December 2019, and nobody would have taken the bet
Six seasons outside the top four. Unai Emery just sacked. And the job handed to a Guardiola assistant who had never run a dressing room in his life.
Nearly seven years later, Mikel Arteta takes his side to Villa Park on Monday night for game number 250 in the Premier League. The number sounds unremarkable. Then you look at who else has managed it. Nine men, in the whole history of the competition, have reached 250 league matches at a single club.
The Basque becomes the 10th. First one since 2023.
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A list that fits on a line and a half
Guardiola got there with City in February 2023. Klopp at Liverpool and Sean Dyche at Burnley the year before that. Then Ferguson at United, Wenger at Arsenal, Moyes at Everton, Joe Kinnear at Wimbledon, Harry Redknapp at West Ham, Alan Curbishley at Charlton.
That is everyone.
The context is what makes Arteta’s number strange. Managers get months now, not years. Another summer, another round of sackings across the division. Arsenal went the other way and kept backing a coach through stretches when backing him looked stubborn.
60.2%, and only three men in the club beat it
Last season settled the argument. A title, 22 years after the previous one, arriving on the back of three consecutive second-place finishes.
Through 249 matches: 150 wins, 48 draws, 51 defeats. A 60.2% win rate. Inside the 250 club only Guardiola (70.8%), Ferguson (65.2%) and Klopp (62.6%) sit above him.
Villa on Monday, then the rest of a season in which most of Arsenal’s rivals are still working out who they are. He is 44. Ferguson managed 810 league games at United.
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