A short run of success can be extremely misleading. And when you make a few huge decisions based in part on a really short run of success, it can set you back for quite a while.
Last summer during Project Restart, Arsenal beat league champions Liverpool and took down both Manchester City and Chelsea on the way to a surprising FA Cup title. New manager and former Pep Guardiola and Arsene Wenger protege, Mikel Arteta, hadn't been on the job very long, and his debut season had been interrupted by a once-in-a-century pandemic, but these were openly exciting results, a sign of a plan potentially coming together.