Mikel Arteta and Arsenal technical director Edu can certainly look back at last summer’s transfer window and feel vindicated about several decisions that were made. Arteta had always been well aware of the problem, highlighting it back in December 2020 ahead of the winter transfer
Mikel Arteta said: “It’s very clear. If you say ‘can they do it?’ it’s a question mark. Have they done it in the past? The answer is no. We haven’t had any goals from midfield, it’s not something that happened [just] this year, it happened in other years and is something that has to be addressed. To change the qualities and characteristics of players is very, very difficult. A big team needs players in midfield who score goals. They need central defenders that score goals from set-pieces to add to that. If you start to lose those margins, you start to lose points, you start to be away from the top team, this is not any science.”
Given Arsenal had lost significant ground on the top teams going into last summer’s transfer window, it was assumed that Arteta and technical director Edu would look to address the issue – and almost 12 months on it’s safe to say they went a long way to transforming the team’s fortunes on the pitch.
