It’s a calculation that Mikel Arteta has clearly been thinking about ever since the final whistle blew on last season’s title race. Having come so close by racking up their second-highest ever points tally in the Premier League of 89, how many will they need this time to stop the Manchester City juggernaut?
“It won’t be enough,” is the Arsenal manager’s assessment ahead of their first game of the new campaign against Wolves on Saturday. “With the level we are competing with and every season is getting harder, we are going to have to improve again. I don’t know what perfect is but it has to be very close to the numbers that we’ve seen in recent years. We had a gathering together and the players were saying to me: ‘We’re going to be better, we’re going to do it, we want more.’ They are the ones driving that ambition, so that’s always positive.”
While it may be somewhat premature to be discussing potential points tallies before a ball has even been kicked, Arteta’s quest for perfection has clearly provoked some real soul-searching over the past few weeks. His desire to finally get one over Pep Guardiola, whom he worked under for two of City’s unprecedented four successive Premier League titles, has been one of the driving forces behind Arsenal’s steady improvement. Having managed just 56 points in Arteta’s first full season in 2019-20, they improved to 61 the following year but finished eighth again, before coming fifth in 2022 with 69 and finishing as runners up 12 months later having increased their total to 84. No team in Premier League history has ever been able to improve their points tally in five successive seasons but Arteta has to believe it is possible.
“It’s like you’re trying to climb the highest mountain, the most difficult leap in the world and you’re surrounded by people trying to achieve the same ambition. We’re certainly going to try,” he says. “For me we’re still very far from perfection. This team still has levels to reach and they give me the reasons to believe that because I see the way they train and the way they play every day. I believe there is still big room to improve. Everything I do, I try to win. I try to do it at my best. I am happier afterwards, I feel fulfilled. If I am not able to do it, obviously I try to learn from it and apply things that will get me closer to doing that. That is the way I am.”
Arteta had a short break in Mallorca at the start of June before throwing himself back into his attempt to overhaul City. But he insisted there has been plenty of time for reflection about last season, although a question about whether he could ever be fulfilled without winning Arsenal’s first title since the Invincibles in 2004 seemed never to have crossed his mind.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “Obviously if you see no margins and you see ‘OK I cannot really squeeze the lemon, there is nothing there’ then maybe one day. But at the moment I don’t see it that way at all.”
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Asked what more he can squeeze from himself, Arteta adds: “A lot. I think you can evolve a lot. If I see what I used to do, what I do, how I see certain things and deal with certain things, I have to improve a lot.”
Drilling into his players that the “fine margins” that cost them last season in a midseason blip that resulted in successive defeats over Christmas to West Ham and Fulham has become a regular soundbite from the Arsenal manager over the past few weeks and months. He is confident that both the positive and negative experiences of the past two seasons can help them get over the line.
“The only thing we can ask of ourselves is to be the best version of ourselves and maximise that potential. The rest is not in our hands,” he says. “Can I do the best every day of my capabilities at the service of the team and can I be consistent in any context? That’s what we can do. We do that, then we are a great team, to achieve what? Let’s see, depending on what others do.”
Arteta won the FA Cup within six months of taking over at the Emirates in December 2019 but insisted that he is not driven by the desire to win silverware and will not be measuring Arsenal’s progress by that yardstick if they were to fail again. “For me it’s the enthusiasm to be better,” he adds. “When the tasks have been done, the next thing is to go and win it. We are focusing on the process of what we need to do to give ourselves the best chance to achieve it. That’s the demands we put every day on ourselves. I would love to [win a trophy]. Have to? I don’t know, with a knife to my neck, but I would absolutely love that feeling, yes. But today, I cannot think about that. I have to think about Wolves.”