, Arteta was rapidly thrust into his first ever managerial role at the club Guardiola had just humiliated, taking over at Arsenal and becoming the youngest manager in the league.

What followed would transpire to be a transformative time for the North London club.

‘I have a good feeling’

As soon as Arteta walked through the door at Arsenal, there were no illusions about what kind of leader he would be. The new manager was quick to promise change, ruthlessness and sacrifice in helping turn the club around.

“I will burn every drop of blood for this football club to make it better,” Arteta vowed.

The Spaniard made it abundantly clear that the mood surrounding the team needed to change and the players couldn’t do this without its fans.

“We have to create the right vibe, the right energy, and everybody at the organization has to feel so privileged to be here. There’s no other way,” he added.

“We need the fans. We need to engage them, we need to be able to transmit with our behaviors, our intentions, what we want to bring to this football club.”

And it didn’t take long for Arteta to start delivering on these promises.

Just over six months into his time in charge, Arsenal had picked up its first major trophy in three years with an FA Cup final win against local rival Chelsea.

Arsenal fans could be forgiven for getting ahead of themselves, but the soccer gods were quick to remind supporters that this sport is not so straightforward.

Arteta’s side finished eighth that year and backed it up with another disappointing eighth-place finish in the coach’s first full season in charge. Question marks began floating around about Arteta’s ability to get Arsenal back among England’s best and that feeling was compounded by a fifth-place finish in the 2021-22 season.

It had now been six long years since the Gunners last competed among Europe’s elite in the Champions League but ahead of the 2022-23 campaign, the tide was beginning to turn.

The nearly-men

The buzzword surrounding the start of Arteta’s reign at Arsenal was standards.

There was constant talk about raising the standards and players quickly had to meet Arteta’s expectations. If you fell short of this, the manager was quick to make a change.

Big names, fan favorites and high earners such as Mesut Özil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were moved on as Arteta began to forge his own team and identity.

But most importantly, Arteta stayed true to his word about changing the mood surrounding the club.

Leaving no stone unturned, the young head coach even identified a pre-match anthem for the club and “North London Forever” now reverberates around Arsenal’s 60,000-seat stadium before every home match.

The connection between the club and its supporters was renewed, fans were louder than they had been in recent years and Arsenal’s team ahead of the 2022-23 season was young, hungry and packed with talent.

Homegrown star Bukayo Saka was dazzling fans on a weekly basis, new captain Martin Ødegaard pulled the strings in midfield and defenders Gabriel Magalhães and William Saliba shut up shop at the back.

There was a new lease on life at the club.

Arsenal was the surprise package of that season and sat top of the table for much of the campaign before falling to a disappointing collapse and finishing second.

The team came back the following season, bolstered by big money signings Declan Rice and Kai Havertz, only to finish second to Manchester City again.

And guess what happened in the 2024-25 season? Arsenal finished second once more as Liverpool picked up the Premier League title.

Rival fans laughed at the club, the term “bottlers” was thrown at the players and it was beginning to feel like the opportunity for this group of Gunners was starting to wane.

The legacy of this Arsenal team was quickly becoming one of so close, yet so far.

Twenty-two years later

But winning a league title after so long was never going to be easy and 2004 certainly felt like a very long time ago for Arsenal fans.

Usher was dominating the charts, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” was leading the box office and Arsenal completed the extraordinary achievement of finishing a Premier League season without losing a game.

“The Invincibles” were unbeatable and more success looked sure to follow their accomplishment. But amid the celebrations and frenzy of full-time fireworks, who could have predicted it would be the last time Arsène Wenger’s men tasted Premier League glory?

Fast forward 22 years and Arsenal was still without that coveted title. That was until a couple of days ago.

With Manchester City dropping points against Bournemouth, Arsenal secured the title with a game to spare and the streets of North London certainly knew it.

The Emirates Stadium and the nearby areas were painted in red and white as thousands upon thousands of fans descended upon their spiritual home.

The beer aisles in the surrounding supermarkets were barren, pubs were packed and the streets flooded. Babies being lifted like trophies, lampposts climbed and fireworks exploding – and all of this on a Tuesday night when Arsenal hadn’t even been playing.

It’s safe to say the fans are certainly engaged with this group of players.

As cars beeped victoriously and flares painted the North London sky red, a cacophony of Arsenal chants created the soundtrack of the night.

The team had finally gotten its hands on the long-awaited title and the relief was obvious for all to see. No longer were these players runners-up, they were finally frontrunners.

But it wasn’t always pretty.

With a stranglehold on the competition, Arsenal lost consecutive games against Bournemouth and then second-placed Manchester City. The title race was blasted wide open.

There was something different about this team, however.

The players had grown from the near misses. There was a resilience about Arteta’s men and a rigidity that has seldom been associated with Arsenal in the last 20 years.

The team bounced back with four wins in a row, keeping four clean sheets and not letting the ghosts of seasons past impact another campaign.

“Twenty-two years, they was laughing, they was joking. They’re not laughing anymore,” a victorious Saka said from Arsenal’s training ground, summarizing the feeling of the entire fanbase.

But this team isn’t done yet.

Arteta’s men could win the club’s first ever European Cup when they face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final in Budapest at the end of May, creating more history and making more memories.

With the team not looking like slowing down, the party might only just be getting started in North London.