Mikel Arteta defends job cuts at Arsenal to help club ‘evolve and create success’

Mikel Arteta has defended Arsenal’s decision to cut up to 60 jobs and insisted it was felt to be necessary to ensure they can continue achieving success.

The Premier League champions are understood to have informed the staff whose positions are at risk after a consultation process started by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) before the end of last season. Arsenal hope the number of redundancies can be reduced and will attempt to redeploy affected employees wherever possible, although some job losses may be unavoidable.

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It is understood the catering and travel departments are among the affected, and that the men’s and women’s first-team performance and coaching staff will not be impacted. The academy, Arsenal Women, Arsenal in the Community, the Arsenal Foundation and site security teams are also exempt, although other areas of the wider football operation are included in the review, which was overseen internally by the managing director, Richard Garlick.

The timing of the proposed cuts has attracted scrutiny after last week’s announcement of Arteta’s new contract, worth more than £20m a season. Arsenal say the restructuring process began before the deal was announced and the manager said he was not the appropriate person to answer questions about the redundancies.

“It was explained to me about the exercise, and the analysis that has been done across the club, and with the intention always to evolve to improve,” he said.
“Some decisions have to be taken, to put people in the right roles, and keep investing to achieve what we want to achieve and the success that we want to create. So that has been explained. Obviously I am not the right person to answer that question. That’s for sure. And hopefully everybody will respect that.”

The club refused to allow Arteta to answer any more questions on the subject. Arsenal’s most recent financial accounts, for the 2024-25 campaign, show that operating costs rose from £148m the previous year to £201m, with the owner, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, keen to cut costs despite winning the Premier League title in May.

Arteta was instrumental in reshaping Arsenal’s medical department over the summer, when the former Aston Villa team doctor Arnaldo Abrantes arrived, and is believed to have bolstered his backroom staff in other areas.

Arsenal travel to Nottingham Forest on Sunday – the first of four away games in their next five matches – and Kai Havertz is again expected to start ahead of Viktor Gyökeres. The Sweden striker has yet to find the net for Arsenal this season and struggled against Lille in midweek after scoring four goals on international duty.

“These are moments in a player’s career, or in a season, I would say,” Arteta said. “And we are trying to help him as much as possible. The other day, I think he had some very good moments. He’s three or four times in front of goal with no keeper and the ball should arrive to him and it doesn’t. But these are the strikers. It’s very small margins. Scoring or not scoring changes the narrative, for sure, not the perception of how much he can help the team.”