If you ask the Arsenal players to explain their recent success,
the answers are fairly unanimous. It is all down to Mikel Arteta, the manager.
Kieran Tierney has described the Spaniard as “a football genius” and teammate Granit
Xhaka has echoed the sentiment, claiming “I have never seen something like this before.”
The question is: if Mikel Arteta is such a genius,
why did it take so long for his ideas to bear fruit on the pitch? To answer this question,
we need to look back at Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal evolution.
Mikel Arteta arrived at Arsenal with the club still struggling through the aftermath of the
Arsene Wenger era. Replacing Wenger was a daunting task without any real solution. In the end,
the Arsenal board had plumped on recently departed Paris Saint-Germain manager, Unai Emery.
On paper, Emery’s time at the club wasn’t exactly a disaster.
In the 2018/19 season, Arsenal finished fifth, only missing out on Champions League
football by a point. They also made it to the final of the Europa League competition,
although were soundly beaten 4-1 by Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea. But after over two decades of
success under Arsene Wenger, the fans expected more and remained unenthused by the Spaniard.
By November of the following season, after a run of seven winless games,
Emery was gone and the big question was being asked again: how do you replace Arsene Wenger?
It is unlikely that anyone expected the answer to that question to be “the assistant manager
of Manchester City” and yet, on December 20th 2019, Mikel Arteta was appointed.
Of course, three years spent working under Pep Guardiola is enough experience to recommend
anyone for a job in football management. But to move directly into a position at one of
the biggest clubs in world football as part of a succession plan to replace one of the
best managers in world football was not without its risk both for Arsenal and Arteta himself.
Despite his background, though, Mikel Arteta wasn’t looking to rebuild the
Emirates in a day. If the plan was to re-enact Guardiola’s football in a North London setting,
it wasn’t obvious in the first couple of seasons.
But this isn’t to say that Arteta wasn’t moving in that direction. At the very basic tactical level,
it was clear that the Spaniard wanted to develop a team who could possess the ball,
progress it down the field, and then arrive in dangerous scoring positions in the box.
The principles of what football coaches call “positional play” were in operation;
the players were looking to manipulate the opponent’s structure and generate space to attack.
But it never really felt as though all the parts came together at once.
In Arteta’s first two seasons, Arsenal managed consecutive 8th-place finishes,
also winning the FA Cup in 2019-20. There was undoubtedly an improvement over that time - the
underlying numbers attest to that - but what was perhaps more surprising was the faith that the
board seemed to have in the young Spaniard. This was a long-term project and they were
going to let him see it through. Over time, they would also support him in high-profile standoffs
with big earners. Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would leave the club in 2021 and 2022
respectively, and Arsenal’s internal atmosphere clearly benefitted from those decisions.
The club’s faith was rewarded – but the green shoots of improvement arrived in
an unexpected form. In the first half of the 2021/22, Arsenal remained inconsistent when it
came to results. But when it came to their performances out-of-possession, there was
clear improvement. Arteta had his players so well-rehearsed that they could shift between
different pressing systems even within games and this made them a much more dangerous prospect.
Arsenal’s performance on New Year’s Day at home to Manchester City that
season stood out in this regard. For the majority of the game,
Arsenal were able to nullify City in possession with a perfectly executed mid-block and it
wasn’t until injury time that Rodri managed to score the winning goal for the visitors.
Being good off the ball led to Arsenal being fairly inconsistent in their performances.
They could perform well against sides where they were underdogs but in other games,
where they were expected to control games in possession,
things became a little more difficult. There were games against Crystal Palace and Everton
early on in the season where Arsenal went ahead but then failed to hold onto the lead.
But through the course of the season, they gradually developed the ability
to control the ball in possession better. By the time the final run-in of the season came,
Arsenal were in pole position to get a Champions League finish. In the end,
they stumbled, losing in games against Crystal Palace, Brighton, Southampton and Newcastle.
But the signs were there. If they could iron out the nervousness that crept in at the end
of the season and develop some true squad depth, Arsenal would be a very solid top-four contender.
That summer, Arsenal were ambitious. They brought in Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko from
Manchester City and recalled William Saliba from Olympique Marseille. Added to a squad
which already included Aaron Ramsdale, Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka, this made Arsenal
much more flexible in build-up, something which enabled them to increase their control of games.
And this added flexibility allowed other players to start excelling: Granit Xhaka has enjoyed a
new more attacking role this season and Gabriel Martinelli has clearly been a beneficiary too.
The results have been palpable. Arteta’s side were now very good with the ball and
against the ball. They also had a flexibility which allowed them to
problem solve against a broader array of teams, both in the league and in European
competitions. And this improvement in the level of performance was reflected in the results.
The evolution of Arsenal under the stewardship of Mikel Arteta has been
impressive to watch. But it also flies in the face of the received wisdom regarding
managers. Sometimes it can be beneficial to back a manager and let them develop a
team rather than removing them at the first sign of trouble.