December 20 marks five years since Mikel Arteta was appointed as Arsenal manager.
It has been a period packed with incident. Arteta took over a faltering team and a fractured club. Then football was struck by the global pandemic, with the Spaniard one of the most prominent early sufferers.
“I jumped into a new job in the middle of the season in very special circumstances socially,” Arteta reflected earlier this month. “Then we got hit by Covid. You can plan whatever you want, but football brings different things and you have to deal with it. Take it as it comes and deal with it.”
There have been lows — in the winter of 2020, Arsenal endured a run of seven Premier League games without a win — but there have been highs, too, such as the FA Cup triumph of earlier that year, or the club’s return to the Champions League.
Across the five years, there has been considerable progress. Arsenal have transformed from a team languishing in mid-table to one contesting the game’s biggest prizes.
Five years seems like a good moment to take stock, so The Athletic has put together a survey on Arteta’s reign thus far. What has been the most significant result? Who has been the best player? Who has been the best signing? How long do you think Arteta will stay? All that and plenty more.
Let us know below and we’ll report back with our findings.
(Top photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
