Arsenal’s ugly – Mikel Arteta and Josh Kroenke describe how Arsenal’s culture was “ugly” when Arteta arrived in December 2019, why changing it required deep support, and how Kroenke’s private conversation with his father Stan helped spark the club’s revolution that ultimately
By the time Arsenal’s title fate was sealed, the breakthrough already had a long, complicated backstory—one that Mikel Arteta and Josh Kroenke have now pulled into the light.
Arsenal’s 22-year wait to win the top flight ended last week when Manchester City’s 1-1 draw at Bournemouth confirmed the Gunners’ place at the summit of English football. For Arteta, the moment was the payoff of a six-and-a-half year rebuild that began when he took over in December 2019.
He walked into a club that, by his own description, didn’t resemble the winning environments he was used to. “When I came here on my first day. ” Arteta said. “unfortunately that setup wasn’t like Liverpool or Manchester City who had already won a lot. This was a completely different animal and we knew that.”.
The Spaniard said the ownership group understood what he was facing immediately. Arsenal’s owner model, he explained, “has experience in sports” and it was clear to everyone that “the picture is ugly at the moment and we have a lot of work to do and everyone was on board with that.”
For Arteta, the most crucial work wasn’t only on the pitch. It was inside the building, with the people who lived the day-to-day reality. “The best part was changing the culture, the culture inside the organisation,” he said. He described a “profound exercise” to understand how people felt about working there. insisting he wasn’t satisfied with what he heard.
“I did a very profound exercise to try to understand that. It’s actually to understand deeply how people feel about working in the organisation, and I wasn’t happy and I wasn’t impressed at all about the way they described it.”
The response, Arteta said, required backing and time. He “needed a lot of support to change that,” and he felt that was the “foundation” Arsenal used to build what came next. He admitted he was expecting the job to take effort—but not as deep as it turned out.
“I was expecting something [work to change], but not as deep or as profound. And then you need time,” he said, adding that it wasn’t simply about tweaking an identity or refining tactics. “This wasn’t about changing the identity of a team to make play them in a certain way or improve certain tactics. It was much deeper than that.”.
Arteta framed the pressure in stark terms: when things aren’t right at a club, doing the work to put it on course is personal. “When things are not in the place that this club deserves, to help them and put them in a certain direction is the most fulfilling part.”
Along the way, he also had to make difficult calls. He pointed to one high-profile example from the 2021-22 season: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s exit.
When asked about whether decisions like that are harsh, Arteta didn’t dress it up. “Is it harsh [in making some of his decisions]? I mean, to be fair, in our job it’s very difficult. What is fair? Fair for you means that fair for [another] is not fair. But at least to stick to your principles.”
He said Arsenal’s internal agreement matters, and that there are expectations around behaviour that are non-negotiable. “I think you explain things and you agree as a team that there are certain behaviours that we expect and we want to promote. If somebody doesn’t do it, I mean, they cannot continue to be part of that. I think that’s clear.”.
Arteta added: “Obviously, yeah, we can put the best beautiful words here around the walls, but they mean nothing.”
Those comments tie directly to the role of Josh Kroenke—particularly after the club’s low point in 2018-19. Arteta’s appointment came just months after Arsenal were thumped 4-1 in the Europa League final by Chelsea at the end of the 2018-19 season, with Unai Emery in charge.
Kroenke said he took that defeat seriously enough to realize the club needed to change. “In the summer of 2019 that’s when it kind of settled in me,” he said. “And I remember talking to my father saying we probably had to maybe take a step back to eventually go forward.”
He then described how the timing aligned with Arteta’s arrival. When Arteta and Arsenal’s project began in December 2019—a “transition period,” Kroenke said—the club’s needs became clearer. “And so when we arrived to that December and it’s kind of a transition period. we could really see that the club was in a place where we needed to really reinvent the culture.”.
Kroenke recalled that his first major conversation with Arteta wasn’t primarily about tactical details. “So when I sat with Mikel, you know, he had all of his football tactics, but the conversation that I really recall was one about culture.”
Seeing the results today, Kroenke called it “a testament” to what Arteta and his staff have done “in the last six years on-and-off the pitch.”
For Kroenke, there’s also a point he returns to: major decisions can’t be guided by emotion alone, even if the situation is painful. “I think that if you’re going to make sound decisions, you have to take the emotion out of it at times,” he said.
Then he offered the clearest description of his own mindset that ties the story together. “For me, I had already kind of come to my own conclusion… that no matter whose fault it is this is the situation and reality of where we are and how are we going to correct it going forward.”
The title celebration didn’t erase what came before it. It proved that the “ugly” culture Arteta described in his first day—and the private push for change Kroenke said he began in the summer of 2019—was treated as the starting point. not an obstacle. for the rebuild that eventually brought Arsenal back to the very top of English football.
Arsenal Mikel Arteta Josh Kroenke Stan Kroenke Premier League Manchester City Bournemouth Aubameyang Europa League final Chelsea Unai Emery culture rebuild December 2019
So they admit the culture was ugly… cool cool.
I mean Arsenal always had this weird vibe to me, like everyone arguing in the background. Glad they finally fixed it but why wait 22 years? Feels like excuses.
Wait, Josh Kroenke talked to Stan and that sparked a “revolution”?? That sounds like PR lol. Also Arteta didn’t fix it alone, players were still the ones on the pitch. Idk I’m not buying the whole story.
Ugly culture is such a vague phrase though. Like who cares what they call it, the board still didn’t spend enough years. And 1-1 draw at Bournemouth confirmed it, so everyone’s acting like it was inevitable. Honestly sounds like they’re rewriting history because they finally won. Next they’ll blame the fans for being quiet.