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Published 17:36 23 Aug 2021 BST
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But the following season, any optimism at the club was quickly drained away by a poor star. Then-West Brom manager Sam Allardyce even joked that Arsenal were among the teams fighting relegation. The defensive clangers became more frequent, the underwhelming results against mid-table fodder increasingly predictable, and Arsenal slumped to an 8th place finish, meaning they would not play any European football for the first time since 1995.
With no immediate quick fix to the multitude of structural problems at the club, Arsenal decided to place their trust in Arteta, a club legend as a player and supposedly a promising young coach, who had previously been working as assistant to Pep Guardiola.
And they spent money to bolster his squad. Since Edu Gaspar took over as technical director in the summer of 2019 - six months before Arteta was hired as manager - Arsenal have signed 17 players, and the squad looks... no better than it did before. In that time, they've also lost the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Özil for no compensation, and still have players on the books they are desperate to flog.
In fairness, this summer showed something resembling a strategy in the transfer market now: signing young players with resale value, which was a welcome change from taking Chelsea cast-offs. The problem remains that the players they've signed have not progressed as hoped, in large part due to the dysfunctional set-up in which they're playing.
Arsenal fans have repeatedly been told that Arteta needs time, that they should 'trust the process' - a phrase used by Arteta himself in 2020. Even the club's social channels have adopted the mantra since then.
But you can only expect people to trust a process if there is a process to be trusted. Sunday's humiliating defeat displayed no sign of a plan, short-term or long-term, and no coherent tactics while out of possession, or in possession for that matter. No Arsenal fan expected to win that game, but the boos at full-time were indicative of the exasperation among the fanbase who have been told to believe in something that doesn't really exist for too long.
'Trust the process' is now a completely hollow motto, more often used as a meme to mock Arsenal on social media than a genuine reason for optimism.
It's worth noting that this isn't necessarily all Arteta's fault. Unai Emery enjoyed success before and after his spell at the Emirates. Clearly something is wrong at the core of the club and the rebuild to where they want to be - challenging for titles - will be long and painful.
But at this point, Arsenal are not even giving fans the bare minimum: some semblance of a plan, some concrete ideas and some intelligent performances. A reason to trust the process.
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