Mikel Arteta went from being Pep Guardiola’s assistant to becoming the man who ended up taking the Premier League from him. The Basque coach took Arsenal FC back to the top of English football, ending a 22-year wait since the historic 2004 “Invincibles” campaign.
Winning the title represents the culmination of a project started in 2019, when Arsenal opted for its former captain despite having no previous experience as a head coach.
Arteta came to the London bench after working for more than three years as Guardiola’s assistant coach at Manchester City. During that period he absorbed tactical and managerial knowledge from one of the most successful coaches in modern football.
“I will always be grateful to him, otherwise I wouldn’t be here,” Arteta even said about Guardiola.
However, champion Arsenal’s style ended up moving away from City’s extreme possession model. The Spanish coach built a solid team defensively, with enormous strength in set pieces and a competitive mentality that is more reminiscent of the influence of David Moyes, the coach under whom Arteta shone at Everton FC.
Since his arrival at the club, Arteta promoted a profound reconstruction of the squad. Important players such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mesut Özil left the team in search of creating a dressing room more committed to the new philosophy.
Although he won an FA Cup just months after taking charge, the road to success was not easy. Arsenal finished eighth in the Premier League and suffered several setbacks in subsequent seasons, including painful loss of qualifying places to the UEFA Champions League.
Even after three consecutive runners-up finishes, Arteta was questioned for his supposedly conservative style and for not being able to take the definitive step towards the title.
But in the 2025-2026 season he finally broke the barrier. Arsenal resisted pressure from Manchester City in the final stretch and ended up winning a historic Premier League, consolidating Arteta as one of the great coaches of European football.
Now, the Gunners could close a legendary season if they beat Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final in Budapest on May 30, which would mean the first European title in the club’s history.
