Mikel Arteta's two requirements to ensure Arsenal become successful next season 

Read the Gooner Fanzine's print columnist Charlie Ashmore on two things Gunners boss Arteta can do to ensure silverware during 2025-26 

With another trophyless season the memes are out in force and the noise around Mikel Arteta swells as the vocal minority on social media whine that it's not good enough. 

Let's be clear – we all want to win trophies. 

But we have no right to win trophies. 

We as fans have no right to expect trophies.  What we do have the right to do is expect to challenge for trophies.  It is simply impossible for any fair-minded observer to deny that we are now in the bracket of teams consistently challenging for honours and that, crucially, we are a million miles better off than the mess we were in when Arteta took over.

Having set out my supportive stall towards Mikel Arteta, I must add that I am not blind.

Arteta has made mistakes, and I think his biggest flaw as a manager is his load management for the players.

He has never treated it as a squad game, and he has never given the appearance of trusting the squad players.

That led to the gamble on squad size this season - but one understands why players like Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith-Rowe wanted to play their football elsewhere – they simply were not playing football here.

Next season Arteta must learn from this and manage his resources better.

Yes, Liverpool have had luck with injuries but I think it is also the case that they have managed their resources better.

I ask for two things for next season.

First that we do the work required in the summer to ensure that next season we have a squad that has both quality and options in every department.

The obvious issues are central midfield – Jorginho and possibly Partey leaving leave holes to fill –Zubamendi may be one but he is not enough.

We need some more creativity in midfield – Odegaard will be back next season I am sure but he needs someone to share the creative burden. We need astriker for sure. And ideally we need someone who can use up some of Saka's minutes.

The second thing I ask is that Arteta learns from what's gone wrong, allows us to be a bit less risk-averse and a bit more front footed, whilst making full use of his squad to avoid fatigue and injuries borne of physical fatigue.

With a good summer and some tweaking to our approach I think we can be the team of next season.

The journey to our next league title has been a long one but this group, with the right additons, can take us there.

That must remain our priority no matter how deep we go in the Champions League.

The other thing I think Arteta is guilty of is excessive control.

Not just in the way we play generally –attempting to stifle the life out of the opposition and prevent them having any chances let alonescoring, but also in his management of the players.

The impression one gets is that they are pre-programmed by him with instructions for how to deal with every situation they face - but the problem with that is that we become predictable and players lose the ability to adapt on the pitch, take the initiative and just take a chance on trying something.

Look at what happened when Rice ignored instructions against Real for example.

I still believe that the season we have had has been remarkable given the challenges we have faced.

That some of those challenges (by no means all) have been self-inflicted doesn't change the fact that the challenges were there.