The extremely noisy 2025 summer window has ended. Liverpool completed an epic high-end purchase of up to 483 million euros. Chelsea is the team with the largest lineup changes, and another Premier League championship team, Arsenal, has become the team with the most net investment. In his seventh season of coaching the Gunners, Arteta received unprecedented support and came to a desperate situation where he could not retreat.
[You can spend money, you can spend money]
Starting from Shahid Khan's helm at Fulham, when Fredrikin took over Everton, the US-funded power in the Premier League has continued to expand and now occupy half of the territory. After experiencing North American professional sports, these gold diggers are at ease when playing Premier League clubs. They rely on the team of professional managers to be responsible for signing ups, and traditional British managers gradually withdrew from the stage of history. In this process, Arteta unexpectedly gained the power to lead the recruitment (after Sanlei left), becoming a special element on the highlight stage. This is why Arsenal was able to choose its unique team building model and tactical style.
Before the summer window of 2025, Arsenal had completed more than 700 million pounds of recruitment expenditure, and the distribution of funds for the third-tier construction was seriously uneven.
Based on the lessons learned from the era of Wenger and Emery, Arteta believes that if Arsenal wants to return to the championship group, it must first change its temperament of being defeated when facing strong people, and improving the ability to resist strikes on the defense line is the key. In the past six seasons, Arsenal's recruitment expenditure has exceeded 700 million pounds, and nearly 40% (299 million pounds) have been used to upgrade the defense line. The total value of new midfielders is about 275 million pounds, and the forward recruitment expenditure is about 140 million pounds, accounting for only 20%. The investment in recruitment at the winger position is almost negligible.
Arsenal is the team with the highest cost-effectiveness (player appreciation) in the Premier League lineup, and this alone is enough to convince the management to invest additionally for him.
In terms of specific personnel selection, Arteta deliberately avoided the arms race with other Big6 teams. Most of the backcourt players he chose were newcomers with growth potential (such as Saliba and Gabriel), while the forward reinforcements were abandoned by giants (Jesus and Havertz). Thanks to the improvement of the team's record and the growth of young players, Arsenal's lineup added value reached 315.9 million pounds, becoming the most cost-effective team in the Premier League lineup.
2025 summer window, Arsenal's signings are innovative, but they also adhere to the "tradition".
For the US-funded controllers who focus on revenue and financial balance, Arteta not only led the team to achieve excellent results, but also allowed the team's assets to appreciate significantly. It is a perfect coaching candidate, and it is natural to obtain additional investment. After winning the Premier League second for three consecutive years, Arsenal has indeed reached the point where he wants to increase his goal in the championship. Chelsea's performance in the Club World Cup has obviously stimulated them. If they want to miss the "1 billion dollar feast" in four years, they must be prepared in advance. The 290 million euros high-end purchase will follow this summer.
["Mu's philosophy" reappears, and Tajikistan also has a hidden secret]
When Arsenal struggled in the post-Winger era, Manchester City and Liverpool won the Premier League championship with record high scores. The two families polished the sign of the prosperous Premier League with years of fierce competition. The arms race within the Big6 Group continued to heat up, and the tolerance rate of championship and four major battles has been declining again and again. As a disciple of Guardiola, Arteta was not burdened by his reputation, but instead looked for a brand new track and tried to overtake on the curve.
The defeated army in the past has become the unbeaten army in the Big6 minor league today, and Arteta has completely changed Arsenal's temperament.
After Wenger and Emery, Arsenal conceded 51 goals in the Premier League for two consecutive seasons, and strong dialogues were about to collapse. In the 2020/21 season, Arteta reduced Arsenal's goals to 39 in his first full coaching season, and was crowned the best defense line of the Premier League in a row during the "three consecutive games". This young army gradually possessed a style and temperament that was very different from that of the predecessors.
In recent years, the development of ball-handling tactics and oppressive counter-grabbing tactics have entered a turning point. Manchester City and Liverpool have successively chosen the model of building teams around tall players. The former relied on the "Giant Formation" to win the treble crown in the 2022/23 season, and the latter has successively added several tall attackers in this summer window. In the process of reshaping the Gunners' football image, Arteta also relies heavily on tall players to use their figure and confrontational abilities to block the backcourt space and improve the efficiency of set pieces offensively.
Although it created a 22-game unbeaten record in the Big6 Civil War, Arsenal repeatedly hit a wall in front of the iron barrel formations of mid- and lower-level teams and sacrificed offensive liquidity for careful study of defense and set pieces. Arteta is regarded by many as a "complex" between Mourinho and Tony Pris, believing that his tactics have "got astray" and ruined the beautiful football image that Wenger has worked hard to establish. Last summer window, Arsenal made mistakes in signings. They were still persistent in introducing midfielders (Calafiori & Merino) without much room for defense improvement. The upgrade work of the frontcourt was seriously lagging behind, which laid the groundwork for the subsequent failure.
[Retain the defensive structure, and break the situation with "common visitors" in the front court]
In the past three seasons, Arsenal has lacked high-level centers and assisted full-backs in the team. It is difficult to achieve speed in the counterattack battle. The positional offense is highly dependent on the connection between Odegao and Saka. Once the two "big cores" with the ball are absent, it will lead to a cliff-like decline in offensive efficiency. Last season, the intensive schedule of Christmas-New Year was suffocating. The former Iron Man combination was knocked down by injury. Arsenal was quickly completely thrown away by Liverpool and withdrew from the league championship battle early. The result of "three consecutive runs" led to the loss of Arteta's reputation again..
In the past summer window, Arsenal invested 293.5 million euros to sign, second only to Liverpool (483.7 million euros) and Chelsea (328 million euros) in the five major leagues. Because it earned 10.3 million euros by selling players alone, Arteta's team became the team with the most net investment this season (283 million euros). Under Arteta's instruction, Belta retained the backbone of the "three consecutive Asian players", introduced many good forward players, and upgraded the key positions in the midfield and backcourt. Arsenal has sounded the horn for the championship.
Last season, Arsenal fell behind during Odgao and Saka's absence, and Arteta chose Eze and Maduaike, who are familiar with the rhythm of the Premier League, as strategic patches.
Just just started this season, Odegao and Saka were injured again, but Arsenal fans don't seem to be worried about this, and the huge forward configuration is their confidence. Yorkress has demonstrated his "bad" ability against Leeds United. Both Maduaike and Eze have proved their players in the Premier League. The former has made up for the Gunners' lack of ability to hold balls on the wing, and the latter can play the role of the offensive axis when the dual-core is absent.
The abandoned players from the Premier League giants can bring a plug-and-play effect, which is in line with the characteristics of Arteta's steady and steady playing.
In the process of leading Arsenal from the 4th Group to the 4th Group, Arteta received a large number of players from Manchester City and Chelsea. Although this move has been criticized, it can achieve the effect of "buying horse bones with a thousand gold coins". These players who are familiar with the Premier League will at least not be as unacceptable as mainland visitors. This time, we will lead the team to attack the championship, and the fault tolerance space left for Arteta has become very narrow, and the young coach did not give up his principles under heavy pressure.
With the joining of Yorkez and Eze and the renewal of Envanéri, the Arsenal striker has already had nine attackers on the list, which is enough to cope with the needs of multi-line combat.
While striving for a good player in the Mainland League (Yorcres & Suvimenti), and then introducing Premier League giants abandoned players (Maduaike), Arteta did not buy assisted full-backs because of strengthening the offense, but continued to vote for the sidewalkers (Inkapier). This is an extension of his usual cautious approach. The transformation results achieved by working hard for six seasons must be consolidated. This young team still needs time to make the barrel slowly hot.
【Summary】
In the third round of the Premier League, Arsenal lost to Liverpool away, and his unbeaten record against Big6 team remained at 22 games. Yongbery, the undefeated season, severely criticized his old club's style of playing, which put Arteta and his disciples in great pressure. At the moment of gathering with the 9 power forwards, Arsenal bid farewell to the old era in such a slightly bitter way, and Arteta has ushered in an opportunity to try a tactical leap forward.
It has been more than 20 years since the last league championship (2003/04 season), and Arsenal has experienced too many twists and forbearance in the dark night. The competition among the top Premier League groups has become increasingly fierce, and all teams hope to achieve quick success by spending money. As a legend who witnessed Arsenal's trough period, Arteta was also spending big money, but he also knew the importance of being cautious about arrogance and impetuousness and moving forward steadily. His vision of traveling through the cycle is fully reflected in team building ideas, signing strategies and tactical path choices. Arsenal needs such a head coach who deserves the history of the club, respects the club's values, has pioneering ability, and can always maintain a modest and cautious attitude.