{"id":34907,"date":"2026-05-28T19:20:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/important-comments-from-arsenal-manager-who-guides-mikel-arteta-to-the-new-virgil-van-dijk-soccer-sports\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T19:20:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:20:25","slug":"important-comments-from-arsenal-manager-who-guides-mikel-arteta-to-the-new-virgil-van-dijk-soccer-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/important-comments-from-arsenal-manager-who-guides-mikel-arteta-to-the-new-virgil-van-dijk-soccer-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"Important comments from Arsenal manager who guides Mikel Arteta to the &#8216;new Virgil van Dijk&#8217; | Soccer | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>William Saliba was a key figure in Arsenal&#8217;s &#8216;step back, move forward&#8217; strategy as they won their first league title in 22 years. Arsenal co-chairman Josh Kroenke has revealed how the club decided to chart a new direction almost immediately after the 2019 Europa League final, when Arsenal lost to Chelsea and manager Unai Emery was sacked six months later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>This was a real low point for the club, but Kroenke recalled a pivotal interaction with former Arsenal defender and academy director Mertesacker that set the club on a completely different trajectory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Kroenke said: &#8220;It&#8217;s funny to remember this. I had a great conversation with Per Mertesacker. After the final in Baku, I commented about Virgil van Dijk, who joined Liverpool a year or two ago.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8220;I said, &#8216;How can we get one of these into our system?&#8217; He said, &#8216;Well, unless you&#8217;ve got \u00a3100 million, you shouldn&#8217;t even think about him.&#8217; I said, &#8216;Who&#8217;s the best young defender in Europe?&#8217;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8220;Without hesitation, he turned around and said William Saliba. There were already conversations that summer about building for the future. There were so many moving parts back then&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Arsenal signed Saliba that summer, but then sent him out on loan for three years before Mikel Arteta installed him as a central defender, with the Frenchman establishing himself as one of the best defenders on the planet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Kroenke said, &#8220;I&#8217;m not involved in the transfers. I think my job is to understand the &#8216;why&#8217; on the front end, so if something goes wrong, the back end is responsible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cSo I don&#8217;t want to take credit for transfers or anything like that, but I do want to be around and understand why we pursue certain things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cWilliam&#8217;s story is interesting and Mikel and I have laughed about it now because I didn&#8217;t tell him about it until much later, but when we bought William he was going on loan for two seasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8220;Then by the time William came back into the team we had moved on to Mikel. There was some thought on the front end about William coming back into our team and it was very well publicized. We want you guys to fill in those blanks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8220;But I was sitting there in America laughing and saying, &#8216;Please let this kid exercise!'&#8221; I wasn&#8217;t going to say, &#8220;Hey, someone told me a few years ago that this kid was going to be great!&#8221; What are you going to do? No, they do it themselves. They make the decisions. \u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/sport\/football\/2210861\/Arsenal-Mikel-Arteta-Virgil-van-Dijk-William-Saliba\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Saliba was a key figure in Arsenal&#8217;s &#8216;step back, move forward&#8217; strategy as they won their first league title in 22 years. Arsenal co-chairman Josh Kroenke has revealed how the club decided to chart a new direction almost immediately after the 2019 Europa League final, when Arsenal lost to Chelsea and manager Unai Emery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-matches"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Important comments from Arsenal manager who guides Mikel Arteta to the &#039;new Virgil van Dijk&#039; | Soccer | Sports - EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eplvip.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/important-comments-from-arsenal-manager-who-guides-mikel-arteta-to-the-new-virgil-van-dijk-soccer-sports\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Important comments from Arsenal manager who guides Mikel Arteta to the &#039;new Virgil van Dijk&#039; | Soccer | Sports - EPL VIP \u2013 Latest English Premier League News &amp; Updates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"William Saliba was a key figure in Arsenal&#8217;s &#8216;step back, move forward&#8217; strategy as they won their first league title in 22 years. 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