Arteta rewarded with a new Gunner’s contract, can he achieve continued dominance?
Mikel Arteta has signed a contract renewal to continue as the Arsenal head-coach until 2030. The former Arsenal player joined the club as the head-coach in December 2019 after the departure of Unai Emery from the club. Arteta had a huge task of performing a massive rebuild which he has achieved successfully in the past seven years. Since then, Arteta has led Arsenal to an FA Cup (2020) and a Premier League title (2025/26) and has the club competing for major silverware for the past three-four seasons.
Under Mikel Arteta, Arsenal have become a dominant force in Europe yet again. Arsenal reached the final of the UEFA Champions League last season, losing narrowly to defending champions Paris Saint-Germain. They have been the most consistent team in the Premier League for quite a few seasons which is a far cry from the team that could barely compete to qualify for the Champions League. Arteta has transformed Arsenal into a solid defensive unit that is almost impossible to breach. They are particularly superb on set-pieces and score a lot of their goals from corners and dead ball situations.
When Arteta took over Arsenal in December 2019, the team was sitting in 10th place with most Arsenal fans disillusioned and unhappy with the club. Seven years later, it’s an unrecognizable team that has already won the Premier League and is looking to become a dominant force. In the 2025/26 season, Arteta became one of the 13 managers to have won the Premier League and if he wins it again, he will be part of a select few (Sir Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola, Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho) to have won it multiple times.
With Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea all going through their own transitional issues or instability in terms of frequent managerial changes, Arsenal remains the favourites to win the title this season as well. They have the most settled team and the best squad in the league to challenge for multiple trophies. That is about the league at the moment and he has a great opportunity to take advantage of the rival teams’ situation and turn them into serial winners.
Although the Gunners won the Premier League after a 22-year wait, Arsenal’s priority lies with the UEFA Champions League. Even under Arsene Wenger, Arsenal won several league titles but Europe was where they massively struggled and they are yet to win a UEFA Champions League trophy. Arteta has guided them to a UCL semi-final in 2024/25 and a final in the 2025/26 season, taking them close for the past two years. PSG has been the only team that has gotten the better of them on both occasions. If Arteta leads them to a Champions League trophy in his tenure, it will catapult him into immortality in the club’s rich history of successful managers.
Arteta has a great first team which is a mix of players in their prime and youth talent. Declan Rice, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, David Raya and Bukayo Saka now have the experience of multiple Premier League campaigns while Max Dowman, Myles Lewis Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri are the potential superstars of the future. That said, Arsenal need improvements for sure.
We all are aware that the Premier League is the most competitive league in the world where it takes a lot of effort, blood and sweat to win a league title. Arsenal’s 3-0 loss to Brighton and Hove Albion away before the break was a huge example of that. None of the teams can be taken lightly and even teams in the relegation zone can put up a spirited performance against the top teams. Hence, it’s important to keep your focus at all times and in all games.
Arteta has ensured that Arsenal remains dominant in every position on the pitch but there is one area where Arsenal struggles, dominating games in terms of goals scored through open play. For context, in the 2024/25 season, Arsenal finished second in the league table but they had scored 69 goals all season with 29% of those goals (15 goals) coming from set-pieces. In the 2025/26 season, they won the league but only scored 71 goals in the competition with 31% of those goals (23 goals) coming from set-pieces. Arsenal averaged 1.86 goals per game in 2025/26. Before Arsenal, the title-winning teams in the last five previous seasons scored more than 80 goals in their league campaign, managing more than 2.1 goals per game.
While Arsenal possesses the best defence in the league, they do not have the attacking prowess of a serially dominant team. Their inability to bring in a lethal striker like Erling Haaland or a top winger for the left-wing position after the departure of Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard could prove to be their Achilles heel.
Both their title rivals Man City and Liverpool possess elite strikers in Haaland and Alexander Isak, players who don’t need multiple chances to strike. Viktor Gyokeres hasn’t received the kind of support from their wingers or the midfielders to make the kind of impact that was expected from him. Moreover, Arsenal’s playing style is also not conducive to attacking players and that could be the reason for reluctance from such kind of players to join the club.
While I do think Arsenal remain the favourite to win the league this season as well, it’s not going to be easy with Man City looking good so far and the mid-table teams also performing with a lot of courage and lack of fear. Their chances of winning the Champions League could also be impacted due to lack of an elite forward line. They will certainly go deep in most tournaments due to their squad depth but winning the Champions League and competing consistently for continental titles will remain a huge challenge unless they improve their attacking stats.
To conclude, Arsenal has indeed made the right decision to extend Arteta’s contract but to dominate season after season both in the league and European competition, the North London club do need elite attackers that can provide the kind of numbers expected from Europe’s elite else they will struggle to achieve the kind of success they are anticipating.
