Arsenal Appoint Arteta As New Head Coach 

By Ibrahim Taiwo
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Arsenal have appointed their former captain, Mikel Arteta as head coach on a three-and-a-half-year deal.

The former Everton star won the FA Cup twice with the Gunners as a captain before retiring in 2016.

Arteta has been working as a coach under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City since he retired as a player in 2016.

Unai Emery was sacked following the club's poor performances and Arteta has been saddled with the responsibility of reviving their fortune.

"We need to be competing for the top trophies in the game," Arteta said.

"That's been made very clear to me in my discussions with [owners] Stan and Josh Kroenke and the senior people from the club."

"We all know there is a lot of work to be done to achieve that but I am confident we'll do it," added Arteta.

"I'm realistic enough to know it won't happen overnight, but the current squad has plenty of talent and there is a great pipeline of young players coming through from the academy."

Arsenal's head of football Raul Sanllehi said the club decided to appoint Arteta because he showed enough quality in the interview.

"Mikel stood out to every single one of us as the perfect person for us," he said.

Arteta will take over from Freddie Ljunberg who was named as an interim manager after Emery was sacked.

Ljunberg won one out of the five matches, Arteta's first match in charge of Arsenal will be against Everton on Sunday.

Arsenal are 10th in the premier league seven points behind Chelsea