00:00When Arteta first joined Arsenal, the club weren't playing Champions League football.
00:05In his first season, Arsenal finished on 61 points in 8th place.
00:09Fast forward to today, the club has already surpassed that points total with plenty of games left to play
00:16and they finished top of the Champions League league stage.
00:19So how has Arteta transformed Arsenal Football Club?
00:23I spoke to Elliot Smith from the Arsenal Vision podcast to find out.
00:27I wanted to start, first of all, with a question about Mikel Arteta.
00:32So I've got some stats here. When he first came to the season, in his first full season,
00:38Arsenal finished 8th on 61 points. Arsenal are now on 67 points, 8 games to go as well.
00:47Arsenal are on about an 85-point pace at the moment.
00:51Top of the Champions League, when he first joined Arsenal, weren't in the Champions League.
00:55So how would you kind of describe the transformation that Arteta has made at Arsenal Football Club?
01:02It's a great question and I really think it's three transformations, right?
01:05I don't think you can look at it as one linear progression because when he first arrived,
01:09it was simply about, I think, restoring certain values and disciplines across the organization.
01:15A lot of that first stage was about messaging, about cleaning out sort of the Deadwood
01:20and the old vibes of the club and getting to a new starting point.
01:24I think that stage sort of ended when Aubameyang left, Kanduzi left, Ozil left.
01:30When new players came in like Ramsdale, Ben White was obviously a big acquisition.
01:37Saliba was sort of brought into the group.
01:40You know, there was Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus, who, while they may feel well past their relevance
01:46now at Arsenal, were a really important part of that transition group.
01:49Gabriel Martinelli and Kaio Saka brought through and the club elevated itself from
01:54sort of being out of the discussion in football broadly, back into Europe,
01:59back into contention for Champions League places and ultimately maybe even in the title picture.
02:04It's really a new phase now from that group, though.
02:07If you think about it, Zinchenko's essentially been moved on.
02:10Gabriel Jesus is on the fringes of the team.
02:14The midfield has been rebuilt.
02:16You could even suggest that his captain, Martin Odegaard, is sort of not fading out of relevance,
02:21but less prioritized in the group.
02:24New strikers, new forwards, new midfielders, new defenders.
02:27Urien Timber, Calafiori, Pierron Capier coming through.
02:31And obviously Ramsdale leaving, David Raya coming in.
02:34So I think we're sort of into the third stage now, which is really intended to be
02:38that peak winning window of trying to compete for the biggest trophies like the Champions League
02:43and the Premier League, which have eluded the club in the former case forever
02:47and in the latter case for over 20 years.
02:49So three real phases, a cultural cleanup, a rejuvenation of the squad,
02:53and then an elevation of the squad to title caliber.
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