Arsenal has announced the appointment of their former Captain, Mikel Arteta as head Coach of the first team on a three-and-a-half year deal.

Arteta will replace fellow Spaniard, Unai Emery who was sacked in November.

The 37 year-old quit his role as assistant Coach at Manchester City, a position he had held for four seasons under Pep Guardiola.

Having endured a poor start to the 2019/20 Premier League season, Arsenal fired Emery and appointed a former player and Coaxh of the Youth team Freddie Ljungberg as caretaker Manager, but it did little to impact the team’s slide further down the table.

This it has emerged is Arteta’s first task among other concerns at the club, and this former midfielder who spent five years at the Emirates, says he understands the enormity of the task.

“This is a huge honour. Arsenal is one of the biggest clubs in the world. We need to be competing for the top trophies in the game and that’s been made very clear to me in my discussions with 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. 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.”

He’s not expected to be in charge of Arsenal’s next game in the premier league against Everton.