Arsenal double down on Project Arteta, but they can’t even sell out derby

Board need more than a victory over rivals

HOW long does it take for Arsenal to become Arsenal again? Three decent wins against Norwich, Burnley and AFC Wimbledon does not cut it. The club hierarchy hope we will see the best of Mikel Arteta’s team by the end of the season. More likely though, we are in for the long haul, the slow rebuild.

Today’s north London derby is far too early to be season defining but its importance can scarcely be overstated. Arsenal have recovered from their worst start in history and a win would feel like a full-scale crisis properly averted. Clubs can live off the dopamine hit of a derby win for weeks. Yet that would be superficial. The foundations of this reconstruction are fragile.

This summer the board doubled down on their bet on Arteta with £149million spent mainly on potential in Ben White, Martin Odegaard, Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Albert Lokonga and Nuno Tavares. It is a bold strategy, to pile in on red in the middle of a losing run, risking one more spin of the wheel. Not since 1995 have Arsenal finished lower than eighth, their finishing position twice in 21 months under Arteta.

If there were any doubts after their worst start ever to a campaign, those have dissipated. The message from the boardroom this week has been genuinely enthusiastic about Arteta and his young charges. The key decision makers are Stan and Josh Kroenke and their representative in London is Tim Lewis, with Lord Harris of Peckham representing a link with the past.

Their money is now all in on Arteta, 39, in his first managerial job, Edu, 43, in his first technical director role in Europe and Vinai Venkatesham, 40, in his first appointment as a chief executive. That team is as raw as the one on the pitch. And only Lord Harris in the boardroom would really understand the ebb and flow of football over the sweep of decades.

Losses for last season’s campaign without fans are likely to be about £158m. That is in line with other clubs, but they cannot sustain spending like this every summer, certainly not without European football.

At board level, however, there is genuine enthusiasm and optimism about the project the club are embarking upon. Clearly Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe have excited with their breakthroughs but Tomiyasu, Tavares and Lokonga have also impressed. Odegaard’s starring role at Burnley was obvious. Arteta was talking about the club’s glory days on Friday, Arsene Wenger’s Double-winning teams that could play you off the park or, if you chose to make it a battle of it, kick you into the stands.

‘That was another generation of fantastic players that created a history in those clashes,’ said Mikel, reminded of the infamous confrontation between Ruud van Nistelrooy and Martin Keown, which took place at Old Trafford 18 years ago this weekend. ‘It was phenomenal to watch because it was all about passion and competing.’

Arteta hates the fact that Arsenal have become a byword for a soft touch. He vowed to change that. ‘Every time we are on the pitch we have to do it for ourselves, because we know that is a basic principle to compete in any game. We’ve done it in the past. We kept that belief that we are able to do it.’

Yet there is no denying Arsenal are not what they were. Today’s derby is unlikely to sell out. A hundred or so Club Level seats, the most expensive in the middle tier, are likely to be available, unthinkable back in the day.

There are mitigating factors, the foremost being Covid-induced economic uncertainty. But this is also an Arsenal without any European football, let alone the Champions League. Wenger always said the club could only justify toplevel pricing because they were playing top-level football. That link has been broken. Beating Spurs will not restore it. In reality, some of the games next month — Brighton, Aston Villa and Leicester — will tell us more. If Arsenal struggle to get results against such clubs ready to supplant them near the top, the trajectory will look decidedly flat.