Mikel Arteta will remain as Arsenal coach for the next three seasons.
The Barcelona academy graduate signed an extension to keep him at the helm of the club until 2025 on Friday.
Arteta took over from fellow Spaniard Unai Emery after a poor run of games which included the loss to Chelsea in the 2019 UEFA Europa League final. Arteta, then serving as Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City, was offered the role until 2023.
The former Paris Saint-Germain midfielder enjoyed some immediate success, leading the side to the FA Cup final and the title against Chelsea who denied them the Europa League title months before. That made Arteta the first manager to win the title as both captain and manager for Arsenal, and the first Arsenal manager to win a major title since George Graham.
Months later, Arteta’s side beat Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool on penalties to win the Community Shield. Since those wins, however, it has been a topsy-turvy time for the Spaniard and the club. However, the club believe in his vision and have offered him a two year extension on his current deal which will see him stay until 2025.
Arteta sets Champions League target for Arsenal
Arteta said to Arsenal’s official website after the announcement: “I’m excited, grateful and really, really happy today. When I spoke to Josh [Kroenke] he could see the club at the same point and he wanted to take the club the way I wanted to do it.
So everything that he’s said, and that Stan has said when I’ve been together with both of them, they’ve always delivered.
“We want to take the club to the next level and to compete really with the top teams. In order to do that, we have to be playing in the Champions League.
“We have to be able to evolve the team, improve our players, improve all departments, generate even more connection with our fans, improve the atmosphere at the Emirates, be able to recruit top, top talent and the best people for this club to drive this project to that level.”
New contract came when Arsenal were in a bad place, Arteta says
The former Everton midfielder also mentioned that he was given the contract when Arsenal were on a run of three losses.
“The club offered me the new contract when we lost three matches,” the Spaniard revealed. “That doesn’t happen in football. That’s a part of what they think, the conversation I have, the belief that they have in myself, the coaching staff, in what we’re doing.
“The people that we have now owning this football club and leading this football club, I haven’t ever seen it and I just got emotional when I saw it. I just said these guys are serious and they are committed so I better push forward.
“Words and facts are very different things and in football they can be extremely different in relation to results and it’s not the case. They meant something for many months and conversations that we had and they put it in a piece of paper after that day so for me there is not a better way to describe the people we have at the club.”
Arsenal sit in fourth place on the Premier League table, two points ahead of North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur. They will return to the UEFA Champions League for the first time since 2017 if they finish the season in that position.
