Arsenal 2023 year review, including where title was lost and Arteta masterstroke

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2023 was a year to remember from an Arsenal perspective.

Arsenal will end 2023 as they started it: in a race for the Premier League title.

Considering where Arsenal were before the start of last season, when they had just missed out on Champions League qualification, the fact they are now genuine title contenders is an extraordinary achievement.

Perhaps even more impressively, they have responded to the heartbreak of just missing out on being crown champions last season by hitting the ground running in the new campaign and immediately inserting themselves amongst the frontrunners again.

Mikel Arteta has done a wonderful job at the Emirates Stadium over the course of the last 12 months, but that is not to say mistakes haven’t been made. There is certainly plenty for the Spanish coach to look back upon in this year and learn from.

To cover that ground once more, we will now rewind back to early 2023.

How 2023 went for Arsenal

Last season

Arsenal fans will always have fond memories of the remarkable comeback wins against Bournemouth and Aston Villa. However, there will always be the lingering regret that the Gunners couldn’t hold on until the bitter end and win the title.

The seeds for their downfall were sown in March when William Saliba was ruled out for the rest of the season with an injury he picked up whilst playing against Sporting in the Europa League. Of course, Arteta couldn’t have known that the centre-back would get injured, but the Gunners arguably lost the league in that moment as they did not have the requisite strength in depth to cope with the Frenchman’s absence.

The summer

Arteta clearly recognised the need for this additional strength in depth, and the club backed him heavily in the summer transfer market to bring in players who would both raise the level of the squad and give him more options to choose from. Shelling out a club-record £105 million fee for Declan Rice, who was also wanted by champions Manchester City, was a real statement of intent.

Bringing in Kai Havertz for £65 million was a riskier move, as he had been far from consistent for Chelsea. It certainly took some time for the German to settle in at the Emirates Stadium and adapt to the midfield role Arteta handed him. Havertz took plenty of criticism in this period and he looked woefully short on confidence. In recent weeks, though, something seems to have clicked. Havertz looks like a player transformed and is banging in the goals. This contentious transfer decision might just have been a masterstroke after all. 

One of the major aspects of the summer was the departure of Granit Xhaka, after his rollercoaster spell in north London. He left on a high after his best season in red and white and was followed out of the door by fellow fan-favourite Kieran Tierney who joined Real Sociedad on loan.

This season

Rice hit the ground running at Arsenal who have been defensively sensational from the off this season. The attacking side of things hasn’t always been entirely fluent, though, with Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli both struggling to provide regular goals. Despite this, Arteta’s side still found a way of grinding out many positive results, a habit which Gary Neville was impressed by as the former Manchester United defender tipped the Gunners for the title. 

Whilst there is quite rightly plenty of positivity about Arsenal’s current position, there is also a looming and all-too-familiar threat. Following injuries to Jurrien Timber and Takehiro Tomiyasu, Arteta once again finds his defensive options spread dangerously thin. Action must be taken in the January transfer market to bolster his squad in this part of the pitch and avoid a repeat of last season.