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Arteta Has Eight Failures to Correct Before He Completes Football at Arsenal After Latest Scalp
No wonder Mikel Arteta is being talked about in elite terms. In the 2025-26 season, Arsenal sit atop the Premier League with a perfect record from eight Champions League games, are through to the Carabao Cup final, and have secured their place in the FA Cup fifth round. The word "quadruple" — that most mythical of football achievements — is no longer whispered nervously in north London. It is stated plainly. It is expected. And it is very much on.
But this is a story not just of what Arteta has achieved, but of what still gnaws at him. Because even as Arsenal's brilliant manager ticks coaches and clubs off his managerial bucket list at a rapid rate — beating Fabian Hurzeler for the first time, claiming his first career wins over Diego Simeone's Atlético Madrid, Athletic Bilbao's Ernesto Valverde, and most recently Inter Milan at the San Siro — a handful of stubborn failures remain that prevent any of us from calling his Arsenal project truly complete.
This is the list. These are the eight demons Arteta must exorcise, the eight scalps he has not yet fully claimed, the eight problems his extraordinary 2025-26 Arsenal machine still has not solved. Some are coaches. Some are clubs. Some are systemic wounds still left open from seasons past. All of them matter.
How Arteta Has Transformed Arsenal's Managerial Record in 2025-26
Before diving into the failures, it is worth acknowledging the extraordinary scale of Arteta's achievement in simply getting to this point. Across the 2025-26 campaign, the Spaniard has racked up first-career-victories over a truly remarkable roll call of coaches: Regis Le Bris of Sunderland, Keith Andrews, John Mousinho, Ivan Leko, Darren Moore, Liam Rosenior, Jose Luis Mendilibar, and Christian Chivu have all been added to his managerial victories list for the first time. So too have clubs like Club Brugge, Wigan Athletic, and Port Vale.
The scalp that raised eyebrows most was Bayern Munich. That Arteta had never previously beaten one of Europe's most decorated clubs was quietly embarrassing. That he put it right in the 2025-26 season, emphatically, only added to the sense that something truly special is unfolding at the Emirates. And yet — and here is the unavoidable truth — the list of those who still represent unfinished business is not yet empty.
"Four trophyless Arsenal players are about to start their collection. On a personal level, Arteta has managed to address a few of his shortcomings this season — but only a few."
— Trendy News Analysis, February 2026The Eight Failures Arteta Must Still Correct
The one true Premier League monkey left on Arteta's back is the increasingly formidable, increasingly bald reigning champion. In four meetings between Arsenal and Arne Slot's Liverpool — the 2-2 draw at the Emirates in October 2024, the 2-2 at Anfield in May 2025, the 1-0 defeat at Anfield in August 2025, and the 0-0 draw at the Emirates in January 2026 — Arteta's side have failed to beat them once.
It brings genuine shame on the Gunners that across those four meetings, they have conceded five times. That they have not lost more is perhaps testament to Arsenal's doggedness, but not beating Liverpool — the team with whom the title race will ultimately be decided — is the most consequential failure on this list. Everything, absolutely everything, hinges on correcting this one.
If you were designing an opponent to give Arteta sleepless nights, you would not start with the quietly spoken former Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick. And yet the statistics don't lie. Carrick beat Arsenal in December 2021 in his third and final game as United's caretaker boss — the score was 3-2, United trailed 1-0, led 2-1, and won it late. Fast forward to January 2026 and Carrick, now in temporary charge at United again, repeated the trick in his second game — 3-2, United trailing 1-0, leading 2-1, winning it late.
The statistical improbability of this happening twice, with identical scripts, against an Arsenal side that had evolved from Champions League bottlers to Premier League favourites in between, is genuinely staggering. Carrick is Arteta's white whale. A quirk of football that simply refuses to make sense.
Arsenal teased a quadruple at the San Siro this season — and in that very game, on the very night they eliminated Inter from Europe, the ghost of their last meeting loomed large. Simone Inzaghi had taught Arteta a brutal lesson in last season's Champions League league phase, sending the Gunners home with a 1-0 defeat that stung particularly hard because of how comprehensively the Italian masterminded it.
Inzaghi has since packed his bags for Saudi Arabia, and Arsenal got their revenge at the San Siro in 2025-26 — but the memory of that November 2024 defeat, of being outthought and outmanoeuvred in Italy, is a wound that shaped Arteta. It is why the San Siro win this season felt so cathartic, so necessary. The scalp was claimed. The lesson, however, must never be forgotten.
This is not a manager to beat or a club to vanquish. This is a systemic failure that has followed Arsenal across multiple seasons and which Arteta has frankly admitted places him in a "really dangerous circle." Arsenal have suffered more injuries than any other side in the Premier League this season, despite investing over £267 million in eight new signings last summer specifically to build the depth to withstand such attrition.
Defenders, midfielders, attackers — each positional cluster has taken its turn being decimated. Declan Rice has been forced to play right-back. Mikel Merino, overworked by necessity, underwent foot surgery and will miss the rest of the season. The club entered the January window "actively looking" for solutions, with Arteta saying plainly: "We are Arsenal. We have to be looking at it." Until this stops happening season after season, no Arsenal title can be considered secure.
In the 2024-25 season, Arsenal dropped 21 points from winning positions — their joint-worst record in any single campaign. That figure did not just cost them a title; it represented a psychological and tactical failing that Arteta has spent the entire summer and autumn of 2025-26 trying to correct. The early signs are positive: Arsenal look more clinical, more ruthless in seeing games out.
But the 1-1 draw at Brentford in February 2026, when Keane Lewis-Potter's header cancelled out Noni Madueke's opener with Arsenal leading and looking comfortable, was a reminder that the ghost of dropped points is not entirely banished. Arteta himself admitted his side were "not ruthless enough." One draw from a winning position in a title race is costly. In 2024-25, they kept doing it. The habit must be broken permanently.
Arsenal reached the Champions League semi-finals for the first time since 2008-09 in the 2025-26 season — a breathtaking achievement fuelled by a stunning 5-1 aggregate demolition of Real Madrid in the quarter-finals. And then PSG ended the dream. A 3-1 aggregate defeat at the semi-final stage was a harsh, sobering reminder that European royalty remains, for now, out of Arsenal's full reach.
Arteta's record against elite French opposition has never been strong. The PSG defeat will fuel him through the summer. It is the competition he covets most, and the competition that has so far eluded him. The quadruple bid of 2025-26 was necessarily built around the Champions League — and it was the Champions League that brought Arsenal back to earth. For the project to be truly complete, European glory must eventually follow.
The signing of Viktor Gyökeres for £73 million was supposed to resolve Arsenal's striker headache once and for all. The powerful Swedish international had torn up the Primeira Liga with Sporting CP, and the expectation was that he would do the same to Premier League defences. The reality has been more complicated. Gyökeres has shown flashes of his devastating best — but has also endured difficult patches, and the competition from Kai Havertz (when fit) and the improvised brilliance of Mikel Merino as a makeshift striker has complicated Arteta's attacking plans.
Arteta has been publicly supportive, defending the striker in press conferences and praising his attitude in training. But if the Gunners are to win the Premier League title, Gyökeres must find the level of consistency that made him one of Europe's most feared forwards at Sporting. Integrating a £73m signing properly is a task that can take a full season. Arteta must ensure Gyökeres hits his ceiling in 2025-26.
This is, ultimately, the failure that dwarfs all others. Arsenal finished Premier League runners-up for the third consecutive season in 2024-25, becoming the first club in English top-flight history to achieve this feat twice. The distinction is statistically extraordinary, historically unprecedented, and emotionally excruciating. Three times Arteta's Arsenal have played beautiful, principled, relentless football. Three times someone else has lifted the trophy.
In 2025-26, Arsenal are top of the table. They have a perfect Champions League record. They are in the Carabao Cup final and the FA Cup fifth round. The quadruple is a genuine possibility. For the first time since the Invincibles, Arsenal are not just competing — they are dominating. Winning the Premier League title this season would not just be Arteta's greatest achievement as a manager. It would be the moment this generation of Arsenal players finally escapes the shadow of three summers of near-misses. It would complete the project. Everything else on this list would shrink to footnotes.
Why This Arsenal Season Is Different From the Others
The honest answer to that question is Viktor Gyökeres, MartÃn Zubimendi, and a summer transfer window that felt, for the first time in years, like Arteta was given exactly what he asked for. Sporting director Andrea Berta arrived at the Emirates and immediately set about transforming the squad's depth. The £267 million invested in eight players was not vanity spending — it was surgical repair of every wound that had left Arsenal title-less across the previous three campaigns.
The result is a squad that, when healthy, has no obvious weakness. The injury crisis — failure number four on this list — has tested that depth mercilessly. But the fact that Arsenal have remained top of the Premier League, unbeaten in the Champions League, and in contention for four trophies despite losing Merino for the season and cycling through defenders at an alarming rate is a testament to the sheer quality of the 25-man group Arteta now commands.
"This is officially Arsenal's title to lose — and everyone, from the players to Manchester City's dressing room, knows it by now."
— Bleacher Report, February 2026Manchester City Are Still There. And That Is the Point.
Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, still formidable despite an ageing core, are described as "breathing down the necks" of Arsenal following a comeback victory at Liverpool. The margin at the top of the table is slimmer than Arsenal supporters would like. Every point dropped — like that frustrating 1-1 at Brentford — is felt with particular sharpness when City are winning their own games.
And yet Arsenal remain in control. They have the Champions League advantage, the squad depth advantage (injuries notwithstanding), and critically, the home form to rely on. The next six weeks of the season will define it entirely. A Carabao Cup final offers guaranteed silverware. The FA Cup fifth round offers a route to Wembley. The Champions League knockout rounds offer the dream of European glory. And the Premier League title — the one that matters most, the one that would silence every doubter and cement Arteta's legacy — remains firmly in Arsenal's own hands.
What Completing the Project Actually Looks Like
Arteta has been asked whether he imagines staying beyond his contract in 2027. His answer — "Yes, but it is about today. A lot of things have to happen in the next few months to earn the right" — tells you everything about how he views the work still ahead. He is not complacent. He is not satisfied. He is a manager who understands that football history is written in what you win, not in the quality of your near-misses.
The eight failures on this list are not evidence of a project that is failing. They are evidence of a project that is still unfinished. There is a meaningful difference. Arsenal under Arteta have never been more powerful, more organised, more financially backed, or more tactically sophisticated than they are in 2025-26. The players believe. The board believes. North London believes.
Now Arteta must make history believe too. And history is stubborn. It only surrenders to those who refuse to stop pursuing it.
⚽ Trendy News Verdict
Arteta has ticked more managerial boxes in the 2025-26 season than at any previous point in his Arsenal tenure. Bayern Munich beaten. Inter beaten. Atlético beaten. A Quadruple in genuine reach. But Liverpool remain unbeaten against him. Michael Carrick remains Arsenal's most inexplicable kryptonite. PSG sent them home from Europe. And three Premier League runner-up finishes demand a fourth attempt goes differently.
The project is not complete. But for the first time, the end — the real end, the one with trophies and legacy and history — is visible. Arteta must correct eight failures. He has the squad, the backing, the time, and the season. The only question is whether he has the final push left in him and his extraordinary group of players. All the evidence suggests he does.
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