Mikel Arteta might have inexplicably helped Erik ten Hag in the transfer window after engineering his own clearout at Arsenal last summer.
Since the Spaniard made the move to the Emirates as manager, he has made it his personal mission to offload the dead wood at the club. And it has been a success, alleviating a ballooning wage bill in the process.
There have been some noteworthy departures under his watch, including that of Mesut Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. While Arteta has been questioned for some of these decisions, it has not stopped his efforts to rid Arsenal of their heavy earners.
In their places, he has brought in several young players with a real hunger to play for Arsenal. Last summer, the Gunners signed the likes of Ben White, Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Martin Odegaard with a £150million total outlay.
In addition, the likes of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe have become key players with Arteta turning to the club's famous academy for new stars. So far, Arsenal have won the FA Cup under his stewardship and have made gradual steps towards the top four, convincing the club to give him a new contract.
It shows that the north London outfit are backing Arteta to the hills and will continue to allow him to chop and change his squad as he sees fit. Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away in Manchester, there is another club that needs to take a leaf out of their books.
United have been a sorry state for several years now as they look to spend their way out of their current crisis. It has led to the likes of Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer all getting the sack. But with Ten Hag, there is an opportunity to turn their fortunes around and stick with a manager who has a principled philosophy and way of playing. That should translate in the boardroom, where they will need to find the right profile of player to fit his system.
However, that will have to involve a huge squad overhaul to boot out those players on huge wages and replace them with young, hungry players - exactly like what is happening at the Emirates. Doing so is another matter and will require a leap of faith from the senior figures at Old Trafford.
Ralf Rangnick has already explained that he believes that as many as 10 players will need to be signed this summer to revamp the team and following Arteta's recipe for success would be the right way to go. Not along ago, Arsenal would have been content with copying United's blueprint, but after sorting out their own squad problems, they would do well to try to replicate what the Gunners have done in a short space of time.
