'Trust the process' has paid off! Love him or hate him, Mikel Arteta deserves respect for ending Arsenal's Premier League title drought

This time last year, Gary Neville argued that Mikel Arteta's most notable achievement at Arsenal was not his 2020 FA Cup win - but still being in a job despite going five subsequent seasons without winning a major honour. "We thought those days were gone where you could have this type of patience being afforded to you," the former Manchester United defender said on Sky Sports.

In that sense, a significant amount of the credit for Arsenal's Premier League success must go to the club. Despite repeatedly seeing Arteta's side come up short when it mattered most, the board kept backing the manager - particularly in the transfer market. The time and money they've invested in Arteta has finally paid off, as confirmed by Manchester City's defeat at Bournemouth on Tuesday.

As it transpires, they were right to

'Rebuild everything'

As Arteta has often brought up, Arsenal were in a bad place before he took over. The frustration that had set in during the second decade of Arsene Wenger's 22-year reign had given way to apathy by the end of Unai Emery's ill-fated spell in charge.

Of course, it could easily be argued that had Emery been given the same level of support as Arteta, it's highly likely that he'd have enjoyed similar success to his successor. As Emery has since shown at Villarreal and Aston Villa, he is very much one of the elite coaches of the modern era.

However, he lost the fans long before he was sacked on November 29, 2019, and not even the appointment of the extremely popular former winger Freddie Ljungberg as interim boss managed to lift the sense of doom and gloom around the club - which Arteta still vividly remembers from his final visit to the Emirates in his capacity as Manchester City coach just five days before his appointment as Arsenal's new permanent manager.

“That image, that feeling of the stadium, the crowd (with) 50 per cent of the stadium empty really got into me,”

"Unfortunately, it got worse very quickly because then Covid hit and then instead of 50% we had zero. So, you make the job even harder. After that we had to rebuild everything."

'Beautiful to watch'

Nobody could deny that Arteta did a fine job laying the foundations for a potential title-winning team. There was, however, always that nagging doubt over whether he was really the right man to turn Arsenal from challengers into champions.

As club legend Thierry Henry recently admitted on

Even this season, there were fears that they'd finish second for a fourth consecutive campaign - and especially after they were beaten home to Bournemouth on April 11, when the players appeared to be affected by the nervousness of the home crowd.

However, the fans came through for Arteta and Arsenal when they needed them most - and the atmosphere at the Emirates for the league game against Fulham, and the Champions League semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid that followed, were exhilarating exhibitions of just how much the mood around the club had changed since that 3-0 loss at home to City all the way back in December 2019.

"When it’s harder at the beginning,"

More Mourinho than Pep

Of course, the fact that Arsenal haven't been "beautiful to watch" from a purely footballing perspective has become a subject of great debate this season.

As a Guardiola disciple, Arteta was expected to employ a similar style of play to the Catalan coach - and the Gunners initially looked like "Manchester City-light", as Jamie Carragher put it, after signing former City players such as Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko during the 2022 summer transfer window.

However, there's been a noticeable shift in strategy over the past three seasons, which has become even more pronounced since the start of the current campaign, with Arteta unexpectedly embracing a win-at-all-costs attitude that's provoked more comparisons to Jose Mourinho than Guardiola.

Arsenal have essentially become as effective at wasting time from set-pieces as they have scoring from them, David Raya regularly goes to ground in order to allow Arteta to give in-game team talks on the touchline, while the Gunners also seemed to exploit the protocol around concussion this season to make a defensive substitution in a game against Wolves in January - which rather neatly sums up their manager's newfound cynicism.

'Just do what they want'

Arsenal's mastery of the dark arts hasn't exactly endeared them to opponents or neutrals

"Of course, every team will manage and waste time, but there has to be a limit and the limit has to be set by the Premier League and the referees. At the moment, Arsenal just do what they want.

"Where will this go in the future? That's my question. In one game you play 60 minutes net and then you play against Arsenal and it's only 50. It's 10 minutes of difference and this is what the supporters are paying for.

"If I would ask everyone in the room, 'Did you really enjoy this football game? I'm sure if maybe one person raises his arm, it's because he's a big Arsenal fan, but besides that, no chance [anyone would]."

'Certainly respect it'

What's interesting is that even Henry, the face of Arsenal's 'Invincibles', has admitted that he doesn't appreciate Arteta's approach from a coaching perspective. However, the former France international was quick to point out that, as one of the club's long-suffering supporters, all he really cared about was seeing his former club get over the line.

"For a very long time, we've been accused of being boys, of not being able to keep a lead, getting bullied,"

"So, I don't have to like it, but I certainly respect it. That's the most important thing. After 22 years, no matter how we're going to do it, I'm going to respect it."

Found a way to win

Henry also correctly pointed out that Arteta's shift in style is hardly a betrayal, as

Arsenal will, of course, be remembered as 'Set Piece FC' by many neutrals - but also the team that ended one of the most infamous droughts in English football history. They've done that by standing firm in their support of Arteta, who has been repeatedly ridiculed for his undeniably bizarre motivational methods and yet has managed to claim the title with a group of players that many felt were going to throw another one away when they lost at the Etihad just last month.

However, Arteta has also proven himself ahead of the curve by creating a well-drilled, defensively solid, physically strong, hard-working and cynical side united in its willingness to do whatever is required to win. In that sense, they are the perfect Premier League champions for 2025-26, the ultimate illustration of the attritional nature of English football right now.

The process may not have been pretty, but it has been effective.