{"id":684295,"date":"2026-05-21T02:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T02:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684295\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T02:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T02:44:10","slug":"how-arteta-overcame-setbacks-crises-and-boos-to-defy-doubters-at-arsenal-mikel-arteta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684295\/","title":{"rendered":"How Arteta overcame setbacks, crises and boos to defy doubters at Arsenal | Mikel Arteta"},"content":{"rendered":"

It didn\u2019t start well for Mikel Arteta<\/a> and Arsenal. On a crisp December night in 2019 at about 1am in a Manchester suburb, Vinai Venkatesham stepped out of Arteta\u2019s home. The Arsenal managing director looked around, satisfied with his meeting. Arteta had just outlined a \u201chugely impressive\u201d five-year plan to rebuild a club reeling from Ars\u00e8ne Wenger\u2019s departure and Unai Emery\u2019s failed succession. Venkatesham stepped into his car and was driven away with his colleague Huss Fahmy.<\/p>\n

The club were about to take a huge gamble, but one with which they were increasingly comfortable. For many Arsenal<\/a> executives, Arteta had won the interview round in 2018 when Wenger left. Yet it seemed too much to ask a 36-year-old rookie to manage a seismic transition and Emery had pedigree and experience; Arteta had charisma and a strong playing record.<\/p>\n

Now Venkatesham was pushing Arteta as the principal candidate to replace Emery. It was important not to antagonise Manchester City<\/a>, where he was Pep Guardiola\u2019s assistant. Discretion was essential. Which was why Venkatesham was puzzled to be woken early that morning by a phone call from Arsenal\u2019s media chief telling him to look at the Sun. The first he knew he had been photographed leaving Arteta\u2019s house was when the images were published online. It was, to put it mildly, an embarrassment. There was \u201cdispleasure\u201d from City, said one source. \u201cNoises were made at boardroom level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arteta, who was announced as head coach a week later after several days of somewhat fraught negotiations, could have joined Arsenal\u2019s staff when he quit as a player in 2016<\/a>. But even some at the club told him that joining Guardiola at City would be \u201cthe equivalent of a master\u2019s degree in coaching\u201d.<\/p>\n

The prognosis for the new Arsenal manager did not look promising when he stepped out at Bournemouth on Boxing Day<\/a> for his first game. His five-year plan outlined how the club had fallen behind. He and the sporting director, Edu, wanted to rebuild a squad of 22 high-quality, tactically flexible players. For that they needed money, which is where Arteta fits Napoleon\u2019s maxim of requiring \u201clucky generals\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was much better to be the manager that followed the manager who succeeded Wenger,\u201d said one source. Even more fortuitously, his arrival came two transfer windows after the Kroenke family had finally bought out the 30% stake of the now-sanctioned Russian-Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov. The Kroenkes had always said they would invest when they had full control; most assumed that was deflection yet it turned out to be true. \u201cMikel had money Unai and even Ars\u00e8ne didn\u2019t really have,\u201d said a former employee.<\/p>\n

Mikel Arteta was appointed Arsenal\u2019s manager in December 2019 and his start was not promising. Photograph: David Price\/Arsenal FC\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the perfect storm in that you had a really driven young manager, bright, well-schooled, ambitious and enthusiastic. You\u2019ve got the money and you had a board that gave him time,\u201d said one former senior employee at the club who was close to Arteta. \u201cHe told them it would take five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the senior Arsenal sources spoken to for this article have praised the Kroenke family and some pointed to the more active involvement of Josh Kroenke, the 46-year-old son of the patriarch Stan, as a key player at that point. \u201cI had the impression he persuaded the board to pull the emergency cord on funding,\u201d said one.<\/p>\n

FA Cup and Community Shield wins<\/a> in Arteta\u2019s first eight months were somewhat overshadowed by Covid restrictions, before a terrible 2020-21 season meant Arteta looked doomed to outsiders. \u201cThere were never internal discussions about that,\u201d said a source familiar with board meetings at the time. However, in December 2020, Arsenal lost 2-1 at Everton<\/a>, a run of seven Premier League games without a win, five of which were defeats. They then lost a Carabao Cup tie 4-1 at home to Manchester City<\/a> before Chelsea came to the Emirates. Arteta\u2019s intensity is extreme even in good times; this looked like terminal pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey looked poor at Everton,\u201d said one executive. \u201cHis future wasn\u2019t being discussed, but I feared for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board did not waver. Arsenal beat Chelsea 3-1 on Boxing Day to relieve immediate pressure and although Arteta struggled and finished eighth that season he remained backed to the hilt, evident by the departure of Mesut \u00d6zil<\/a> in January 2021. \u201cThat was totemic,\u201d said one source. \u201cIt cost the club a lot of money [to pay up his contract], but they backed Mikel\u2019s judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arteta had made clear there were certain characters he would not tolerate; \u00d6zil\u2019s friend Shkodran Mustafi left in the same window. A line had been drawn and when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang attempted to cross it a year later he, too, was sold, even though Arsenal were in a race for Champions League places and desperate for his goals.<\/p>\n

The sale of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was a statement move by Mikel Arteta. Photograph: Adam Davy\/PA<\/p>\n

A key scene in the Amazon Prime documentary that chronicled the 2021-22 season was Rob Holding and Mohamed Elneny discussing Aubameyang\u2019s departure. \u201cBoss had balls,\u201d says Elneny. \u201cYeah, boss had balls,\u201d agrees Holding. The message had landed.<\/p>\n

That said, the 2021-22 season started shambolically, Arsenal losing at promoted Brentford, to Chelsea at home to jeers and boos, then 5-0 at City, with Granit Xhaka sent off and indiscipline a clear problem. Insiders say Arteta did not waver. \u201cMikel is not the type of person to get overwhelmed about anything,\u201d said one senior member of the football staff. \u201cHe\u2019s very driven and very solid in his mind. There were difficult times and then obviously Arsenal had invested massively. But the Kroenkes deserve credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arteta has left his own distinctive stamp of the club \u2013 he is most definitely the manager not head coach, a development Arsenal initially wanted to avoid in the post-Wenger era to avoid the personality-cult syndrome \u2013 but was also bequeathed building blocks of a first-class side.<\/p>\n

\"ArsenalArsenal fans react to first Premier League title in 22 years \u2013 video<\/p>\n

William Saliba had been signed by a scouting team subsequently dismantled by Edu, and Arteta almost lost him, sending him away on loan, unimpressed, until he was persuaded to take him back; a deal for Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es had been put in place by the same scouts and he arrived in September 2020; and he had Bukayo Saka coming through from the academy.<\/p>\n

No one at Arsenal doubts the significance of the summer of 2023 in making the step from good to great: the \u00a3200m spent to bring in Declan Rice, Kai Havertz, Jurri\u00ebn Timber and David Raya indicated not only an intent to take on nation-state funded teams. It also showed Arteta\u2019s charisma was a key part of a recruitment success story, with Rice rejecting Chelsea, Manchester United and City. \u201cThe project seemed more exciting and I believe we\u2019re on to big things here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Over the past couple of seasons, Rice might have privately questioned that. Now his words look uncannily prescient.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It didn\u2019t start well for Mikel Arteta and Arsenal. On a crisp December night in 2019 at about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-684295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}