Arteta targets Champions League title to crown Arsenal rebuild

LONDON, May 28 : Seven years after returning to a fractured Arsenal, Mikel Arteta will lead his side into Saturday's Champions League final against Paris St Germain, one win from completing a remarkable rebuild.

Guiding Arsenal to their first Premier League title since 2004 this season has already repaid the club's long-term faith in him after three successive runner-up finishes.

Now he has the chance to go one step further and cap what could be the greatest season in Arsenal's history by delivering Europe's biggest club prize for the first time.

"We have raised different standards now, and now we have to go to the next level," Arteta said this week.

For a coach shaped by Pep Guardiola during a three-year spell as Manchester City assistant, imitation might have been the obvious route. Many have tried - and failed - to reproduce his fellow Spaniard's blueprint.

Arteta chose a different path.

Arsenal's rise has been built not just on control, but on pragmatism - a blend of zonal dominance, high pressing and defensive discipline underpinned by a non-negotiable team ethic.

A side once mocked for vulnerability has been reshaped into one adept at winning ugly when necessary.

"You have to be ruthless and you have to be consistent... to create a winning mentality," Arteta said soon after arriving at Arsenal in 2019. "Without an identity, you cannot plan and you cannot convince a player to do what you want."

When Arteta returned to the club he served as a midfielder, those foundations were missing with the drift and discord that marked the final years of Arsene Wenger's reign deep-rooted.

"I am very lucky that we have an ownership model that understood the picture was ugly," he told the podcast the Overlap.

"The best part was changing the