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It’s January 2020 and Mikel Arteta looks like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.
And she actually has: For the first time since she took office as managing director arsenal, the club for which he ended a 15-year career as a midfielder, the Gunners have won a game, and by heart. Arteta’s side defeated Manchester United in a 2-0 win that was never really in question.
“All the things that I asked for and that I wanted to see on the pitch actually happened today,” Arteta said with a smile at the press conference after the game.
The win was a welcome respite from the pressures that mounted early in his managerial career. It also boded well against a United side who also seemed to be figuring things out. But few could have predicted where things are now, two years later.
Arsenal & Manchester United Meet on Sunday as two of the stories of the Premier League season. Both sides have faced their own misfortunes in recent years, with United just a few months ago. And while they’ve gone about it in different ways (with wildly different timelines), both have dedicated their limitless resources to a meticulous plan to return to greatness.
Arteta’s arsenal has had its shaky moments but the club’s insistence on building up behind him has paid off.
Nick Potts/IMAGO
That victory over the Red Devils to ring in 2020 has yet to turn the tide for Arsenal. The Gunners were very young and didn’t have the identity Arteta wanted to convey. But work on the rebound was already underway. The previous summer, the club spent a lot of money on Nicolas Pépé, a decidedly bad decision. It also brought in Gabriel Martinelli and Kieran Tierney for a combined €34.1million. These were the first of some clever transfer market moves that would quickly transform an aging, overpriced squad into a youthful machine.
The next few years brought even more blessings from the transfer market. Gabriel, Martin Ødegaard, Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Oleksandr Zinchenko have all been signed at relative discounts compared to spending at some of the team’s Premier League rivals. The Gunners have paid off Thomas Partey, Ben White and Gabriel Jesus, and each has found key roles in the roster.
The road back to the top of English football has not been without its problems. Fourteen weeks into the 2020/21 season, Arteta’s first full charge, his side finished 15th in the league table. Arsenal hadn’t won a game in over a month. The performances were uninspired. The fans were screaming for a new manager. But the board did not bow to the ups and downs of modern football. It trusted the man it hired just 11 months before the ship was repaired.
Improvements were gradual but significant and by the end of the season Arsenal had moved up to eighth place in the table. The offseason that followed was crucial. The Gunners signed Ødegaard to a permanent deal and made moves for White, Ramsdale and Tomiyasu to rejuvenate an aging, leaky defence. More importantly, Arteta & Co shed the dead weight that has kept the club stuck in its mediocrity. A year after Mesut Özil and Shkodran Mustafi were let out, Arsenal sent David Luiz, Sead Kolasinač and Willian away on free transfers. The same treatment was accorded former captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the spring.
A willingness to fully embrace a youth movement under a manager whose tactics she trusts was pivotal to the turning point. The financial incentives of reaching European tournaments mean few big clubs in football today will endure years of setbacks to build for the future. Even when disaster struck at the start of the 2021/22 season after losing their opening three games 9-0 together, the club didn’t flinch. Arsenal stormed up to fourth in the table and qualified fifth for the Europa League in 2022-23.
Coming from Pep Guardiola’s positional school, Arteta needed time – and the right players – for his system to really take root. Now, with ball-playing defenders in white, William Saliba and Zinchenko, midfielders who know their roles in Partey, Xhaka and Odegaard, and two wonderful wingers in Bukayo Saka and Martinelli, Arsenal are playing as well as any team in Europe. It’s no coincidence that the team’s expected goal difference (xG) has improved in each of the last three seasons. The young core that Arteta has assembled is coming together.
The 2022/23 season saw Manchester United’s rebuilding really begin. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s years proved fruitless and caretaker Ralf Rangnick failed to really see his system through in the 21/22 season. Years of short-term planning had come to a head.
New coach Erik ten Hag arrived from a dynamic Ajax side in the summer. He came with a promise to take United back to heights not seen since Alex Ferguson. It would require a major overhaul of the pitch and ten Hag wasted little time. The club sent Paul Pogba, Edinson Cavani, Nemanja Matić and Juan Mata away on free transfers.
ten Hag had a rocky start to his tenure at Manchester United but things turned around quickly.
Andrew Yates/Sportimage/IMAGO
The first two games were disastrous. United lost to Brighton at home and were then beaten 4-0 at Brentford. Ten Hag would need reinforcements. This is how the Brazilian duo Antony and Casemiro came into play for a total of 165 million euros. Their impact was immediate, particularly that of 30-year-old defensive midfielder Casemiro. For years, United had been looking in vain for someone to cover the backline. In one fell swoop he grabbed one of the world’s best from Real Madrid.
The most urgent decision that needed to be made was what on earth should happen to Cristiano Ronaldo. The prodigal son had returned in 2021 and had scored 18 goals in his debut season in the Premier League. But he wasn’t the right fit for ten Hag’s high-profile plans, and he very publicly turned down his role as a replacement. United let him go.
It was a decision that drew the ire of some fans, but ultimately showed an unwavering commitment to ten Hag’s ideas. Combine that with the summer’s aggressive, smart transfer business and the Red Devils had a quick return to the Premier League’s elite.
It wasn’t just the shiny new transfers, either. Marcus Rashford went into the season seemingly lacking in confidence. Now at the heart of ten Hag’s attack, he’s playing the best football of his career, scoring in seven straight games through the start of 2023. Bruno Fernandes is back to his sparkling form.
If you’re not convinced the resurgence of either side is sustainable, look no further than last week. Arsenal and Manchester United exercised a level of control over derby victories neither had in years. You won the xG bets in well-deserved wins. It even showed how the managers have instilled their own systems in a T: Arsenal are always on the move, going through Tottenham with ease, and United crushing on the break and suffocating in the press against Manchester City.
Where the two clubs have made progress over their Premier League rivals is an unwavering commitment to a concerted plan. For all the cash holder Todd Boehly ready to jump into the transfer market, Chelsea have made one big purchase after another with no plan in the long or short term. Tottenham, tied to manager Antonio Conte’s fickle nature, have done little to build on an aging core that finished fourth a year ago. The luster of Liverpool’s incredible 2021/22 season has faded after failing to adequately replace key departures or help their squad depth.
These twists are not Cinderella stories. Only a handful of clubs in Europe have spent as much in the transfer market. But the conversion worked. Arsenal did it slowly. Manchester United at once. And commitment to a manager’s plan, willingness to let go of the past, ability to put players in the perfect position for success paid off. Two of the Premier League’s most iconic sides are back.
