Arsenal announce new contracts for Mikel Arteta, Jonas Eidevall

It’s a big day at Arsenal. The club announced contract extensions for both Mikel Arteta and Jonas Eidevall and marked the occasion with a double signing at the Emirates. Arteta’s new deal will keep him at the club through the end of the 2024-25 season. Eidevall’s deal is through the end of 2023-24.

Everybody - Mikel, Jonas, Edu, Vinai Venkatesham, Josh Kroenke - reiterated that the signings were an important signal of the commitment at Arsenal to compete for and win the top trophies in both the men’s and women’s game.

The club released a bunch of content alongside the signings including interviews with Mikel Arteta, Jonas Eidevall, Vinai Venkatesham, and more. There’s a lot to parse through from both managers, and we’ll have more analysis of the deals for the men and the women separately later today. But my general, 10,000 foot take is that stability and consistency are good. Both managers have demonstrated that they can get their roster competing at a high level and look as though they can compete for titles / achieve (and perhaps exceed) the club goals.

One other thing jumped out for me — that Arsenal made the announcements together. In the past, we might have seen the works for the men’s manager and a much smaller feature for the women’s side. While Arsenal have always been pretty good, especially in comparison with other clubs, at promoting and supporting the women’s team, there has always been a pecking order. I think treating new contracts for the managers with the same level of fanfare is another step towards eroding that divide.