Arsenal have won just once in seven Premier League games since Mikel Arteta’s appointment as head coach. The Spaniard’s arrival has been met with genuine positivity from the players and supporters, though, and the changes behind the scenes, and on the pitch, have been seismic. Clarity of message On that Friday night in December when Arteta was finally unveiled as Arsenal’s new head coach, his overarching message was one of ruthlessness. If the players would not accept a “different way of thinking”, he said, then he would not accept them. Shape up, or get out. The bluntness of it all was striking to anyone who listened. The former midfielder, coming into his first managerial job, had made it clear that he was not in town to be a friend of the players. He was here to work and he expected them to work, too. Those public statements, Telegraph Sport understands, were nothing compared to what Arteta has said privately to his squad. The Spaniard has been unrelenting in his approach at the club’s London Colney training base, making it clear in ferocious terms that the onus is on the players to meet his expectations. This was especially the case on the club’s winter break in Dubai, where the players were put through a series of gruelling double sessions. “It was like a mini pre-season for us,” Arteta said on Friday. “We had time to work on a lot of our principles.” Some of those players, especially the younger ones, have been taken aback by Arteta’s directness. Arsenal’s talented group of youngsters have been much-trumpeted in recent years, with the club describing the academy as a “strategic priority” and last summer appointing Freddie Ljungberg to the first team with the specific brief of nurturing the academy graduates, yet there has been no special treatment from Arteta. “Players are going to start games if they deserve to play and they perform at the level of this football club, whether they are academy players or not,” he said last month. The clarity of the message has been key, and it has been well received by a squad that was on the brink of falling apart before Arteta’s arrival. It is public knowledge that Granit Xhaka had made up his mind to leave the club in January, only to be convinced to stay by Arteta. The Daily Telegraph understands there were also genuine concerns about the future of Lucas Torreira, who was wanted by Napoli and was certainly tempted by a return to Italy after months of being played out of position under former head coach Unai Emery. One of Arteta’s first acts was to return Torreira to his preferred role in defensive midfield and, within weeks, the Uruguayan was confiding in friends that he felt happier and more comfortable in north London. Discipline It said plenty about Arsenal’s struggles this season that one of Arteta’s main priorities, upon his arrival, was ensuring that the basics were done right. There was a focus on body shape in the first few sessions — telling the players how to position themselves when receiving the ball — and also on details such as committing opposition players before playing a pass. “He is teaching us little things that we did not know before,” said Bukayo Saka, barely a week after Arteta’s arrival. There is more discipline under Arteta, both on and off the pitch. Having been so open for so much of the season under Emery, the players now have an understanding of their specific roles within Arteta’s system. “Let’s say that after 60 or 70 minutes, if that player is changing, everyone knows now in which position they have to play,” said Mesut Ozil this week. Where once there was muddled thinking under Emery — “it was a little bit confusing,” said goalkeeper Bernd Leno — now there is a collective understanding. Hector Bellerin has spoken of Arteta’s “very clear ideas”. Arteta is publicly insisting that all of his focus remains on making the most of this campaign. It is only after this summer, though, when he has enjoyed a sustained period of training with his players, that his methods will become truly apparent. The Daily Telegraph understands that Arteta has already held conversations with William Saliba, their on-loan teenage defender, about the player’s role at the club next season. Building a new style of play Since Arteta"s first match at Bournemouth, Arsenal have conceded just one shot after losing possession in their defensive third — the best record in the league. Under Emery and Ljungberg, they conceded 22 shots from these “high turnovers”. What has changed? Emery"s positioning of players in build up was rigid. Both centre-backs would drop deep and close to goalkeeper Bernd Leno, and following last summer"s rule change allowing them into the penalty area from goal kicks they would also be surprisingly narrow. The central midfielders, usually Granit Xhaka and Matteo Guendouzi, would be positioned 10 or 15 yards ahead of them forming a box of four. The full-backs would be wide, on the same horizontal line as the midfielders. Arsenal"s calamitous 2-2 draw at Watford in September, was a game in which their build-up struggles were particularly acute. Too often, Arsenal"s midfielders would be stood on the same vertical line as the centre-backs, meaning one screening forward can easily cut off a pass to them and leave the receiver unaware of pressure coming from behind. In this example at Vicarage Road, Matteo Guendouzi was caught on the edge of his box at the expense of a dangerous chance. Arsenal"s positioning under Emery when trying to build play from the back. Note the straight line that can be traced between Guendouzi and Xhaka and the centre-backs. The same situation arose early in the second half of that game, with Sokratis unable to find a pass to one of his midfielders and this time Tom Cleverley punished Arsenal sparking a second-half collapse. Forming triangles or diamonds all over the pitch is key to fluent and rhythmic passing, and an advanced understanding of trigonometry is not necessary to see that it is hard to form these shapes with players standing in straight lines. "Football is about habit & angles," said Arteta, before taking over at Arsenal. "It’s much more simple for a player if you can process the image of where your team-mate will be before receiving the ball. If I am in the kitchen and I know the glasses are always in this cupboard, I get my glass of water more quickly." Under Arteta, Arsenal"s centre-backs are moving far wider meaning they are rarely in line with the central midfielder looking to receive the ball. Add in the full-back on the touchline and there is the desired triangle shape. From goal kicks, one of the midfielders is dropping deep between the centre-backs to receive the ball with one staying out of the way. Here, Guendouzi has the responsibility in the early stages of the draw at Burnley: Note how much wider Arsenal"s centre-backs are from goal-kicks to create more space to play, and how Guendouzi is now positioned between them rather than in line. Now Arsenal have a triangle rather than a square. When Arsenal are circulating the ball across their back-line open play, Xhaka has also been quick to move to the side of David Luiz to form a back three which is another string to Arsenal"s bow. Here is an example of this movement from the home victory against Manchester United: As well as releasing Kolasinac to get forward, this enables Xhaka to receive the ball facing play rather than with back to goal when he can be vulnerable to pressing. With the right-back, in this case Ainsley Maitland-Niles, tucking in alongside Lucas Torreira, Arsenal morph into the 3-2-5 attacking shape Arteta"s former boss Pep Guardiola has used frequently. Work to be done in attack A salutary lesson from the Emery era is that while the result is all-important on any given day, the process behind results are a telling indicator of the team"s long-term prospects. Emery guided Arsenal to a 22-game unbeaten run in his first season, winning 17 of those matches in all competitions, but was the beneficiary of unsustainable conversion rates and opponents missing big chances to take the lead in matches. Sounding the alarm during such a run of results made sceptics sound po-faced and ungenerous, but they were ultimately vindicated. Arsenal fans then, are likely to be more sensitive than most to the performances and metrics that lie behind results. There has been clear defensive improvement since Arteta’s appointment. Arsenal are conceding 12.4 shots per game compared to 15.9 before the Spaniard’s arrival, and are conceding "just" one goal per game. At the other end, though, the attackers remain a long way from their best form. They are taking fewer shots per match, 9.6 to 11.8, and their Expected Goals per game has decreased from 1.3 to 1.1. Arteta"s Arsenal have scored just eight goals in seven league games and have not yet scored more than twice in a match. They are also enjoying less possession and playing fewer passes per game. The problems he has faced getting Arsenal"s attack flowing are explored in greater depth here: Why is Mikel Arteta struggling to get Arsenal flowing as an attacking force? Why then, is the feeling that Arsenal have improved so pervasive? Working harder - but at a cost Arsenal are starting games strongly, suggesting a clear and well understood plan, but trailing off. This is the inverse of the pattern in Emery"s early months, when half-time substitutions and radical changes of shape brought second-half improvements and points. Arsenal"s numbers under Arteta are cratering in second halves, when the legs grow heavy and their fitness is tested. “We have to be honest and admit physically we are not ready,” said Luiz after Arsenal’s 2-0 victory over Manchester United, which was among the more damning insights into Emery’s reign. Arteta is demanding a greater intensity. That saps energy levels, particularly for a squad who settled into a more passive approach under Emery. Arteta also took charge during the Christmas period, with its hectic play-recover-play schedule that invariably brings tired legs and injuries. Then there is the thorny issue of game-state. In two of Arteta"s first three matches, Arsenal spent the second-half defending leads against Chelsea and Manchester (with contrasting outcomes). In fact, Arsenal have only been behind for 78 minutes of Premier League football under Arteta, 48 of them against Chelsea at the Emirates and at Stamford Bridge. Arsenal have also played 99 minutes of football with 10 men, all away from home. In a curious quirk, Arteta has also lost a defender to injury in three of seven league games, robbing him of a substitution. The underlying signs have been encouraging though and the feeling within the club is that Arsenal, still reeling from such a horrendous start to the season, are on the mend.