The decision to hire Mikel Arteta as head coach, following the sacking of Unai Emery in late 2019, ultimately proved to be one of the most significant moments in Arsenal’s modern history. It would be wrong, though, to suggest that Arsenal’s key decision-makers immediately knew Arteta was the right man for the job.

In fact, Arsenal had initially hoped they would not have to make a permanent appointment for many months. Following Emery’s dismissal, they had put assistant coach Freddie Ljungberg in charge of the squad on an interim basis. There was a belief that the Swede, who had been part of Arsène Wenger’s “Invincibles”, could steady the ship until the end of the season.

Sadly for Ljungberg, it soon became clear that he had neither the expertise nor the tools required to do so. Within a few weeks of taking over, he was publicly pleading with the club to give him more staff. His assistant coach, after all, was academy manager Per Mertesacker, who was not even a first-team coach and already had enough on his plate with the club’s youth set-up.

It quickly became clear that Ljungberg was not a long-term answer, or even a short-term one. Arsenal had to move fast to appoint someone new, and technical director Edu Gaspar was tasked with identifying the right coach.

Edu led the intense and occasionally frantic process, supported by influential members of the recruitment department, who helped to curate the list of candidates and analyse their strengths and weaknesses. During this search, Arteta’s name did not initially feature at the top of Arsenal’s list. In fact, his lack of managerial experience meant he was closer to the lower end of it at first.

One of the problems facing Arsenal was that it was largely impossible to analyse Arteta or measure him against the other candidates, simply because he had no body of managerial work to his name. Since retiring from playing, he had served only as an assistant coach at Manchester City. He had therefore never led a squad, never picked a team, never displayed his tactical ingenuity and never experienced the stresses and strains of being the man on the touchline during high-pressure games.

How could Arsenal judge Arteta’s philosophy against that of a multiple Champions League winner, for example, when there was no concrete evidence of Arteta even having a philosophy?

Pochettino appeared receptive to replacing Emery

And so, as Edu first laid out his criteria and vision for the job, he and his staff could not include Arteta in these conversations in the same way. In some moments, Arteta was an awkward add-on to the initial discussion. The top candidates were all in one group, being judged against each other, while Arteta existed in another group on his own.

Not only was Arteta completely lacking in experience, he was also up against some of the most illustrious names in coaching. His competition for the role included Carlo Ancelotti, who had managed many of Europe’s biggest clubs, and former Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira, who at the time was leading Nice in France. Vieira had a far more successful playing career in north London than Arteta, and was even a former team-mate of Edu’s.

There were others. Remarkably, Arsenal had serious conversations with Mauricio Pochettino, who had been sacked by Tottenham Hotspur just a few weeks earlier. Pochettino spent five years at Spurs and was a hugely popular figure there, but numerous sources have said he showed willingness to engage with Arsenal over the possibility of replacing Emery.

Another strong candidate who advanced a long way in the process was Spaniard Roberto Martínez, who had coached Wigan Athletic and Everton in the Premier League and was leading Belgium at the time. Portuguese coach Vítor Pereira, who later went on to manage Wolverhampton Wanderers and Nottingham Forest, was also among the names on the initial list.

Other high-profile candidates included Julian Nagelsmann, the highly rated young German coach, and Italian manager Massimiliano Allegri. Allegri had just won his fifth consecutive Serie A title with Juventus and, like Ancelotti, was regarded as a ready-made, elite-level option.

How could Arteta possibly triumph over all these names? Perhaps the key factor here was his history at Arsenal. Within the club, those who knew Arteta were utterly convinced that he would be an outstanding coach. Some of them made this clear to Edu, helping to persuade him to at least have a conversation with Arteta before discounting him from the process.

Among those who knew Arteta was Ben Knapper, who had been a first-team analyst during the Spaniard’s time as an Arsenal player. Knapper, along with figures such as Jason Ayto and Mark Curtis in the analytics and recruitment fields, made it clear to Edu that they believed Arteta was worthy of serious consideration. Arteta had shown glimpses, during his playing days at the club, of the sort of manager he could one day become. These were the people who, to varying extents, saw those glimpses and understood the Spaniard’s potential.

‘I was like, wow, this guy is prepared – to the next level’

With these trusted voices urging him on, Edu decided to simply pick up the phone and call Arteta. “I interviewed six coaches, all of them with big experience,” he says. “The only one who did not have big experience was Mikel. When I decided to give an opportunity to Mikel, I sent him a message and gave him a call. We started to talk on the phone about the possibility, the situation, the project and everything.

“That conversation took an hour, easily, and we had a great time on the phone, talking about family, culture, projects, everything – but not much about football. We finished that call as friends. We both really enjoyed it, laughing together. We enjoyed the conversation very much and then we arranged to meet in person.”

The meeting took place at Arteta’s home, and both Edu and Arteta explained their respective visions for Arsenal’s future. “I presented to Mikel what we believed to be correct for the club,” Edu says. “I spoke to him about the squad, the culture, the strategy and everything that I had thought in my six months inside the club.

“And Mikel was extremely prepared for the conversation. He was prepared to such a level that it felt like he was inside the club already. He presented and spoke about everything. Everything. It was extremely impressive, the way he presented his strategy, the way he was seeing the club and also the excitement he had to start the project. I was like: ‘Wow, this guy is prepared – to the next level.’

“I really liked that he is a guy who is extremely detailed. He likes to go deeper on everything you can imagine and he understands everything deeply. In that moment, we went very deep into almost everything we believed. In his house, we felt straight away a synergy, an excitement. It was like we were already starting to make decisions together.”

Having seemingly nailed a similar meeting with Arsenal’s executives the previous year, when he felt he was the front-runner for the job before it was instead offered to Emery, Arteta would have been forgiven for feeling a little anxious about the outcome of this process. But, this time, Arsenal were not going to make the same mistake again. It helped that Edu was now involved, unlike in the summer of 2018 when he had not yet joined the club.

‘It’s about the feeling, and the feeling was that Mikel was the guy’

Raúl Sanllehí, the head of football, was also present at this meeting at Arteta’s home, but in more of an observational role as Edu and Arteta discussed their footballing ideas and plans. From there, the two Arsenal executives returned to London to meet with Josh Kroenke, the son of owner Stan Kroenke, managing director Vinai Venkatesham and contract negotiator Huss Fahmy.

“We brought pictures of all the names I interviewed,” Edu says. “All their faces were on the table. I was prepared to talk through each of them to the group. Because Mikel was so impressive, his face was in front of everyone else. I remember Raúl said: ‘If his picture is at the front, let’s call the guy and make the decision straight away.’”

A people person, Edu places great emphasis on human connections and relationships. With Arteta, who is only four years younger than him, he had that connection immediately.

“I remember I spoke to Per Mertesacker [Arteta’s former Arsenal team-mate] about Mikel,” Edu says. “I asked Per about him as a person, as a guy, how he was in the dressing room.

“All the information that I collected was extremely positive. The decision in the end, talking to Josh Kroenke and explaining it to him, it was a feeling. There are a lot of top coaches. But to work with someone for the long term, they have to be very good and you also need to have some feelings and connections.

“I knew I would be very close to the guy. The sporting director and the coach have to be very close to each other. It’s about the feeling, and the feeling was that Mikel was the guy. I showed Josh Kroenke all the processes. There were a lot of things behind it. When he met Mikel, he was extremely surprised about his knowledge and the way he talked, the way he expressed himself, the way he knew the club. In the end it was an easy call because of the process. Mikel was the best one in almost every aspect.”

The decision was made. Arteta was in, and everything at Arsenal was about to change.