- 7 hours ago
How Arsenal Built A Team Ready To Win The Premier League.
Transfers, tactics and time - the three things that have defined Arsenal's process under Mikel Arteta, but how long has it taken and how far into the process are we? From a team who looked like challenging for the Premier League title, but never winning it, to outright favourites for the crown, Matt is here to breakdown just how Arsenal built a Premier League winning team.
Transfers, tactics and time - the three things that have defined Arsenal's process under Mikel Arteta, but how long has it taken and how far into the process are we? From a team who looked like challenging for the Premier League title, but never winning it, to outright favourites for the crown, Matt is here to breakdown just how Arsenal built a Premier League winning team.
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00:00For two straight seasons, Arsenal have done something few expected, become genuine title
00:05contenders. Over the next few minutes, I'm going to break down the four core themes that prove
00:09Mikel Arteta and Arsenal haven't just spent money. They've solved a complex, decade-long puzzle
00:13to build a team that isn't just winning now, but is engineered to dominate for years to come.
00:30Three players in the box. Pepe might not need them. Now, in the past, Arsenal have bought some big
00:37names, players who were great in spite of the system and ones who could flourish thanks to
00:41Arsene Wenger's excellent man management skills. However, since the legendary Frenchman left,
00:46a change in manager style or approach has led to, for one reason or another, new signings that
00:52haven't quite fit in. Consider Nicolas Pepe, for example. The signing of him in 2019 for a ridiculous
00:5972 million was for a winger who thrived in the counter-attacking football of Lille,
01:03but fundamentally lacked the tactical discipline and pressing volume required
01:07for Arsenal's structured possession-based attack, leading to his marginalisation and ultimate failure
01:12at the club. Similarly, the initial promise of Matteo Guendouzi was shattered by his failure to
01:17adhere to Arteta's non-negotiable cultural demands, repeatedly clashing with management over
01:22attitude and discipline. Pepe was the tactical misfit and Guendouzi was the personality misfit.
01:29Aside from these guys, I couldn't even imagine to begin what the club was thinking when they
01:33signed a 32-year-old David Luiz from rivals Chelsea.
01:37Anyways, this chaos in the transfer market is precisely what the current strategy eliminates.
01:42The club now signed players who are not just talented, but are engineered for the system,
01:46which has, in my opinion, led them to rarely missing the mark in the last few years.
01:50For instance, they didn't sign Oleksandr Sinchenko to be a traditional left-back. They signed a player
01:55who acts as a secondary playmaker in midfield. Did he personally turn out to be the best player?
02:00No. But the system was in place, and the club needed to steadily and progressively upgrade in
02:05each position, buying players who would not only be comfortable in their way of playing,
02:09but also able to adapt if and when Arteta did. This meant that despite having been burnt by previous
02:16expensive signings, the club didn't hesitate to grant Arteta's wish of spending over £100 million
02:21on Declan Rice, because they all knew it would work out. In Rice, Arsenal got a tactical chameleon.
02:28Signed for his capabilities is both a deep line number six and a box-to-box 8-to-8. A player who
02:33can do it all, and then some. Mikel Arteta has often said his philosophy requires ruthless consistency
02:39and a culture that everyone must live by, and the recruitment team translated this philosophy
02:44into a surgical, detail-oriented process. Former sporting director Edu himself admitted he received
02:50reports of over 180 pages on one specific player, covering their physical, tactical and mental
02:57profiles. This plan of action has seen Arsenal's transfer business go from scattergun to plugging
03:03a specific technical or psychological gap, and the result is a seamless tactical unit, not
03:08a collection of talented individuals, which leads directly to my second point.
03:12Now, when it comes to tactical and psychological profiling, I'm certain that those in the know at the
03:21club will be inundated with numbers and data telling them just how good a potential signing is, but one of
03:27the simplest numbers has become one of the most important, and that is a player's age. The current
03:33team is built for arguably the best part of a decade. With the age profile of this squad, the biggest proof of
03:38success is seen as a long-term process aimed at sustained dominance, not just a flash in the pan.
03:44Arsenal have consciously lowered the average age of their squad and signed players whose peaks align
03:49so that the group can grow together. In the 24-25 season, Arsenal's average squad age hovered around 25.7
03:56years old, placing them amongst the youngest in the Premier League and indicating that their best
04:02football is still ahead of them. Unlike Premier League winners historically, who have often had a squad
04:07average age of closer to 28. Edu articulated this strategy early on after one particular transfer
04:13window, saying, we've signed 10 players and seven of them are under 23. It's about the project. It's
04:18about what we want to do in one, two, three, four, five seasons. So the spine of this team, Saliba,
04:24Gabriel, Saka, Odegaard, Rice, they're only just entering or arguably not even entering their prime,
04:31ensuring that the most expensive and crucial players are also assets valuable both on and off the pitch,
04:36in the long haul. This consistency in targeting the 22 to 26 age range basically means that Arsenal
04:43aren't consistently rebuilding. All they have to do is refine. Look, I know it's not really a new
04:49approach. City have been doing it for years under Pep and Klopp did it at Liverpool as well,
04:52where it took him four years to win a trophy. In the meantime, going from a spine of Mignolet,
04:57Skirtle, Lucas Leiva and Benteke to Alisson, Van Dijk, Firmino, Salah, Mane, amongst others.
05:03Of course, there is the threat of top quality players leaving, bigger clubs offering success
05:07now instead of the coming years. But at the moment, Arsenal's success seems so inevitable.
05:13They're heading in the right direction that I can't really think of a player who would want to jump ship,
05:17not only because of how well they're doing themselves on the pitch, but also because of
05:20the ambition and movement shown off the pitch when it comes to the planning and intentions of each
05:26transfer window. And this is where Arsenal just do not miss. Watching Arsenal's transfer windows has
05:36been like watching an architect build a skyscraper. Each summer, they address the weakest point from
05:40the year before and focus on it, meaning they don't try to fix everything at once, but in order. The
05:46last four seasons have shown a clear multi-phase journey of evolution. And here it is. Phase one,
05:52they've signed players who fit the new system, the new tactical approach from Mikel Arteta.
05:56And although in time it's fair to say Gabriel Jesus, Fabio Vieira and Zinchenko weren't
06:01generational signings, these transfers in the 22-23 season were January, the last time
06:07Arsenal made poor permanent signings and they were good at the time. Phase two and in 23-24,
06:13they added elite level players capable of providing quality in their given position,
06:17but crucially, also versatility. You've got the all-encompassing talent of Declan Rice,
06:22the tactical versatility of Kai Havertz, Jurian Timber, although he did get injured on his debut,
06:27and the much needed reassurance of David Raya in between the sticks.
06:31Then came phase three, and with the style of play nailed on, it became easier to pinpoint exactly
06:36where they needed improvements in the starting eleven for the 24-25 season, allowing Arsenal to
06:41enter their era of tweaking things ever so slightly rather than needing wholesale changes.
06:46Calafiore and Moreno were upgrades, whilst Ethan Ranieri and Myles Lewis-Skelly provided young
06:51but hungry and capable competition out of the academy that wouldn't carry the pressure of
06:55needing to be the team's saviors, but could be trusted to give the big guns a rest whilst giving
06:59them crucial experience as well. And of course, they cost nothing.
07:03All of this then brings us to the summer of 2025, where Arsenal not only tackled the need for a
07:08clinical top-tier striker and for a specialist pivot too, but somehow they managed to combine all of the
07:14previous window successes into one. Look, ruthless marginal gain is effectively what they were
07:20buying with Victor Jokeres and Martin Zubomendi, but in Eze and Hincapié, they've got versatile,
07:25high-quality options, whereas the signing of Mosquera and Madueke tick the boxes for being both really
07:31good backups and young hungry talents who will push the overall competitiveness and quality of the
07:36broader squad higher. Experienced backups in Kepa and Norgard come with relatively low expectations and
07:42almost aren't really up for judgment. And just to be sure all angles were covered, let's not forget
07:47adding Max Daumann into the mix from the academy that just can't stop producing top talent.
07:52It's honestly one of the best transfer windows I can think of in recent Premier League history.
07:56It's a window that elevates the whole squad from elite challengers to title winners. And like I said,
08:02this isn't by chance. This approach demonstrates remarkable patience and clarity from the leadership
08:07by continuously focusing their biggest spend on the most urgent structural weaknesses, ensuring that
08:13every massive transfer has maximum impact, not only now, but you guessed it, in years to come.
08:19And if you're wondering what the difference is between Arsenal's window and let's say defending
08:24champions Liverpool, well, I think Liverpool have plugged the wrong gaps. They spent big money on
08:30Wurtz and Isak who are almost solving problems that Liverpool didn't have last season. They weren't
08:35struggling for creativity and goals. OK, they sold Luis Diaz, but they didn't sign a like-for-like
08:40replacement. Neither Wurtz nor Eketike fit that profile. What they were really struggling with
08:45was squad depth in almost every position and the constant threat of Salah or Van Dijk getting injured
08:51or, as harsh as it sounds, getting old. Now it looks like they'll have to spend more insane amounts
08:57of money to replace both of those two in the near future, all while still struggling for fit
09:01centre-back options in the current campaign. All this talk of big spending does make the strategy
09:09sound risky, despite the data and analysis behind it. But the truth is that some of Arsenal's best
09:15business has gone under the radar. And that is in how they fund these big spending sprees, turning a
09:20potential financial fair play nightmare into a sustainable competitive advantage. The core of this
09:26theme is the pure profit model derived from the academy, an FFP masterclass, if you will.
09:32Under the Premier League's Profitability and Sustainability rules, aka PSR, money made from
09:36selling an academy player, a player who costs nothing to acquire, is booked entirely as profit.
09:41This meant that the sales of players like Bolloran Balogun, Emil Smith-Rowe,
09:45Eddie Nketiah and amongst others for significant fees were clean profit that directly funded incoming
09:51transfers. The result is stability, allowing the freedom to continue making major signings without
09:56the fear of sanctions that have plagued other clubs. Even the structure of the deals is savvy,
10:01with the initial David Ryer transfer being a loan and then an obligation to buy, which strategically
10:06spread the cost across two financial years to ease the immediate PSR pressure. The consistent sale of
10:11fringe players and academy products at high valuations is the hidden engine of Arsenal spending sprees.
10:17They found a legal, sustainable way to compete financially, which makes their success not a
10:21footballing story, but a phenomenal business strategy and one that was built to last.
10:27The conclusion then, six windows with four strategic themes, tactical fit, longevity,
10:32intentional upgrades and all financially well thought out. The result is a squad built on solid
10:38foundations, ready to enter its prime as a group, financially secure enough to remain at the top and
10:42ready for multiple assaults on the Premier League title. They and the fans have had to be patient,
10:48but as we've seen over the years, opportunities will always present themselves. You've just got
10:53to be in the right position to take them, which I'd argue Arsenal now are.
10:57So is this finally Arsenal's year to win the Premier League title and how far can they go in
11:01the Champions League as well? Don't forget to get across all of our socials at 442 and also
11:06the latest edition of the magazine is available to buy now as well. That's all from me,
11:11I'll see you in the next one.
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