The pressure was already on Mikel Arteta to deliver at Arsenal this season, but that will only increase following today’s launch of Amazon Prime Video’s fly-on-the-wall documentary.
Cameras followed the club’s every move last season and now the opportunity is there for people to scrutinise where Arsenal went wrong in their bid to qualify for the Champions League.
After falling short, the Gunners have backed Arteta in the transfer market and spent big this summer.
Arteta has secured his top striker target with the £45million arrival of Gabriel Jesus from Manchester City. Oleksandr Zinchenko has also swapped the Etihad for north London, while highly-rated Portuguese youngster Fabio Vieira’s arrival has taken the club’s total outlay to more than £100m.
That summer spend means the pressure is on Arteta to take Arsenal back to the Champions League this season.
Arsenal have enjoyed a perfect pre-season this summer, winning all five of their matches, and the mood inside and outside the club is one of optimism.
In seasons gone by, the Gunners have gone into their opening game of the season still needing reinforcements or looking undercooked, but Arteta cannot argue that is the case this time around.
Before the Premier League’s kick-off at Crystal Palace tomorrow night, fans of all clubs will have the chance to watch the first three episodes of All Or Nothing: Arsenal.
It is the ideal appetiser for ahead of the new season, as supporters get an insight into Arteta and, using his own description, his “crazy ideas”. Like Jose Mourinho in Amazon Prime’s Tottenham documentary, a lot of airtime is centred around Arteta.
That in itself is a change of tack from the Spaniard, who although accommodating with the media, often likes to keep things in-house. When incidents have blown up in the past, such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang losing the captaincy, Arteta has reiterated his desire to resolve things “internally” rather than under the glare of the public eye.
Arsenal, of course, have sign-off on what viewers see from the documentary but the insight into Arteta’s coaching methods means he is open to scrutiny.
One of his “crazy ideas” involves speakers blaring You’ll Never Walk Alone at training before Arsenal head to Anfield. Another shows him asking his players to rub their hands together to create positive energy in the dressing room before a match at Leicester.
For those who have bought into Arteta’s way of thinking, the scenes will act as confirmation of why they rate him so highly. In their eyes he will come across as an innovative coach trying new ideas to motivate his players.
There are undoubtedly those, however, who will see this as a chance to question Arteta. If Arsenal have a bad result at Crystal Palace tomorrow, for example, how long will it be before pundits or those on social media dredge up scenes from the documentary?
Summer spend means the pressure is on Arteta to take Arsenal back to the Champions League this season
Today’s launch means Arteta is in the spotlight even more than he would have been before the start of the new Premier League season, and he will just hope the Gunners’ campaign does not start like it did last year, when they had three defeats on the spin.
All signs in pre-season suggest there will not be a repeat, and technical director Edu recently revealed that he and the club have long believed 2022/23 would be the season when the project took off.
Arteta knows that, too, and now the pressure is all on him to deliver. He will just hope that come May he is not left with nothing.
