Mikel Arteta was sitting in the Emirates Stadium away dugout when he realised the scale of the task that awaited him. It was December 2019, and although he was still nominally the assistant manager of Manchester City, cruising to a 3-0 victory against Arsenal, thoughts were naturally beginning to turn towards the project he had secretly decided to take on. And – to put it mildly – he was alarmed.
This wasn’t simply a case of how bad Arsenal were on the pitch. Performance is a fickle thing. There are known variables, measurable objectives. Performance you can fix. But the energy in the stadium, the disgruntlement, the disconnect between the players on the pitch and the fans in the stands: as Arteta contemplated his first job in management, this was the challenge that worried him the most.
