Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has made a number of key decisions since taking charge at the Emirates Stadium.
Arteta chose to convince Granit Xhaka to stay at the club when his Arsenal future looked all but over, revoked Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's captaincy role and chose to replace Bernd Leno with Aaron Ramsdale as the Gunners' no.1 goalkeeper last summer. The north London outfit have seen plenty of changes throughout Arteta's tenure as manager, but his decisions are beginning to be rewarded following Arsenal's impressive start to the season.
Leno was allowed to leave the club this summer in search of regular football after he fell down the pecking order under the Spaniard. The German goalkeeper returned to the Emirates Stadium for the first time since leaving the Gunners, but it wasn't a happy return as Arteta was rewarded for his decision.
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Leno had a chance to show Arteta that he made the wrong choice in opting to sign Ramsdale and replace him as the no.1 goalkeeper at Arsenal. However, the English shot-stopper came out on top in the 2-1 win over Fulham after making a crucial save not long after Aleksandar Mitrovic put the visitors ahead before Fulham's new signing was a fault for Gabriel Magalhaes' late winner.
Speaking after the Gunners had signed Ramsdale from Sheffield United, Arteta said: "One of the things that I was most impressed every time I watched a game he played in was his temperament. I wanted to watch many clips and moments after he was conceding a goal, making a mistake or difficult moments, and that's one of the big reasons why we decided to sign him to play with us."
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard was able to pull his side back into the game with an equaliser just minutes after Mitrovic pounced on a mistake by Gabriel to put Marco Silva's side 1-0 up. With just five minutes to go and the Gunners pushing for a winner, Leno came off his line to try and claim a corner but flapped at the ball, allowing William Saliba to knock down for his Brazilian centre-back partner to tap home and seal the win.
Decisions like this from the German keeper had cost Arsenal in the past and led to Arteta making a key change in his team. Leno had made a number of saves before his error that kept the Gunners at bay, but ultimately the Spanish manager's decision to allow the ex-Bayer Leverkusen star to leave the club paid off.
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