Arteta joins Arsenal’s all-time managerial greats | Stats | News

After guiding us to the 2025/26 Premier League title, Mikel Arteta has cemented his place in our historical past as certainly one of our biggest managers of all time.

Our former captain has turn into the primary former Arsenal participant to go on and lead us to a top-flight championship as a supervisor, having ended our 22-year wait after overseeing an enormous transformation in our fortunes since taking cost in December 2019.

Since then, Mikel has by no means completed in a decrease place than the earlier marketing campaign throughout his six-and-a-half-year stint in north London. Guiding us to eighth in his first few months within the scorching seat – a season that ended with him lifting the FA Cup – he replicated that putting in 2020/21, then progressed us to fifth 12 months later.

He then introduced us tantalizingly near the Premier League title in every of the following three seasons, finally all ending in runners-up finishes, however now he has gone one step additional and joins the illustrious checklist of Arsenal managers to have claimed a minimum of certainly one of our 14 league championships:

What makes Mikel’s feat all essentially the most exceptional is that he was given the chance to handle us, having by no means led a staff earlier than. The final supervisor to win the English league title in his first managerial job was Kenny Dalglish, who did so by inheriting the all-conquering Liverpool facet of Nineteen Eighties. Mikel follows within the footsteps of different Gunners bosses who beforehand achieved that feat: Bertie Mee, Tom Whittaker, George Allison and Joe Shaw.

However, the Spaniard, aged 44 years and 54 days, is the youngest Gunners boss to win the league championship, narrowly pipping George Graham who was 124 days older when he guided us to the silverware within the fabled 1988/89 marketing campaign. Only Jose Mourinho has claimed the Premier League at a youthful age than our boss:

Mikel can be solely the second particular person to function within the Premier League as a participant and go on to win it as a supervisor, following on from Roberto Mancini who performed for Leicester City in 2001 and guided Manchester City to their first title 11 years, whereas his mentor Pep Guardiola is the one different Spanish boss to carry the title.

Having guided us to 25 wins this marketing campaign to permit our pink ribbons to be tied to the trophy as soon as once more, whereas additionally powering us to the Champions League closing the place we are going to battle with Paris Saint-Germain for the glory of being Europe’s premier membership, Mikel has one other declare to be seen as certainly one of our managerial greats.

He has now topped the 60% win ratio from his 351 video games in cost, a determine that sees him head and shoulders icons akin to Wenger, Graham and Chapman:

After ending our lengthy watch for a league title, he can now obtain one thing that no Arsenal supervisor has ever been in a position to do in our 139-year historical past – lead us to turn into champions of Europe.