Without pots of cash, Arsenal’s best solution is Pep’s sidekick

There can be few doubts that Mikel Arteta is a good fit for Arsenal, despite his appointment representing something of a calculated gamble. The North Londoners have famously gambled before on the management front and come up trumps. There is, therefore, no need to get more than medium-sized jitters about the arrival of a man whose profile fits the bill on many levels.

The urge to draw in ex-players is strong in the Premier League these days, but for the country’s so-called giants, one must tread more carefully. It brought Manchester United to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s snow-swept Norwegian doorstep after all and now it dragged Arsenal’s top brass north to the frozen steppes of Manchester.