Mikel Arteta and Edu Gaspar spent the best part of five years together at Arsenal. Not as players but as the leadership fulcrum in senior positions. Manager and director.
Edu went from technical director to sporting director just over halfway through his spell. By the end, Arsenal had almost completely aligned in their process of recruitment for the first team.
In that time, Arteta has grown. From embarking on his first senior job as a head coach, he is now firmly a manager. A figure much closer to Arsene Wenger in his wide-ranging responsibilities at the club than most clubs now operate with.
Their relationship, having gone through so much cultural and sporting change, was strong. Other than the big striker debate, they formed a squad together which covered most bases.
Arsenal went from mid-table strugglers to title contenders rapidly. Arteta’s coaching, his control over the dressing room, and the transfer activity to overhaul from top to bottom were vital.
Edu and Arteta have already gone through three different versions of Arsenal. The inherited post-Unai Emery group with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mesut Ozil, and Alexandre Lacazette became the youthful and refreshed 2022/23 side.
It only took one season of Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Albert Sambi Lokonga for serious movement towards the current iteration. Underpinned by physicality (Kai Havertz, Declan Rice, and the host of defenders able to play at centre-back), the newest Arsenal is also the one searching to take the final step.
Andrea Berta has been appointed and he is tasked with finding the right players to complete Arteta’s squad. The remit is fairly simple: Buy a striker, goalkeeper, midfielder, and winger.
Martin Zubimendi is the arriving midfielder and Kepa Arrizabalaga is the goalkeeper. It is the two other positions which get more attention due to the attacking importance, especially for a team which has lacked creativity in the absence of key players and had very little bite all too often, at least consistently, in the past two years.
Kepa would become the first proper deal to be completed through Berta. The groundwork for signing Zubimendi was done in January and has been finalised by the Italian. Kepa is not what many will care about with Arsenal this summer, no matter how useful and well-valued of a move it might be.
Instead, the focus is on the striker and winger. Havertz needs some support and competition up front, and that is a role that Gabriel Jesus cannot fill even when fit.
The names on the shortlist are well-known. It’s Viktor Gyokeres and Benjamin Sesko. That much has been clear for a while but it has not helped narrow things down massively.
Bukayo Saka, meanwhile, is desperate for the same. Any winger would surely be asked to push Gabriel Martinelli regularly on the left flank as well.
Whilst the summer window, which has been stop-start due to the Club World Cup, is still in its infancy, there is growing frustration at the lack of progress on the forward front. For Arteta, the earlier these things are done, the better.
He welcomes his players back for initial pre-season training on July 7 before they fly out to Asia less than two weeks later. It is still quite some time for Arsenal to conduct their business, and Berta might need it if he is to firm up the primary targets, but nevertheless, there is mounting pressure for something tangible to be done.
With a much smaller runup to the summer window than would have been ideal for Berta, who took over from interim sporting director Jason Ayto, there is certainly reason for the relatively low-key start. Whereas Arsenal’s rivals have been active, there is little to speak of in or out of the Emirates Stadium.
After getting on with things so seamlessly with Edu, Arteta will need time to build a synergy with Berta. He will hope that before that really kicks in, a timely favour can be done this window. He needs a striker before long and will hope that a winger is not far behind.
