When Mikel Arteta walked back into Arsenal as head coach, he found a club adrift. The squad was bloated and incoherent, the standards eroded, the Emirates half-empty and mutinous. Arsenal, once a byword for style and swagger, had become a soft touch in the Premier League.

Arteta’s response was not cosmetic. He dismantled and rebuilt. Senior players were moved on, a new core was recruited, and a ruthless culture was imposed. Training ground demands hardened, non-negotiables were enforced, and a clear identity emerged: intensity with and without the ball, and a collective obsession with defending as fiercely as attacking.

The early league finishes told the story of a long climb rather than a quick fix: eighth, eighth again, then fifth, then second twice. Each near-miss to Manchester City added scar tissue. Arsenal posted elite numbers, broke club records for points and goals, yet still watched Pep Guardiola’s side edge away when it mattered most.

That history made this title run feel precarious. A mid-season wobble, a damaging defeat at the Etihad, and injuries to Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz fed the familiar dread. But where previous Arsenal sides had folded, this one leaned into its new identity. They became the Premier League’s most suffocating defence, stacking clean sheets and strangling games by a single goal.

William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes formed arguably the world’s outstanding centre-back partnership, protected by a midfield led with ferocious authority by Declan Rice. Behind them, David Raya brought calm and command. In front, wingers and forwards chased lost causes as if their careers depended on it. Arteta called it a “love for defending” and it showed in the numbers: opponents routinely reduced to scraps, chances allowed at levels no rival could match.

Set pieces became another weapon. With specialist coaching and meticulous rehearsal, Arsenal turned corners and free-kicks into a production line of goals, a vital source of breakthroughs when open-play fluency dipped and Saka’s fitness faltered.

Off the pitch, the transformation was just as stark. The Emirates, once a symbol of apathy, is now a cauldron. Pre-match welcomes, relentless noise and a sense of shared mission have replaced the boos and empty seats Arteta witnessed as a visiting assistant.

From that low ebb to lifting the Premier League trophy, Arsenal’s journey under Arteta has been one of conviction, patience and evolution. The club he inherited no longer exists. In its place stands a champion, and a manager who has become his own man at the very top of the game.