Arsenal have certainly been extremely busy in the transfer market this summer, and it looks like the Kroenkes have decideded to seriously back Mikel Arteta’s rebuild project, even though the Gunners have finished in 8th position under the Spaniard last season.
But now it is time for Arteta to walk the walk and make a success of his squad, which he admits is very different to when he arrived, but he also cannot guarantee instant results.
The Arsenal boss has had a long and frank interview with SkySports where he has discussed our transfer dealings and what his aims are for the future. “We have to be sustainable,” says Arteta. “We have to perform now and we also need a plan for the medium and the long term.
“A lot of the decisions we have made over the last 18 months are because we had a big imbalance in certain areas that was putting the club in a difficult position.
“Then, we wanted to recruit talent, specificity, and players with a big capacity to interact with the players who already exist here and who could develop into potential starters and increase the level of the team and the squad.”
“I’ve been in constant contact with the hierarchy of the club, with Eddy [Edu], with Richard [Garlick] and with our coaching team, trying to find the players we want to recruit and trying to be on top of every deal to make it happen in conditions we can afford.
“I think we have created a really strong team who really enjoy working together. Hopefully you will see the fruits of this.”
In Arteta’s 18 months in the job, he has always made it clear that it is a long term strategy and there will be no quick fix, but now that there have been so many changes, the fans are expecting better results on the pitch rather quickly. But it is not always easy to integrate so many youngsters in one go so the boss is asking us to be patient a little bit longer.
“We have had seven departures from the side that we had last year, maybe eight,” Arteta continued. “With five coming in, we are talking already about a turnaround of 13 players, so it’s huge.
“We are just trying to have the best quality and balance that we possibly can. It’s about increasing the quality and having a healthy squad, which is really important as well.”
“We want to be really competitive from the beginning but in some cases it will take a little bit more time than with others, so we need to get from the senior players what they can give,”
At the very least, fans will be wanting to see improvement from last season, when we never even pretended to be challenging for top four spot, but Arteta is hoping all the negativity from last year is now just a part of his history. “Last season, in certain moments, the team didn’t perform to the right level. We had other issues that I’m not going to discuss right now but we need to get the best out of everybody.
“That is our job and that is my job in particular.”
We all know that it is now time for Arteta to prove that he can do the job, and every defeat will add more pressure on him, but I think the fans will be happy for now to see the players fighting for the shirt against Chelsea today to give us hope for the future.
And Arteta will be looking to see a full crowd of Gooners getting behind the players to make them play even better…