Mikel Arteta has completely transformed Arsenal Football Club.
The Spaniard arrived in North London during one of the darkest periods in the club’s modern history and slowly rebuilt everything from the ground up.
Now, Arsenal are Premier League champions again and are preparing for a Champions League final against PSG.
Arteta deserves enormous credit for that turnaround, especially because appointing him in 2019 was viewed as a massive gamble at the time.
Things could have turned out very differently too because Arsenal were initially reluctant to give him the job.
👀 TRUE or FALSE: Mikel Arteta will become Arsenal’s greatest ever coach if he wins the PL and UCL titles…
The four managers Arsenal considered before appointing Mikel Arteta
When Unai Emery was sacked by Arsenal in 2019, the Gunners needed to go in a new direction to get back on track.
A number of names were linked with the job, but Mikel Arteta finally got it, even though the club had serious doubts about him because of his lack of managerial experience.
That hesitation led Arsenal to explore several other options before eventually deciding to trust the Spaniard.
According to Miguel Delaney, the Gunners held talks with a number of different managers during that process.
He explained on Inside Football: “When Emery left the club, they were still reluctant to go back to Arteta, principally because of that lack of experience and a few other elements.
“They had spoken to Patrick Vieira, former midfielder as well obviously, and Vitor Pereira and were considering Massimiliano Allegri and Ronald Koeman.”
Looking back now, Arsenal supporters should probably be very thankful the club eventually ignored all four names and went with Arteta instead.
Arsenal genuinely dodged four bullets before hiring Arteta
Every single one of those appointments could have gone badly for Arsenal.
Allegri may have been a big name, but he would probably have taken the current Champions League finalists down another defensive and pragmatic route similar to Emery.
Supporters would likely have hated the football, and his recent struggles at Milan hardly suggest he would have been the right long-term choice anyway.
Vieira is an Arsenal legend, but his managerial career has simply not justified taking charge of an elite club yet. He has been sacked by several clubs already and is currently without a job.
Pereira has recently built a reputation more as a survival specialist than somebody capable of leading a giant like Arsenal back to the top of European football.
Koeman, meanwhile, has always carried a huge reputation as a player, but his managerial record has never consistently matched that status either.
Arteta may have lacked experience in 2019, but Arsenal took the risk anyway. Now, he has proven he is comfortably better than all four alternatives they were considering.
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