wanted to come back to this and highlight its importance, especially among of the asinine “arteta has done nothing impressive” (🙄🙄🙄) talk.
ive been an arsenal supporter for 15 years and this is the first time we’ve ever re-signed a world class player in his prime. we either had old players on bloated wages who we couldn’t even sell for any money, or we had great players in their primes who left us as soon as city, barcelona, or united came calling. this is a big deal. if saliba ends up signing a new contract (which i believe he will) then this right here no doubt plays a huge part in that.
this club is night and day from where it was when arteta took over; night and day. and unlike the majority of our rivals, this isn’t a team that’s going to compete for titles one year and then finish 11th, 4th, 7th, 5th, etc. we are in prime position to be competing for everything going forward, and you can’t do that when you *always* lose your best players in their primes, and/or sign them on the downslope of their career. the Big Gabi signing is huge, both for keeping him here, and for what it means/signifies. i don’t care if fans of other teams who don’t even follow this club don’t see it. this was a monumental signing for us, and a great harbinger of things to come.