Mikel Arteta is getting a lot of stick for Arsenal’s two defeats last week, but the fact remains that the Gunners are still sitting in the Top Six, and he has made that possible, despite having the youngest team in the Premier League and also the smallest squad to choose from.
But the boss has also made good on his promise to clear out all the non-performing deadwood and bring in a team of hungry, talented youngsters that he has taught how to follow his tactics and philosophy.
And to be honest, there were very few Arsenal fans that believed that Arteta would manage to get the Gunners into Europe with a completely new young team, so for us to be where we are right now is actually quite impressive to to be honest.
But to be fair to the Boss, after we saw our raft of new arrivals in the summer, he made it clear that we were only half-way through our rebuild. As Arteta told Arsenal.com: “Just to give you some context, we renewed – in one year – five sets of contracts, and five of them are under the age of 23 for the first team. Then, in this period, summer to summer, we signed 10 players and seven out of the 10 are under 23 as well.
“So what I would like to explain is that is is not about this summer, it is about the project. It is about what we want to do. We have started the project, we are in the middle, so it is not just one window and go, it is window, window, window, window.”
It certainly seems like he was talking sense, and he has already told us that Arsenal is expecting an extremely busy summer window as well, so if he has managed to get us into the Top Six while only half way through the job, how much more will he get done next season?
Sam P