Mikel Arteta has just led Arsenal to our first Premier League title in 22 years and a Champions League Final. For that alone, he deserves enormous credit.
Yet football never stands still. Success brings new expectations, and if Arsenal are to build on what has been achieved this season, there are still areas where improvements can be made.
With that in mind, here are my 10 Commandments for Arteta heading into the new campaign.
What Arsenal Must Do To Stay On Top
- Do Not Sign Any Chelsea Players
Whenever a transfer window opens, Arsenal inevitably get linked with players from Stamford Bridge. It wouldn’t surprise me if names such as Garnacho, Delap, Mudryk, Fofana or Lavia start appearing in rumours.
Personally, I’d rather we looked elsewhere. Too often, Arsenal have become the destination for players who failed to fully convince at Chelsea.
- Stop Playing With The Brakes On
I’ve never been one of those fans who believes Arsenal cannot attack.
We’ve shown plenty of times that we can create chances and score goals when we play with freedom. My concern is that there are occasions when we become too cautious and invite pressure onto ourselves.
- Stop Playing Players Out Of Position
Versatility is useful, but there is a limit.
While injuries sometimes force difficult decisions, I would rather see players used in their strongest positions whenever possible. The more comfortable players feel in their roles, the better the team performs.
- Stop Overplaying Key Players
Footballers are not machines.
Saka, Rice and others have carried enormous workloads in recent seasons. Squad depth exists for a reason, and proper rotation will be essential if Arsenal are to compete on multiple fronts again.
- Sell Gabriel Jesus
I know this won’t be a popular opinion with everyone, but I have never been fully convinced.
At his wages, Arsenal need more output. Injuries have not helped, but there comes a point where difficult decisions have to be made.
- Do Not Die On The Altar Of Martinelli And Trossard
Both players have qualities, but I still believe the left wing position could be improved.
If Arsenal want to keep evolving, we must be willing to strengthen even areas that are already relatively strong.
The Next Step In Arsenal’s Evolution
- Sign Another Striker
Even if Viktor Gyokeres arrives and succeeds, Arsenal need options.
The modern game demands depth, and having two quality centre forwards would help us compete across all competitions.
- Stop Exiting Domestic Cups Early
One thing I would like to see improve is our approach to domestic cup competitions.
Reaching the Carabao Cup Final this season was progress, but Arsenal should be challenging seriously for every trophy available.
- Rework And Revive The Set Piece Machine
Set pieces played a huge role in our success and became one of our biggest strengths.
Opponents will continue finding ways to prepare for them, which means Nicolas Jover and the coaching staff must keep innovating and staying one step ahead.
- Sign The Contract
This may be my most important commandment of all.
Arteta should remain at Arsenal for years to come. No manager is perfect, but he has transformed the culture, raised standards and delivered results.
The Premier League title proves the project is working.
Now it is about building on that success and chasing even bigger achievements.
Which of these commandments do you agree with most, Gooners? And is there anything you would add to the list?
Reader Opinion: dgr8xt
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Players playing out of position is very frustrating.
Especially Rice as a defender. Rice is much better as a midfielder and we lose quality in midfield
If there’s a lot of injuries than I can understand though
Number 10
Peps available ,just saying .
Not this again man! Arteta will be here for a very long time.know this and know peace
Pep is stepping out of management for at least year.
And out of respect for City, he will not come to Arsenal
Guardiola has become Man City’s global ambassador and might be waiting for England FC job according to the news
Yeah I suspect he’ll move into national coaching too.
Or go to Italy to manage one of the Milans, Napoli or Juventus. Only major league he hasn’t dominated yet.
Give it up mate. Arteta is a Gooner, who just won us the EPL and nearly the Champions League. He isn’t going anywhere soon.
Give what up ? , wanting a better manager .
A better manager to supercede a manager who just won the prem
Must be gnawing for you that your premonition of us never winning anything under MA never came true.
1m fans on The streets of London this weekend don’t share your opinion which I thinks puts you in the minority.
For the rest of us we will savour and the enjoy the moment and we go again for next season
Hats of to you for sticking to your opinion but at this moment in time it is absolutely wrong
Onwards and upwards
So your saying pep is not a better manager than Arteta then ?
Oh dear 😂
As for the rest of your post 🙄
problem with you is your blinded by your own hatred and cant see beyond that
just read your comment again.
this season he has been better then pep. the sitting at the top at the season doesn’t lie
Now your just scrabbling making sh1t up
Go back and re read and read and re read .
You can believe anything you want ,the more you say it the more believable it becomes .
Alan, wind up merchants just keep winding if you keep responding. Best just to ignore them and they usually throw the key away and skulk off back into their own little dark place until they spot someone else to wind up.
“wind up merchants”. That’s a polite term🤣.
Having you got some old women you should be buttering up to .
I won’t be throwing any key away fella.
Dark place 😂
Yep all our full backs are CB’s why can’t we actually go out and sign specialist full backs that also limits our creativity! I think we’ll sell Jesus but I expect the majority of this squad to still be here next season including the likes of martinelli, Trossard, odegaard etc! We need to move these players on and upgrade not convinced with Eze, Zubi, Madueke or Gyokeres either.
Since when are Talented or potential world class football players started believing in AFC, to dream of playing for us. Don’t forget Arteta established the process of this rebuild. So you can only sign the best available that you can get, until you become the best that best available will want.
Je suis d’accord pour le recrutement de 2 bons dribleurs en attaque comme Mika Godts et Yan Diomandé, un milieu de terrain comme Sandro Tonali et un latéral droit comme Livramento.
Il faut vendre Jésus, Norgaard, White,Trossard ou Martinelli et le joueur prêté à Marseille dont le nom m’échappe.
I agree with the recruitment of two good attacking dribblers like Mika Godts and Yan Diomandé, a midfielder like Sandro Tonali, and a right-back like Livramento.
We need to sell Jesús, Norgaard, White, Trossard, or Martinelli, and the player on loan to Marseille whose name escapes me.
dgr8xt
Good title and good article.
Arsenal need to go all out and sign Julian Alvarez.
He can create, score, play in multiple positions, take corners, free kicks, penalites and press high up when not in posession.
If PSG, Real Madrid or Barcelona get him, that will improve their chances of winning the UCL significantly next season.
I am with you with all the points you made but why would selling Jesus not be a popular opinion with everyone? I rather we promote an academy player than keeping Jesus any longer. This team has outgrown the likes of Jesus, Martinelli and Odegaard. They have served us during the development stages but now we are past their levels and we need to be brutal and cutoff any dead weight if we want to be among the giants in the world football
Selling Jesus is a widely agreed with position.
Selling Odegaard and/or Martinelli less so. Even if we manage to bring in higher level additions to their positions, they are still very good players and can be rotation options. Ødegaard in particular is a very high level midfielder – he offers the footballing intelligence that we have no replacement for in his role and that is very hard to acquire.
What football intelligence are you referring to? Not saying he is bad but he doesn’t do what a player of his caliber should do. His output is low and rarely dictates the tempo, and he ghost whenever we play the top teams. We cannot bring in another attacking midfielder while he and Eze are still in the book. Eze too needs to up his game next season or be shipped out.
I don’t agree with most of your points
Havertz, a former Chelsea player, scored our only goal against Burnley and PSG in UCL final. And Madueke is a highly skilled inverted RW, despite his injury history
Arteta’s highly cautious approach has been working well in EPL in four consecutive seasons and only failed in UCL knockout phases, so he shouldn’t totally remove the brakes
Timber’s and Calafiori’s natural positions are CB, but they performed very well as fullbacks and their versatility is required to back our main CBs up
Martinelli worked as hard as Anthony Gordon did in the last four seasons and maybe he’s more skilled than Gordon/ Nico Williams, so we should extend his contract and look for a new inverted LW to challenge him
1. There’s not much on offer from Chelsea currently that we could use anyway!
2. There are times this makes total sense, and times it’s sensible to pace ourselves. A lot of this is game and player management I think. We know we’re after attacking players this window so hopefully we can be more front footed next season. Aldo we need to raise our passing to elite status, it’s a little under currently.
3. Agreed
4. Agreed (obviously one of the issues that caught up with us this season and to an extent in the CL final)
5. Agreed
6. Recruiting a level higher at LW has been an agreed issue for years, just difficult to solve. Arteta tried to add Mudryk, and then Nico Williams for example. Rodrygo was also mooted. Maybe we can get Barcola?
7. Yes. I like Kroupi but he’s hot property and Bournemouth don’t want to sell obviously.
8. Agreed. EPL comes first but cups are cups.
9. Penalties and free kicks need to be a focus now. Corners and long throws we are fine at.
10. He’s not going anywhere.
Agree most of the points. We definitely need to upgrade our attack, which would help with releasing the brakes.
Additional commandments
1 sell Ben white and get a 2nd rt back to compete with Timber
2 add a defensive midfielder to Rice to reduce the pressure on defence
3 sell martineau and buy a better left winger
This was the first year I can remember that Arsenal didn’t exit cup competitions in the early rounds. The media were busy promoting the idea that a quadruple was a possibility but I get your point that our recent record was poor
Arteta focused on bringing in versatile players and it paid off imo. This ties in with rotation and over playing key players
The last 2 seasons have shown that squad depth and versatility have been important factors in a) sustaining 2nd place when the squad was decimated and b) the improved squad depth has allowed more seamless competition for places and allowed Arteta not to overplay certain players which has contributed significantly to winning the league
I wouldn’t say your view on Jesus would be unpopular. His injury record meant that the club had to react and then time can pass players by as new faces come in and /or other combinations work better. It’s cruel but an unfortunate fact of life
Good article.
Re No 9. I wouldn’t suggest that we abandon our reliance on set pieces, but perhaps instead try some more variations. The corner kicks look all the better for the changes, so our free kicks might also benefit from adjustments. e.g., instead of lumping the ball into the penalty box, play it wide to someone who gets in behind.
That’s my coaching suggestion for this summer😎
Jax
Put your hat the ring to get on the coaching staff.
Dont disagree on. Some.
Imo i think we will become more expansive for next season
Contrary to some people’s comments I believe the tactics were spot on Saturday
Going toe to toe with arguably the best offence side in the world we would have ended up on wrong side of Embarrassing score line.
Rules will change in holding from corners so I expect us to benefit from this so even more goals for us so long may we keep going on this
MA and coaching team are smart enough to tweak systems but it was about getting the job over the line which we have done. 22 monkeys of our back now
Onwards and upwards
Alanball108,
Jover out-Jax in🤗.
It’s got a nice ring about it!
SueP, my campaign slogan will be “no route one”.
I would recommend to every one in here to read an article in The Guardian today 1/June written by Jonathan Liew with the following tittle :IF ARSENALMADE MOST OF THEIR RESOURCES, IS THIS AS GOOD AS IT GET?
Very good article in relations to our discussions,
Thanks for sharing Georgy,
That was a great read.
Agreed. Both are fringe players . It is time to reinforce that wing. with a superstar imbued with skill , pace and. panache . The likes. of Kwaratskhelia in my mind . My darling team must also reinforce the attack with a fast , strong , and skillful footballer . I trust Arteta and management are looking are this .
The ten things we must do to stay on top.
1) Sell Martinelli
2) Sell Gyokores
3) Sell Madueke
4) Sell Jesus
5) Sell one of Eze or Odegaard
6) Buy Anderson
7) Buy MWG
8) Buy Rogers
9) Buy a back up cf for Kai
10) Buy a back up keeper.
Raya/new keeper
Timber/ White/ Mosq
Saliba/ Mosq/ Salmon
Gabriel/ Hincapie /Cala
Cala/ Hincapie
Rice/ Anderson / Zumbi
MLS / Merino / Rice
MGW/ Eze/ Merino
Rogers/ Trossard
Saka/ Dowman
Havertz / Esposito
You have done a good job and any addition would be for emphasis.