Mikel Arteta says Arsenal have reached \u201canother level\u201d this season as the club pursues its first Premier League title in 22 years. After finishing as runners-up in 2022\u201323, 2023\u201324 and 2024\u201325, the manager insists improvement in squad depth and maturity has been critical as his Class of \u201926 sit top of the table approaching the halfway stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve gone to another level this season. Last season, at times, we had 13 or 14 outfield players competing [for places]. It\u2019s not enough,\u201d the manager told TNT Sports .<\/p>\n
Summer recruitment saw Arsenal spend around \u00a3272.5 million on seven new players, while Piero Hincapi\u00e9 arrived on loan with a \u00a345 million option to buy next year. The new signings, combined with Cristhian Mosquera, have helped cover defensive injuries and Mart\u00edn Zubimendi has strengthened the centre of midfield. Up front, Viktor Gy\u00f6keres provides a recognised No. 9, even if he has not matched the prolific scoring rate he enjoyed at Sporting CP. Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke have added creativity high up the pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve gone and increased the numbers and certainly the quality and, within that, the versatility of this team. We\u2019ve added pieces we didn\u2019t have that can complement each other in a really powerful way, and they have adapted really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta also emphasised the role of experience gained from near misses. \u201cYou can see the way the team competes and the way the individuals, as well, have evolved and matured. That’s something that takes time to get into that position,\u201d Arteta added. “Look at Bukayo and the amount of games that he’s played at his age, or [Gabriel] Martinelli or [William] Saliba or big [Gabriel], Jurri\u00ebn [Timber], he\u2019s 23 years old\u2014that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been building.”<\/p>\n
Still, Arteta warned that achieving the title will demand outstanding consistency. \u201c[In 2023 \u2013 24], we scored the most goals in the history of Arsenal Football Club and the least goals conceded, the most clean sheets and the most wins. You still don\u2019t win the league. That\u2019s the demands that we have,\u201d Arteta went on to explain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta says Arsenal have added quality and versatility; depth must turn into near perfection. It is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1081,826,1019],"class_list":["post-5172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}