Fans like to believe that their club has some intrinsic identity. There is some quality that must exist within those 90 minutes for a club to be recognisable. In actuality, the DNA of a club lies more within its infrastructure and community rather than in an unchanging style of play. It’s impossible to stay still in football, and the job of a manager is not to riff on the styles of teams past but to search for the identity of the squad in front of him. This task of sifting through the gumbo of talent is something which has plagued Arsenal managers since Wenger’s later years.
Arsenal’s recent resurgence into a top-four challenger is indicative of Mikel Arteta’s success in “finding Arsenal” with newfound defensive solidity and attacking freedom leading to a string of impressive performances and results. So, how did Arsenal fix the problem? Well, they threw money at it, but not in the traditional sense.
Splashing cash in modern football usually equates to a shiny new signing for the fans to fawn over, the practicality of which is often an afterthought. For Arsenal, it meant paying players, sometimes fan favourites, to go away. This philosophy was particularly present through the January 2022 window where an already thin Arsenal team gave up a further five players including club captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Three of those players had their contracts cancelled. Arsenal’s lack of meat on the bone has been a source for fan anxiety, but has allowed Arteta to hone in on their identity and to solidify his philosophy.