On Friday, Arsenal announced that Mikel Arteta had signed a contract extension keeping him at the club until 2025.
The news comes with the Gunners currently fourth in the Premier League and on course to qualify for a spot in the Champions League for the first time under the Spaniard.
On signing the new deal, Arteta told the club’s website, “I'm excited, grateful and really, really happy today. When I spoke to Josh [Kroenke] he could see the club at the same point and he wanted to take the club the way I wanted to do it. So everything that he’s said, and that Stan has said when I’ve been together with both of them, they’ve always delivered.
“We want to take the club to the next level and to compete really with the top teams. In order to do that, we have to be playing in the Champions League. We have to be able to evolve the team, improve our players, improve all departments, generate even more connection with our fans, improve the atmosphere at the Emirates, be able to recruit top, top talent and the best people for this club to drive this project to that level.”
While most Arsenal fans were happy to see Arteta extend his stay, one of the few Gunners who was less than impressed was Arsenal fan and contentious TV personality Piers Morgan who took to Twitter asking “WHAT? Maybe wait until he achieves something? Why is he getting this now?”
Arteta has of course already enjoyed success at the club, winning both the FA Cup and the Community Shield during his two-and-a-half years in charge. His previous deal was set to expire in 12 months, however, the direction the club are heading under the Spaniard would have been decisive in persuading them to offer him the extension.
After 34 matches, Arsenal are 14 points better off than they were at this stage of last season and have 13 more points than they did in the season before that. It’s obvious watching the team that performances are becoming more consistent and we are now really starting to see the team align with Arteta’s ideologies.
During his first 18 months in charge, Arsenal too often looked fragile in defence and one dimensional in attack. Arteta has done an excellent job of shaking that brittleness as this season has progressed and notably, there are currently only five Premier League teams who have conceded fewer league goals (41).
There have been similar successes in attack. Last season, Arsenal ranked 13th in terms of the average number of shots they generated on target (3.71 per 90). This season though, that average has increased to 4.76 which is the fourth highest across the whole division.
They’ve lacked a standout striker for much of this campaign - buying a new one is a priority in the summer - and the above suggests that when they do, they could be a real attacking force.
While you could make a case that these improvements alone would be worthy of a new deal, what makes them even more impressive is how Arteta has managed to achieve them while massively cutting down the club’s wage bill.
In 2020-21 the club’s annual wage bill was a reported £157million, the same has now been cut to an estimated £87.2m, according to finance website Capology.
Although Morgan can’t see it, Arteta has steadily been doing an excellent job at the Emirates and it’s easy to see why the club were keen to prolong his stay.
