According to him, Arsenal are not about to defend their Premier League title. They are set to attack another one. Remember Win the dog, who the manager brought in to the club’s training ground a few years back?
She must now be called “Won”. But it is when Arteta quibbles over another bout of semantics that he highlights why he is entering the new season with such energy and optimism. Do not talk to him about Arsenal’s stability.
He prefers the word “consistency” along with more thrusting ones like “ambition”. The overall theme is clear. When Arteta surveys the landscape at the top end of the English game, he sees a settled environment at his club and flux elsewhere.
In terms of the so-called Big Six – the richest clubs in the country, as ranked by Deloitte – there are new managers at Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea; a virtually new one at Tottenham and a relatively new one at Manchester United. It has been a summer of unprecedented change in the Premier League with nine clubs with a new man in charge. Of those who hold out hope of a title challenge, only Aston Villa have a fully bedded-in manager in Unai Emery.
Rather abruptly, Arteta finds himself as the longest-serving manager in the division; he took over from Emery at Arsenal in December 2019. Emery is second on the list, having been at Villa for three years and nine months, and only one other – Daniel Farke at Leeds – has been at his club for more than three years. When Arteta was given the job at Arsenal, Pep Guardiola was two titles into his storied City tenure, Jürgen Klopp had won the Champions League at Liverpool and was on his way to winning the league that season and José Mourinho had just joined Spurs.
Arteta has seen them all off, with Guardiola’s departure from City at the end of last season being the most significant single shift in the dynamics for the forthcoming campaign. Arteta is now the big beast, the only current manager to have won the Premier League, and as Arsenal prepare for the curtain-raiser at home to Coventry on Friday night, it is hard to ignore the confidence they are projecting. With virtually of all their rivals in transition, uncertainty undercutting the excitement, predictions difficult to make in the face of little actual evidence, Arsenal are reassured by their firm foundations.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
