There have been bigger signings.

There have been more expensive signings.

There have been trophies, stadium developments, record-breaking transfers and moments thatwill live forever in Arsenal history.

But Mikel Arteta agreeing a new contract yesterday might just be the most important thing Arsenal’s board has done this century.

That sounds like an outrageous claim when you remember the early 2000s, the move to the Emirates, the end of Arsène Wenger’s reign and everything that followed. But look at what Arsenal are now, and then look at where we were when Arteta arrived in December 2019.

The difference is enormous.

And it is not simply about winning football matches – Arsenal finally have a long-term identity again.

Arteta inherited an Arsenal team that had lost its way.

The club had finished fifth under Arsène Wenger in 2016-17, sixth in 2017-18 and fifth again in 2018-19 before Unai Emery’s reign unravelled. When Arteta took over, Arsenal were sitting 10th in the Premier League.

He was not arriving as an established managerial superstar. This was his first senior managerial job.

What followed was a rebuild that required patience, difficult decisions and, crucially, an extraordinary amount of faith from the hierarchy.

The FA Cup arrived in his first season. There were setbacks afterwards. Arsenal finished eighth in 2020-21. They finished fifth the following campaign.

There was plenty of ammunition for people who believed Arsenal had made the wrong appointment. Instead, the club stuck with him.

That patience eventually produced a team capable of challenging Manchester City, returning Arsenal to the Champions League and finishing second in the Premier League three consecutive times.

Then, last season, Arsenal finally crossed the line.

The 2025-26 Premier League title ended a 22-year wait. Arsenal had gone from a club wondering where its identity had gone toEnglish champions under the manager who had been trusted to rebuild it.

And that is why yesterday mattered.

The board isn’t simply renewing the contract of a manager who won a trophy.

It is reaffirming the strategy that got Arsenal here.

There is an understandable temptation to view anew contract as a reward for winning the league.

It is that, of course. But it is also much more than that.

Arteta has already demonstrated that hisArsenal can compete at the very highest level. Last season, the club won its first league title since 2004 and also reached only its second Champions League final, eventually losing to Paris Saint-Germain on penalties. 

That combination matters.

Arsenal are no longer simply trying to get back into the Champions League. We are trying to win it.

They are no longer trying to challenge for the Premier League. We are defending it.

And we are no longer wondering whether the Arteta project can produce the biggest domestic prize. It already has.

The question now is what comes next.

That makes continuity incredibly valuable.

Arsenal’s biggest asset right now is not any single player. The clubs can replace players. They can replace executives. They can rebuild squads.

But replacing the person who has spent nearly seven years establishing how the entire organisationoperates is different.

Arteta’s influence stretches far beyond the touchline.

His Arsenal is recognisable in the way the team plays, the standards expected at thetraining ground, the recruitment profile and the culture surrounding the first team.

The meticulous environment Arteta has cultivated at Arsenal, including unusual exercises designed to improve players’ alertness and prepare them for unexpectedmatch-day situations, is now being copied by managers up and down the country.

Whether you love every tactical decision he makes is beside the point. Arsenal know what they are trying to be. That is incredibly difficult to build.

And once you have built it, you don’t casually throw it away.

Arsenal’s board has not always enjoyed universal approval from supporters. That is football.

Every transfer becomes a referendum. Every contract negotiation becomes a drama. Everypoor result produces questions about ownership, recruitment, coaching and ambition.

But the decision to continue backing Arteta deserves enormous credit. Especially because the club could easily have panicked during those difficult early periods.

They didn’t.

Instead, they backed the manager through an FA Cup triumph followed by a disappointing league campaign. They backed him as thesquad was rebuilt. They backed him when Arsenal were close but not quite close enough.

And now they have backed him again.

According to reports, Arteta’s new agreement will take him beyond a decade at the Emirates. The exact contractual details are still being formally completed, but the agreement represents a clear commitment from both sides. 

That is what a long-term football project issupposed to look like.

But there is still work today. This Arsenal are not a finished project. Far from it.

The 3-0 defeat at Brighton last weekend was a useful reminder that being champions does notmake you invincible. Arsenal had won their first four league games before that defeat and were comprehensively beaten at the Amex. 

There will be more bad afternoons.

There will be transfer decisions that don’t work.

There will be tactical arguments.

There will be moments when supporters wonder why Arteta has done that.

Good.

That’s football.

The important thing is that Arsenal now have the stability to deal with those moments without immediately questioning the entire directionof the club.

That stability is worth more than another shiny transfer announcement.

Think about what Arsenal have spent the last decade searching for.

Stability.

Identity.

Elite standards.

A coherent recruitment strategy.

A team capable of competing for the biggest trophies.

A manager capable of developing players while simultaneously dealing with the enormous pressure that comes with managing Arsenal.

They now have all of those things.

And the person at the centre of it has chosen to stay.

That’s why this contract feels different.

The Premier League title was the culmination of years of work. The new contract is the decision to protect that work rather than treatthe championship as the conclusion of the story.

It is a statement that Arsenal don’t want one great season.They want an era.

And perhaps that is the most important distinction of all.

Arsenal’s board has spent years trying to put the club back where supporters believe it belongs.

Yesterday, they made the decision to keep the person who finally got them there.

The trophies will ultimately decide how Arteta’s reign is remembered.

The Champions League may determine whetherit becomes genuinely historic.

But whatever happens next, extending Mikel Arteta is arguably the clearest sign yet that Arsenal finally understand something they have been searching for throughout this century:

The most important thing isn’t simply getting back to the top. It’s building something strong enough to stay there.

Keenos

Morning.

There is not exactly a huge amount of Arsenal football news to get excited about this morning.

The international break has arrived at possibly the worst time, with Arsenal coming off the back of a 3-0 defeat at Brighton and now having to wait before they can put things right. Although some will argue that the break has come at a great time and given what happened at the Amex, perhaps a bit of time away from the training pitch is exactly what everyone needs.

The latest news is that Declan Rice has withdrawn from the England squad, with reports suggesting his workload is being managed. Rice played 55 games for Arsenal last season and then featured in seven of England’s eight World Cup matches, having dealt with hamstring nerve pain. He has started every Premier League game this season, as well as the Champions League trip to Napoli.

This feels less like something to panic about and more like sensible management. We have already seen what happens when players are asked to keep going indefinitely.

And Arsenal certainly do not need another injury problem.

The timing is also interesting because Rice was one of the players who struggled badly against Brighton.

That should not erase everything he has done for Arsenal, obviously, but it does highlight one of the problems with international football immediately following a poor club performance.

There is no opportunity to put it right.

You lose 3-0, everyone heads off in different directions and the manager gets three weeks to think about it.

And if Mikel Arteta is anything like the man we know him to be, I suspect he will be doing rather a lot of thinking.

Brighton didn’t just beat Arsenal. They exposed them.

Arsenal were second to too many balls, struggled against Brighton’s man-to-man press and made technical mistakes in dangerous areas. Arteta himself said his players had not competed at the required level and had failed to “respect the game”. That is probably the important bit.

This wasn’t one of those games where Arsenal dominated, missed six chances and somehow lost 1-0. Brighton deserved to win.

They were more aggressive, more comfortable and better at exploiting the weaknesses Arsenal presented to them. Arsenal’s perfect start ended with their heaviest defeat in three years. But context matters.

This is still the team that won its opening four league games, conceding just once, and currently sits on 12 points from five matches. One terrible afternoon doesn’t suddenly mean the whole project has fallen apart. It means Arsenal have been given something to work on.

And perhaps that is what this extended international break should be about.

Not panic.

Not overreaction.

Just learning.

Because the next time Arsenal face a team that presses them like Brighton did, they need to look rather more like the champions they are.

Keenos

There is something rather enjoyable about Mikel Arteta having a new toy to play with.

For years, Arsenal supporters have watched the manager obsess over midfield combinations. Who plays as the six? Who gets forward? Who protects the full-backs? Who can carry the ball? Who can win it back? Who can actually receive it under pressure?

Now Arteta has another rather expensive answer to those questions – Bruno Guimaraes.

The Brazilian arrived from Newcastle for £75m, bringing with him the slightly ridiculous luxury of being able to play almost anywhere in midfield. He can sit, tackle, press, carry, pass through lines and arrive in the box. He can be the destroyer and the creator.

So, naturally, the question is: what on earth does Arteta do with him?

The obvious answer is that there shouldn’t be one answer.

That is probably the point of signing him.

Arsenal have reached the stage where the midfield shouldn’t simply be picked by putting the three best names on the teamsheet and hoping they work.

Different opponents require different solutions. A team sitting in a low block needs something different from a side trying to suffocate Arsenal’s build-up. A physical midfield requires different qualities from a technical one.

And Arteta now has the personnel to actually respond to those problems. He just needs to learn how to get the best out of them.

Take Declan Rice. He is the great all-rounder. He can cover huge amounts of ground, defend transitions, carry the ball and arrive in dangerous areas. He is at his best when he can use his athleticism to influence the game rather than constantly having to drop into the first phase of build-up.

Then there is Martin Zubimendi.

The Spaniard is the organiser. He gives Arsenal that calmness in front of the centre-backs and, perhaps most importantly, is comfortable receiving the ball when the opposition is pressing. He offers structure.

If Arsenal need someone to keep the midfield connected and make the first pass out of defence, Zubimendi makes an awful lot of sense.

Myles Lewis-Skelly brings something different again.

There is still an element of chaos to him, but the good kind. He is aggressive, technically assured and comfortable receiving the ball in tight areas and is probably our best press resistant midfielder.

His emergence has given Arsenal another player who can alter the shape without necessarily changing the personnel. Arteta has already trusted him in major matches, and his development as a midfielder gives Arsenal another option rather than simply another body.

And then there is Bruno.

This is where things get interesting.

Bruno doesn’t quite fit neatly into the boxes occupied by the others. He has Zubimendi’s willingness to receive the ball deep, Rice’s physicality and the ability to play further forward. But he also has that wonderfully irritating Brazilian quality of wanting to get involved in everything.

He wants the ball.

He wants to win the ball.

He wants to pass the ball forward.

And, occasionally, he wants to kick somebody into the next postcode.

That makes him incredibly useful, but it also creates a tactical question.

The first attempt at using Rice, Bruno and Martin Odegaard together came at Brighton, and it did not go particularly well. Arsenal’s midfield struggled badly against Brighton’s pressure, and the balance of the three wasn’t quite right.

Nether Bruno or Rice are at their best when picking up the ball with their back to the pitch. They are much better facing forward.

Brighton’s press meant both often found themselves deeper than they would have liked, and requiring to turn on the ball to face forward. Too often when they received the ball it went straight back to the defenders, putting more pressure on us.

In hindsight, Saturday’s game would have been more suited to a Zubimendi or MLS in the team. Someone who can play on the quarter turn, drop a shoulder to get out of the press and then progress the ball forward.

But that shouldn’t mean the Bruno, Rice and Odegaard gets thrown in the bin.

It means Arteta has learned something.

Perhaps against certain teams, Bruno and Rice rotating as the deepest midfielder is exactly what Arsenal need. Against others, it may leave the build-up lacking a natural organiser.

That is where Zubimendi becomes important.

And that is where Lewis-Skelly becomes important.

Arsenal don’t have to play the same midfield every week.

Against a team that wants to attack Arsenal and leave space behind, imagine Bruno and Rice together. There is enormous energy, ball-winning ability and carrying power there. Bruno can step forward while Rice covers. Or Rice can push on and Bruno can hold.

Against a deep block, perhaps Bruno’s passing and ability to arrive in the box becomes more valuable, while Zubimendi provides the platform behind him.

Against an aggressive pressing side, Zubimendi or Lewis-Skelly might make more sense because Arsenal need someone comfortable taking the ball from the centre-backs and turning under pressure.

That is the beauty of this squad.

Arteta’s job now is not finding the midfield.

It is finding the right midfield.

And that may take a little experimentation.

Bruno Guimaraes is the new toy, but the temptation will be to play with him every time simply because he’s shiny and expensive. The better solution is to work out what each opponent demands and then decide which combination gives Arsenal the best answer.

Rice, Zubimendi, Bruno and Lewis-Skelly are not competing for one identical job. They overlap, certainly, but their strengths are different enough to give Arteta genuine tactical choices.

The Brighton game was a reminder that having excellent midfielders doesn’t automatically create an excellent midfield.

Keenos