Mikel Arteta’s tenure in North London couldn’t have begun on a much better note.
The former Arsenal captain was hired as the club’s manager in Dec. 2019 after a string of poor performances left Unai Emery sacked. What immediately followed was promising. The Gunners won half of their remaining Premier League games, including an eight-week unbeaten stretch that ran from late December to the June restart. They climbed from 12th in the table up to a substandard-but-hopeful eighth. His first half-season in charge was then capped with an FA Cup title. Not bad for a first-time manager running an underperforming team during a global pandemic.