Cesc Fàbregas Praises Arsenal's Stability Under Mikel Arteta

Cesc Fàbregas knows exactly what turbulence looks like at Arsenal. He lived it. Which is why his admiration for the club’s current path under Mikel Arteta carries a different weight.

Back at the Emirates Stadium and speaking after the match, the former captain didn’t just praise a title-winning side. He praised a plan.

“What Arsenal did… it doesn’t exist”

Fàbregas, who made 303 appearances for the Gunners, highlighted how the club’s hierarchy refused to flinch when the early years under Arteta were rocky.

“Congratulations to the club in general starting from seven, eight years ago when they first started with this project,” he said. “Because what you see in football every day, what Arsenal did, especially in the difficult moments, it doesn’t exist.”

He recalled a conversation from a previous visit to north London.

“I told Edu, I told Andrea [Berta] when I came last year to a Champions League game, I said congratulations to the whole club for the patience, for sticking together, for sticking to the plan when for three years in a row, correct me if I’m wrong, finished eighth, eighth, eighth, fourth year nearly Champions League, it was a big disappointment, Tottenham came, you finish fifth, but you keep going because you have a plan, because you have an objective, because you have progression, you keep going forward.”

Those finishes would have cost many managers their job. Arsenal chose the opposite route. They doubled down.

A warning to a trigger-happy era

For Fàbregas, that stance cuts directly against the modern reflex to sack managers at the first sign of trouble.

“We lack this in football today,” he said. “You lose three games, change the coach, he was playing one style, now you play another, at the end of the day I don’t believe in this a lot.”

He sees that instability everywhere. Styles ripped up overnight. Projects abandoned before they even start to take shape.

So as he steps into his own coaching career at Como, he is trying to borrow from what he sees at London Colney.

“I’m very lucky I’m in a project, of course with much lower level, the history, everything, but we’re trying to look at the stability Arsenal had, the values, the culture that they are bringing.”

Respect for Arteta and the dressing room

Fàbregas reserved special praise for Arteta’s work and the squad he has built.

“I think Mikel has done a tremendous job. So I can only wish them the best, really. Because most of the group, these guys now you talk to them, I don’t know… they’re good guys, they want to play good football, they are respectful, you can see how they stick to the plan all the time. Really, I’m super happy to come back here and smell this feeling.”

That “feeling” is what he believes Arsenal lost for a time. Now, in his eyes, it has returned with a clarity and conviction that other clubs struggle to match.

Next tests: City, Coventry… and Liverpool for Como

Arsenal’s next step comes quickly. They face Manchester City in the Community Shield in Cardiff on Sunday, 16 August, another early marker of where this squad stands before they launch their Premier League title defence.

Six days later, they begin that defence against newly promoted Coventry City, a different kind of challenge but one that will immediately test the champions’ focus.

On the same Sunday as the Community Shield, Fàbregas will be on his own touchline. Como are set for a double-header of friendlies against Liverpool, the first behind closed doors and the second in front of supporters, a sharp dress rehearsal before their Serie A opener against Udinese the following Saturday.

Arsenal’s project is now the reference point. Fàbregas is trying to build his own version on Lake Como. The question for the new season is simple: who else will have the nerve to stay the course the way Arsenal did?