Arsenal: 5 reasons Mikel Arteta and Edu deserve praise

This where the alarms start ringing and calls to seek shelter in underground bunkers ring out through the tannoys. Mikel Arteta and Edu? Deserving of praise? At Arsenal? Surely not.

Where this club has gone wrong is a list that would stretch the length of the Emirates. From Clock End to the North Bank. Amid a summer transfer window like no other where Arsenal need to significantly raise the ceiling and clean up the floor, what is going on in between that needs highlighting.

It’s all about who Arsenal can bring in and how many they can ship out for fees as reasonable as can be accrued. Konstantinos Mavropanos and Matteo Guendouzi are both leaving on deals that look terrible on the club’s part, while Ben White is due to arrive for an astounding amount of money at time where it was felt £50m was insurmountable.

But that isn’t everything this window.

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Arsenal: 5 reasons Mikel Arteta and Edu deserve praise amid a summer transfer window of wholesale change with both under stinging criticism

Arsenal have a core of players that will excite, delight and lead this club into what is hoped to be a new era; a positive shift towards competing at the top end of the Premier League table and returning to elite European competition.

Keeping hold of them is what matters.

Looking at all the fair criticisms Edu and Arteta deserve means it’s easy to lose sight of the opposite. Edu, for example, was key in bringing Kia Joorabchian into this football club. That’s unforgivable.

Arteta, on the other hand, oversaw a campaign of misery littered with mistakes of his own doing that hampered the team’s progress and contributed to some painfully damaging defeats. Both are walking on thin ice.

While this window is underway and already the pitchforks are out ready to lambaste every failed transfer pursuit and questionable deal, all judgement must be spared until August 31. Only then can fans fairly conclude whether it has been a successful summer or not.

Where we can, and should, stop to praise is clear though.

There are five reasons Edu and Mikel Arteta should be highlighted. Their names are Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Folarin Balogun, Kieran Tierney and Emile Smith Rowe.

Five of the biggest talents this club is lucky to have in their ranks and they’re all here to stay.

Last summer Martinelli and Saka penned long-term contracts amid admiring glances across Europe; this year Balogun has followed suit despite huge interest; Tierney signed his own extension without any fuss and Smith Rowe is due to join the group imminently.

This is where the club is going right.

Continued…