Morning all. We had a couple of stories yesterday about Mikel Arteta agreeing a new Arsenal contract, but I’m not even sure that’s particularly surprising. We await an official announcement, and I think it’s probably best to leave any commentary until then, but after guiding the club to its first Premier League title in 22 years, the man has more than earned new terms in my opinion. From the absolutely torpor of the late-Wenger, post-Emery situation we found ourselves in, to champions. Who can really argue? It was not easy, there was such a lot to do on and off the pitch, and it took us a while to finally get over the line. But you look at Arsenal then and Arsenal now and it’s like night and day. Anyway, perhaps some more considered thoughts – if they’re even needed – when we get there. It also seems as if Arteta’s staff are in line for extensions too, which makes sense, especially as their previous contracts weren’t fully lined up in terms of time-frame with his. Contract aside, one of the things that has been a cornerstone of Arteta’s Arsenal is his drive for improvement. When you come into a club that is, frankly, a mess from top to bottom, putting those things in place isn’t necessarily easy, but relatively straightforward. Please note use of the word relatively there. Obviously he had to come in, identify the myriad issues we had, and put in place new processes, new people, new ideas, all of which are designed to make things better. If you have a shell of a house, you’ve got to put the foundations in first and go from there. It’s when you have a lovely building that looks solid from the outside that it becomes more difficult to find those improvements. It’s why, I suppose, we hear so often about ‘marginal gains’, because you don’t need to put a new roof on anymore, you need to insulate the attic to keep the heat in (so to speak). I don’t think anyone who has listened to this manager speak at any point during his tenure will be in any doubt that he will not rest on his laurels at all, and by extension that will apply to those around him too. We’ve seen him be ruthless with players, even ones who have been cornerstones of his project have been let go. Gabriel Martinelli, for example, was allowed to leave – in part for financial reasons – but also because there was the possibility, slight as it was, that we might be able to bring in a player who could raise the level. Personally, and I know some will disagree, I’d feel better about our squad right now if we still had Martinelli. I know he had plateaued to an extent, but right now it feels to me like keeping him was better for us on the pitch than selling him for the £60m we received from Al Hilal. I realise this sounds crazy in a world where opinions are deemed to fixed (‘You thought this one thing, and now you must think it forever!’), but I might change my mind about this in the future. If we do some business in January with the money his sale brought in and that makes us better, I’m ready to say ‘Fair enough, you got it right!’. I’m talking now though, and while I don’t think Martinelli would have necessarily changed much about what happened at Brighton on Saturday because I think there was a collective off-day, I would be less worried about teams trying to do that to us again because we so obviously lack pace on the out-ball. Which is why Brighton were as willing to press as high as they did, and this is a strategy we’ll have to deal with again. I also think it’s a challenge we can deal with, we have very good players and a manager whose coaching is good enough for us to work out this particular problem, but do we have all the tools we need at our disposal? I don’t think so. Which is why, if I were involved in recruitment and deal-making while working for someone like Arteta – with the power and control he has at this football club – I’d be making sure the January window doesn’t end the way the summer one did. We did good business in certain areas, and dropped a clanger up front. The manager obviously has input into the business the club does, but his quite pointed post-transfer window comments about ‘Ask Josh and Andrea’ about getting deals done told us something too. Anyway, time will tell on that. Not a lot else going on this morning. Thanks to Andrew Allen for pointing me in the direction of this interesting piece about punditry and #content, it’s worth a read this morning. For now, have a good one. The post A Wednesday Arteta ramble appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.