Arsenal want Mikel Arteta to stay for the long haul, and co-chair Josh Kroenke has left no room for doubt about it.
Speaking to reporters ahead of Saturday’s Champions League final, he described a new contract for the manager as the club’s “utmost priority”.
Arteta’s current deal runs until 2027, but talks over an extension have already begun and are expected to accelerate once the season is done.
The motivation is hardly a mystery. Having just ended Arsenal’s 22-year wait for the league title, Arteta has earned every ounce of the board’s urgency to tie him down.
Arsenal Make Arteta new deal their ‘utmost priority’
Kroenke is convinced the feeling is mutual. “Keeping Mikel around is (an) utmost priority,” he said.
“I think the good news for Arsenal fans worldwide is he’s enjoying the project, he’s enjoying being here, and from his time as a player all the way up until now, he’s an Arsenal man through and through.”
The Spaniard has been in charge since 2019. He called himself “fully committed” to the club last month, even as he asked for contract talks to wait until the campaign was over.
In the weeks since, he has delivered the title and reached a Champions League final.
Josh Kroenke: “Mikel Arteta was looking at an NFL game & he goes, ‘every play is choreographed, every play is a set-piece’. I took him to a hockey game, he said ‘they form triangles everywhere, we have to get down there, I’d love to meet the coach’. He wants to apply it.” pic.twitter.com/d2hmDoZ8Ic
For his part, Kroenke is quick to direct the credit back towards the dugout. He has consistently framed Arteta, his staff and the players as the people who earned the club’s patience through the lean years, casting the ownership as the platform-builders rather than the architects.
What gives the deal its edge is the calendar. Arteta enters the final year of his contract this summer, and a title-winning manager drifting towards his last twelve months is precisely the situation clubs dread. Arsenal would far rather have certainty before that clock grows any louder.
For now, the two sides sound entirely aligned. Arteta is enjoying the project, Kroenke wants him leading it for years, and a European final still lies ahead. The paperwork, you suspect, is a formality waiting to happen.
Josh Kroenke: “Mikel Arteta was looking at an NFL game & he goes, ‘every play is choreographed, every play is a set-piece’. I took him to a hockey game, he said ‘they form triangles everywhere, we have to get down there, I’d love to meet the coach’. He wants to apply it.”
pic.twitter.com/d2hmDoZ8Ic
