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By Akinwande Soji-Ojo
Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, has signed a new contract at the Premier League club until summer 2025.
Arteta’s joined the club in December 2019, and his previous deal would have run out next summer.
The 40-year-old replaced Unai Emery at Arsenal, taking a senior managerial role for the first time in his career.
He said: “I’m excited, grateful and really, really happy today.
“When I spoke to Josh (Kroenke) he could see the club at the same point and he wanted to take the club the way I wanted to do it. So everything that he’s said, and that Stan has said when I’ve been together with both of them, they’ve always delivered.
“We want to take the club to the next level and to compete really with the top teams. In order to do that, we have to be playing in the Champions League. We have to be able to evolve the team, improve our players, improve all departments, generate even more connection with our fans, improve the atmosphere at the Emirates, be able to recruit top, top talent and the best people for this club to drive this project to that level.”
Arsenal Women manager, Jonas Eidevall, also penned a new contract, which will run until the end of the 2023-24 season.
“It’s great. It allows me to continue to work for a club that I love so much and be around people that I really, really like, and to be able to achieve things together, so I’m really looking forward to that,” Eidevall said.
Before taking the men’s job, Arteta had been working as a member of Pep Guardiola’s coaching staff at Manchester City, a role he took up upon retiring from playing in the summer of 2016.
In September 2020, having guided Arsenal to an eighth-place finish in the Premier League and an FA Cup win in the previous season, Arteta was made first-team manager of the North London club. His previous title was head coach.
Last season, in Arteta’s first full season in charge, Arsenal again narrowly missed out on continental qualification with another eighth-place finish as they finished a point behind rivals Tottenham Hotspur in seventh.
In 2021-22, Arsenal have kicked on under Arteta and, despite losing their opening three matches without scoring, are well in the hunt for a place in the top four.
They are fourth, two points ahead of Tottenham in fifth.
Finishing fourth would see Arsenal return to the Champions League for the first time since the departure of Arsene Wenger.
