Mikel Arteta pushed away the invitation to rank his transfer business, but he didn’t hide where he believes his goalkeeper sits in the story of his team’s rise.
On the eve of this weekend’s league fixture, the Spanish coach was asked if his current No 1 was the best piece of business of his tenure. Arteta refused the headline, yet underlined just how central the signing has become to the club’s identity.
"I don't know – he's been a tremendous signing, there is no question about that," Arteta said. "Whether he is the best or not is just an opinion. It doesn't matter, we are so happy to have him. He has elevated the team to a different level and now we have to maintain that level."
That last line tells the real story. For Arteta, the goalkeeper is no longer just a shot-stopper or a neat fit for his build-from-the-back blueprint. He is a standard-setter. The benchmark.
Arteta pointed to mentality as the defining trait. The technical quality has never been in doubt, but the manager made it clear that the journey to this point has been anything but smooth.
"I think it's his mentality," he said. "David has tremendous quality but he has overcome a lot of difficulties and challenges to reach this point. It wasn't easy at the beginning, he had to dig in and prove himself. Now, he has the right to be one of the best."
Those early weeks, heavy with scrutiny and pressure, could have broken a different character. Instead, they hardened him. Arteta’s description of a player who “had to dig in and prove himself” paints the picture of a goalkeeper who has fought his way into the dressing room’s core leadership group, not simply walked into it.
So while the manager sidestepped the debate over “best signing”, his message was clear enough. In his eyes, David has already reshaped the ceiling of this team. The challenge now is not to find a bigger label for the deal, but to live up to the level the goalkeeper has helped create.
