Former Arsenal player Mikel Arteta has been appointed as the next manager of Arsenal. After sacking Unai Emery, and appointing Freddie Ljungberg as interim manager. there is hope that Arteta will bring stability and results to the Gunners. Here are some things to know about Mikel Arteta.
1. Mikel Arteta Amatrian was born on the 26th of March 1982 in San Sebastian, Spain.
2. He began his career at Antiguoko at the age of 9 before joining Barcelona’s famous academy, La Masia, in 1997. He featured for various Barcelona youth sides but was unable to break into the first team and was subsequently loaned to PSG in 2001.
Arteta signed for Scottish giants, Rangers FC in 2003 and won the league and cup double.
3. After a brief spell at Real Sociedad, he joined Everton on loan in 2005 and was later signed permanently. He spent six years at Everton (2005—2011). He was twice named player of the year at Everton.
4. He joined Arsenal in 2011 and was made captain in 2014. He won the FA Cup twice with Arsenal and retired in 2016 having spent five years with the London side.
5. Arteta represented Spain at U-16, 17, 18 and 21 levels but never played for the senior national team. In 2010, England moved for him to play for them, but FIFA blocked it from happening.
6. After retiring in 2016, he had three options to choose from regarding his coaching career. The first is an offer from Arsene Wenger to coach Arsenal academy; the second is to join former PSG teammate, Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham, while the last option is to join friend and former Barcelona academy teammate, Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. Arteta chose the 3rd option and became Guardiola’s assistant at City.
7. He joined Man City as an assistant manager on 3rd of July, 2016 and would go on to spend the next three years at the Etihad before departing to Arsenal having won 2 Premier League titles, 1 FA cup and 2 EFL cups.
8. On the 20th of December 2019, Arteta returned to Arsenal as manager signing a 4-year contract until 2023.
9. Arteta is married to former Miss Spain, Lorena Bernal, with whom he has three children.
10. He is multilingual as he speaks English, Spanish, Basque, Catalan, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Arteta is hardworking, determined, competitive, intelligent, commanding, approachable, analytic and tactically astute.
His style of play is well-suited to that of Arsenal— having been groomed at Barcelona, played at Arsenal and worked under Guardiola. He will be able to turn Arsenal’s fortunes around and make them a force to reckon with once again IF ONLY he is given the necessary support by the Arsenal board in the transfer market.
Written by Muftaudeen Abdullahi Ishola
