Mikel Arteta will stay at Arsenal until 2027 after signing a new three-year contract; the former midfielder returned to the club as manager in December 2019; Arsenal have finished second in the Premier League in the last two seasons
Thursday 12 September 2024 18:39, UK
Mikel Arteta has signed a new three-year contract at Arsenal, extending his current deal until 2027.
The 42-year-old has been in charge of Arsenal since 2019 and has led them to successive second-place Premier League finishes but had entered the final 12 months of his deal at the club.
Sky Sports News first broke the story that Arteta was expected to commit his future to Arsenal last month.
His new deal comes on the eve of the Gunners' Super Sunday clash against fierce rivals Tottenham on Sunday, live on Sky Sports.
In his first season in charge, Arsenal lifted the FA Cup in 2020, while they secured two Community Shield victories in 2020 and 2023.
Arteta said: "I feel extremely proud, very excited and am looking forward to what is coming next. I'm proud to be where I am and have the relationships that I have with everyone at the club.
"I feel extremely lucky to work every single day with good people and the ambition we have here. I feel very inspired, I feel challenged, I feel supported and I want to do much more than what we've already done together.
"Together with the players and everyone at the club, we are looking forward to the coming years, with our supporters, who have emotionally transformed the club and the team.
"Our supporters have transformed individuals and we are different now. You can tell that we are different and for me, that is down to them. We look forward to continuing the journey together."
Sky Sports News senior reporter Melissa Reddy:
The advancement has been so pronounced and the transformation that effective, it probably slips the mind that during his first nine months at Arsenal, Mikel Arteta's status was simply 'head coach.'
The original idea was for him to focus on the team, but that was playing too small. Arteta wanted to breathe life, bravery and direction into the club.
When he was appointed, Arsenal were out of the Champions League, 10th in the top flight, and they did not possess a discernible DNA.
Arteta could not simply coach them back to relevance, there needed to be drastic change.
In September 2020, after intensive work to cure a culture of complacency, and having demonstrated a wide-ranging ability to improve Arsenal beyond just on the grass, his title was altered to first-team manager.
Arteta would run not just the team, but work in tandem with sporting director Edu on football operations; a relationship that is seen as the axis to which Arsenal's excellence spins. Together, they have transformed the club - and there is more to come.
In his first two seasons under Arteta, Arsenal finished in eighth spot. Their finish there in the 2020/21 season saw them miss out on European football for the first time in 25 years.
After an improved fifth-place finish the following year, they qualified for the Europa League, before successive second-place finishes behind Manchester City. It saw them return to Champions League competition for the first time since the 2016/17 season.
The 2023/24 season saw Arsenal win their highest ever number of Premier League games (28), amassing 89 points - just two behind Pep Guardiola's side. It is an addition of 33 points since Arteta's arrival, with each season showing a steady increase in points total.
But perhaps the biggest jump has been in goal difference. Last season, Arsenal ended with a huge +62, scoring 91 goals and conceding just 29 - the lowest in the Premier League.
It is a huge increase from the +8 Arsenal had in the 2019/20 season, and still significantly higher than the +45 in the 2022/23 campaign, showing improvements in both attack and defence.
Arteta's first transfer window was in January 2020 and Arsenal have spent almost £700m on players since. The biggest outlay was Declan Rice from West Ham for a £105m fee.
Looking at Arsenal's starting XI from their Premier League opening day win against Wolves, only three players - William Saliba, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli - were not Arteta signings.
Looking further on the bench, all but a further three players were not signed under Arteta, but they are all academy products - Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson and Ethan Nwaneri.
The last four and a half years have clearly been a slow, steady build of a team capable of winning heavyweight titles. The Gunners squad is built in his image, alongside the Arsenal hierarchy, and must now go on and add the silverware to the Arsenal cabinet.
