Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta started his managerial career facing comparisons with Pep Guardiola before more recently being likened to José Mourinho.
The Guardiola link was inevitable, a product of their friendship dating back to 1997. Arteta first met his idol at the Barcelona academy before working under him at Manchester City for three years as a coach. They view the sport the same way, and Arteta’s Arsenal would look to embody many of the same traits.
The parallel with Mourinho is a more recent occurrence, a consequence of the Gunners’ evolution into a physically imposing side primarily founded on resolute defending.
But that note of conservatism within their composition this season brings Arteta to a point analogous with a third manager: Gareth Southgate.
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Arteta in 2025-26 is in a remarkably similar position to then-England boss Southgate at Euro 2024. Both managers took over teams in a disparate state, restored their culture and credibility on the biggest stage and had come agonizingly close to delivering the major trophy their fanbases crave. The final test is this: Can the team that you’ve admirably transformed into a powerful force seize the moment and win silverware?
Southgate came painfully close again last summer, but left his role in July after England lost the final 2-1 to Spain. Despite reaching back-to-back European Championship finals, the soundtrack to England’s campaign was acrimonious. Expectations had increased as England assembled their most dynamic squad in a generation, just as Arsenal arguably possess now. Southgate was accused of “playing with the handbrake on,” the exact criticism Arteta faced after Arsenal lost 1-0 at Liverpool in August and again when drawing 1-1 against Manchester City last month.
How Arteta responds over the course of the campaign will go a long way to deciding whether the Gunners can win their first Premier League title since 2004. Ending, if you will, 22 years of hurt. Southgate’s experience should serve as a warning because he had more in common with Arteta to this point than you might think.
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Inheriting a mess
A lot of managers talk about cultural change, but few actually achieve it. Southgate inherited an England team that had just suffered one of the worst results in its history by losing to Iceland at Euro 2016, which was Roy Hodgson’s final game in charge. To compound the mess, Sam Allardyce lasted just 67 days as his successor before being caught up in a newspaper sting revealing his apparent willingness to advise on circumventing Football Association rules on transfers.
Essentially, the England team was broken. Players felt the weight of the shirt and history on their shoulders. Southgate stepped in as a young manager inexperienced at the highest level, hoping to draw on his experience as a former England player of 57 caps.
At Arsenal, Arteta took over from Unai Emery in December 2019 with the club still struggling to escape the shadow of Arsène Wenger’s glory days. Wenger had fumbled around in that darkness long enough, and Emery was only briefly capable of dragging them into the light before his sacking after 18 months in charge.
The dressing room was fractured and supporters felt disconnected from the team, albeit primarily focusing their frustration on American owners Kroenke Sports Enterprises. Arteta was a young manager inexperienced at this level but with an innate understanding of Arsenal’s core thanks to five years as a player at the club between 2011 and 2016.
Both utilized innovation in different fields. Southgate once took England on a training camp with the Royal Marines, while Arteta recently revealed he sought the advice of RAF fighter pilots to explore ways his players could improve their communication.
Both needed to redefine the team before they could think about trying to win anything big. Arteta’s 2020 English FA Cup triumph gave him the authority to do so in the same way Southgate’s 2018 FIFA World Cup semifinal run validated his methods.
Reconnecting supporters with the team
England named their youngest squad for a major tournament in 58 years at Euro 2016 with an average age of 25 years, 10 months. That figure went up slightly to 26 in Southgate’s first tournament, but England took the most inexperienced squad of all 32 teams at the 2018 World Cup.
Southgate also sought to break down barriers between the team and supporters by encouraging players to embrace the scrutiny upon them rather than allow it to inhibit them. A more transparent media approach enabled new, relatable characters to emerge and Southgate quickly adjusted to the statesmanship required of England managers to opine intelligently on a wide range of subjects.
Arteta’s progression as an orator has been slower but he also turned to youth, accelerating the development of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe, followed by Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly and now Max Dowman.
Both sought the influence of other sports. Southgate spent time in the England rugby union squad as they prepared for their 2017 Six Nations campaign, and frequently spoke with ex-England boss Eddie Jones. He also joined England rugby league head coach Shaun Wane for sessions held for his Rugby League World Cup train-on squad. Arteta has taken ideas from the All Blacks and LA Rams coach Sean McVay, with whom he shares his employment under the KSE stable.
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The importance of set pieces
Who remembers the “Love Train”? England’s run to the semifinals in Russia — which exceeded all expectations — was predicated upon an expert understanding of set pieces and how the newly implemented VAR system would affect the game.
The strategy involved players forming a line from corners, then darting in different directions to attack the ball. It was part of a highly effective plan that saw England score nine of their 12 goals from dead-ball situations. That remains the highest figure at a World Cup for any team since the data was first recorded in 1966. To underline the improvement, England had not scored from a set piece in three consecutive tournaments dating back to 2010.
Southgate tried to move away from this reliance on set pieces at subsequent tournaments as England grew in confidence on the world stage, attempting to transition from functional pragmatism to assertive dynamism. Their set-piece prowess waned, but it was never quite replaced by the sort of creativity many supporters demanded, though the team were a penalty shootout away from winning Euro 2020 and suffered a late loss to Spain in the final four years later. A close quarterfinal loss to France at the 2022 World Cup came between the two.
Arsenal’s improvement in set pieces came later in Arteta’s tenure. After scoring 91 goals in the 2023-24 season — a Premier League record — their critics argue they have become even more reliant on dead-ball situations. They are the best in the country by some distance. Since the start of the 2023-24 season, the Gunners have scored 36 goals from corners — 15 more than anyone else.
In fact, of the managers whose teams have scored more than 300 Premier League goals, only Tony Pulis (21.9%) and Sean Dyche (18.6%) have a higher percentage than Arteta’s 16.7% from set pieces.
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Understanding history … but now embracing risk
This is the big one, and where we now find Arteta. The edge Arsenal have found on set pieces has almost become their defining characteristic. Memes of Arteta as former Stoke City boss Pulis circle the internet as the Gunners sometimes struggle to create from open play. Arteta faces accusations of “playing with the handbrake on” and it might not be lost on the Spaniard that his most famous predecessor, Wenger, initially coined the phrase when explaining how his team sometimes played with inherent inhibition.
In an interview with ESPN before Euro 2024, Southgate addressed similar criticism by saying: “I think people would like fantasy football. Very few teams play that way … there will always be, I think, for any coach, [a thought of] ‘OK, what’s the ideal balance here of the team in terms of numbers of attacking players?'”
It is the question Arteta is grappling with. Two elements might heavily influence his thinking. The first is history. Like Southgate, Arteta is steeped in the heritage of his role. His appreciation of Arsenal’s values helped inform a cultural reset and carefully deconstruct historical barriers by identifying small but important stepping stones to build belief: winning at Old Trafford, beating Manchester City, reestablishing their north London derby dominance.
Southgate had a similarly acute understanding of England’s checkered past, himself a reference point when missing the decisive penalty in his country’s Euro ’96 defeat to Germany. But there is a case to suggest that in the end, Southgate found it difficult to completely detach himself from that past when the situation demanded it.
That approach initially helped temper expectations, puncture hyperbole and ground players in reality. But as the squad dynamic changed over time to contain a rich array of fearless (at club level) attacking talent, they required a manager willing to take greater risks and pursue an expansive style to seize the moment.
And that is the second point for Arteta. After spending another £260 million this summer, Arsenal possess one of the best squads they have had in many years. Many would suggest it is the best in England right now. And so, without throwing caution to the wind, why not recalibrate the side by displaying greater adventure to take the opportunity before them?
Arteta was hugely respectful of both the Anfield effect and City’s ability to open up any team. Nobody is asking him to abandon those principles, because as Southgate rightly argued, that would lead to complaints of naivety. But this is not a time or a team to be concerned about what has gone before. They have evolved. This group would seemingly benefit from the freedom to take more risk.
A midfield trio of Martín Zubimendi, Declan Rice and Mikel Merino drew much of the attention as it shunned more dynamic options. Eberechi Eze has become a signpost in this regard: his inclusion generally signifies greater intent. Arteta’s desire to control midfield is understandable.
Again, Southgate did the same — facing criticism for pairing Kalvin Phillips and Rice together out of a fear England did not keep the ball well enough in major tournaments and needed to protect their back line. But by the time Euro 2024 came around, England possessed Cole Palmer, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Saka, Eze, Kobbie Mainoo and Jarrod Bowen, to name just seven gamechangers at their disposal. Southgate never found a combination to extract the creativity that group offered.
There have been positive signs in that regard for Arteta. There is a better structure to Arsenal’s play. And Arteta seemed to have learned from those Liverpool and City games by rolling the dice to beat Newcastle on Sept. 28, after which Gary Neville noted the shift in approach.
“He’ll play it down, Mikel Arteta, we’ll hear him say they’ve done nothing differently, but his team selection at the start of the game is more positive,” Neville said on Sky Sports. “His substitutions were everything he could have thrown at the game. If you’re going to come off a football pitch, make sure you’ve used all your weapons, make sure you’ve used everything in your armory, and you’ve done that.”
Former England international Neville was himself briefly a manager at Valencia. But the coach Arteta should be learning from right now is Southgate.
