I got very annoyed after watching a video of TalkSport where the host appear to suggest that Arteta is only signing young players so that he can have control over them. I do not agree with this statement and for that I decided to write this blog as a response and to draw comparison with a similar project that has gain success with the same recruitment policy. TalkSport have been pushing an Arsenal agenda for very long time now question Arsenals transfers and unfairly criticizing our manager.

The Arsenal project is not about signing players to have control over but about building a young squad for the future that Arteta can grow and achieve things with. Arteta was with Pep at Man City when they started the rebuild there and its no difference to what he’s doing here. At City they were signing young exciting players to kickstart their project by adding them to a core group of quality experience players they found there. Below I break down their recruitment in two windows:

Players they found who played a role in the rebuild:

  • Aguero (28)
  • De Bruyne (25)
  • Delpth (27)
  • David Silva (31)
  • Fernandinho (31)
  • Otamendi (28)
  • Kompany (30)
  • Foden (17)
  • Sterling (22)

Players signed in the first season (2016):

  • Gundogan (25)
  • Zinchenko (19)
  • Sane (20)
  • Stones (22)
  • Jesus (19)

Players signed in the second season (2017):

  • Bernardo Silva (22)
  • Ederson (23)
  • Mendy (23)
  • Laporte (23)
  • Danilo (26)
  • Walker (27)

By 2018 the rebuild project was complete as they only signed Mahrez to the first team at age 27. From 2019 onwards it was more about adding missing pieces to the squad. Even so they were still signing young players. Rodri and Cancelo arrived at age 23 and 25 respectively.

Since 2016 Man City have won 4 titles under Pep and that has been aided by the young group of players he brought to the club in 2016 and 2017. If you look at the ages of the those players now you can still consider them young and they have resell value. Gabriel Jesus and Zinchenko are both just 25 and City recieve a good fee for their transfer to Arsenal. The same as Sterling, he’s only 27.

Earlier in the window Edu has stated that Arsenal are 100 per cent committed to youth in an interview with Arsenal.com. He also went on to say following:

“We have to go into the market for exciting players with the right age, right attitude and right mentality. We want to see a club like Arsenal with a young squad, an exciting squad with a big, big future because as I said last summer, the idea is to have a young squad. We want to give them the opportunity to play together for two, three, four, five or six seasons.”

The idea of a young squad as explained by Edu is exactly what Pep Guardiola was building at Man City and Arteta has borrowed that to kickstart his Arsenal project. Arteta should be allowed to build his young squad because it only benefits the club long term.