Mikel Arteta has handed Erik ten Hag the perfect summer transfer plan with Arsenal success

Arsenal face another big summer transfer window with Mikel Arteta looking to strengthen their squad, but Manchester United are looking to do the same with Erik ten Hag

Mikel Arteta may have inexplicably helped Erik ten Hag in the transfer window after completing his own eviction at Arsenal last summer.

Ever since the Spaniard joined the Emirates as a coach, he has made it his personal mission to unload the dead wood at the club. And it was a success that tempered a skyrocketing payroll in the process.

There were some notable departures under his watch, including Mesut Özil, Shkodran Mustafi and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Although Arteta has been questioned for some of those decisions, it hasn’t stopped his efforts to rid Arsenal of their heavy earners.

In their place, he brought in several young players with a real hunger to play for Arsenal. Last summer the Gunners signed the likes of Ben White, Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Martin Odegaard at a combined cost of £150million.

Additionally, players like Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe have become key players as Arteta turns to the club’s famed academy to find new stars. So far, Arsenal have won the FA Cup under his stewardship, taking incremental steps towards the top four in a bid to persuade the club to give him a new contract.

It shows the north London team are backing Arteta to the mountains and still allowing him to hack and change his squad at will. In the meantime, there’s another club a few hundred miles away in Manchester who have a lesson to learn.

United have been a sad state for a number of years as they try to move out of their current crisis. It has resulted in the likes of Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer all being sacked. But with Ten Hag there is an opportunity to reverse your fortunes and stay with a manager who has a principled philosophy and style of play. That should carry over to the boardroom where they need to find the right player profile to match his system.

However, this must include a major squad overhaul to boot out these high-wage players and replace them with young, hungry players – just like what is happening in the Emirates. Doing that is another matter and requires a leap of faith from the senior figures at Old Trafford.

Ralf Rangnick has previously stated that he believes up to 10 players will need to be signed this summer to rejuvenate the squad and that following Arteta’s recipe for success would be the right way forward. Not long ago Arsenal would have been content to copy United’s blueprint, but having solved their own squad problems they would do well to try and replicate what the Gunners have done in a short space of time.