Josh Kroenke has promised that \u00adArsenal will strengthen their squad even if they are crowned European champions for the first time and said rewarding Mikel Arteta with a new contract is an \u201cutmost priority\u201d.<\/p>\n
Arsenal, who face Paris Saint-\u00adGermain in the Champions League final in Budapest on Saturday, spent more than \u00a3250m last summer on players who helped them win a first Premier League title for 22 years. Kroenke and his father, Stan, the club\u2019s \u00adAmerican owners and co-chairs, watched \u00adArsenal at Crystal Palace on Sunday<\/a> and brought the trophy on to the pitch before it was presented to the captain, Martin \u00ad\u00d8degaard. They are expected to be at the final.<\/p>\n Kroenke Sports and Entertainment (KSE), the family\u2019s sports empire, have won two Super Bowls, two \u00adStanley Cups and the NBA \u00adChampionship in the United States and Kroenke said there could be no standing still.<\/p>\n \u201cOur stated goal was winning the Premier League, because if you can put yourself in contention for the Premier League, you\u2019re in contention for everything else. In one sense, we\u2019ve achieved one goal, with another one on the plate coming on Saturday. Should we get a great result it\u2019s not going to change or affect who we are.<\/p>\n \u201c[In] our experience of winning things in the States, when you win something, the sun\u2019s still going to come up the next day. You\u2019ve got to get back to work and there are many teams trying to gain on you, including some historically great ones around the Premier League. We\u2019re going to look to strengthen because we know teams around us are going to get better. If you\u2019re not trying to continually evolve and improve, you\u2019re standing\u00a0still.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked whether winning the Champions League<\/a> would take Arsenal to the next level, he said: \u201cOne of the most fun questions I\u2019ve been asked over the past couple of weeks before we clinched the Premier League was \u2018Which one? Which one means more?\u2019 Which one? The one we don\u2019t have. But champions of England sounds pretty good and champions of Europe could sound even better.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think we have a chance. We have very strong foundations in place to continue to build and try to sustain. Getting the foundations in place is usually the hardest part of the journey. Now we have all this, it is about trying to stay at the top \u00adknowing everyone is trying to climb the mountain after you.\u201d<\/p>\n Arteta\u2019s contract expires at the end of next season and it is understood talks will resume over a lucrative extension when Arsenal\u2019s campaign is over. Kroenke paid tribute to the manager\u2019s impact since replacing Unai Emery<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cKeeping Mikel around is [an] utmost priority and the good news for Arsenal fans worldwide is he\u2019s \u00adenjoying \u00adthe project, he\u2019s \u00adenjoying being here and from his time as a player all the way up until now, he\u2019s an Arsenal man through and through,\u201d Kroenke said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we pivoted from Unai and came into Mikel, the conversations were all about culture and \u00adreinventing that, perhaps taking a step back to go forward. Mikel really embraced that, especially the \u00adcultural aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n Arsenal fans celebrate at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. The Kroenkes hope to make improvements to the matchday experience. Photograph: Julian Finney\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Kroenke has played a much more active role since KSE took full \u00adcontrol of Arsenal <\/a>in August 2018 after \u00adbuying out Alisher Usmanov\u2019s shares for \u00a3600m. He remembered their 4-1 defeat against Chelsea<\/a> in the \u00adfollowing year\u2019s Europa League final in Baku as the moment he urged his father to reconsider their approach.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were straddling strategies at the time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had been out of the Champions League for a year or two, we were trying to bring some younger players into the squad, but not get too inexperienced to keep pushing for the league.<\/p>\n \u201cI flew all the way to Baku for the worst 45 minutes of that season. We gave up four goals. Seeing that happen was the first time where I came back from that trip and I told my dad that we need to really embrace where we are: \u2018Now that we have 100% of the club we might need to take a step back to go forward at some point.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Since Arteta was appointed, \u00adArsenal have spent almost \u00a31bn on transfer fees. There are also plans to put money into renovating the Emirates Stadium, a project led by the chief executive, Richard Garlick.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re starting these exercises with some of our advisers, but the Emirates has been an amazing \u00adstadium for us,\u201d Kroenke said. \u201cWe took it to a different level this year \u2013 that\u2019s credit to Mikel and those players. But there\u2019s some character I want to make sure we\u2019re preserving and bringing back to the ground as well. I think we can do that in a very elegant manner\u00a0that\u2019s really to the benefit of\u00a0Arsenal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do this stuff in the States in our facilities and our teams. We take great pride in it so we have a chance to come over and really give the supporters an elevated matchday\u00a0experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Kroenke has promised that \u00adArsenal will strengthen their squad even if they are crowned European champions for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-608880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}