Mikel Arteta's memories of his first game in charge of Arsenal are quite vivid.
It was Boxing Day in 2019 and after watching on from the stands as the Gunners played out a drab goalless draw away at Everton - less than 24 hours after being appointed as head coach - the Spaniard was in the dugout as his side travelled to the Vitality Stadium to face Bournemouth.
"It was raining, I got very wet! I was excited, nervous and very much looking forward to what was coming but it feels a long time ago," Arteta told reporters in his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon. But what stands out most to the Arsenal manager is how much things have changed since.
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"Very much, I think. I think the team and the club need a certain person in each phase and in each moment. The coach or the manager that the club needed a year ago is different to what it needs today," he continued. "You have to constantly be evolving, now we have to thrive, this club at a different speed and before we had to have a lot of protection to keep us in the right place and not fall apart. This is evolving. We as individuals, especially the people who have a lot of decision-making and need to inspire others, have to evolve and change as well."
Perhaps the biggest change in the 968 days between the two Premier League fixtures - the two sides did square off against each other a month later in the fourth round of the FA Cup - has to be the Arsenal personnel on that rainy afternoon down on the South Coast.
From Arteta's very first Gunners line-up, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Bukayo Saka, Granit Xhaka and Reiss Nelson are still at the club whilst Nicolas Pepe and Emile Smith Rowe were among the substitutes and are on course to repeat the trick on Saturday with the Spaniard settled on his team right now.
Of the four starters, there's an argument that only Saka and Xhaka will feature prominently in Arteta's plans as this season progresses. Provided Smith Rowe can stay fit, he is part of a bright future at the club, but there's a chance Maitland-Niles, Pepe and Nelson could all move on fairly soon.
So in four-and-a-half transfer windows, there has been a major overhaul of players with Bernd Leno, Sokratis, David Luiz, Lucas Torreira, Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, Shkodran Mustafi, Emiliano Martinez, Konstantinos Mavropanos, Joe Willock and Matteo Guendouzi all leaving permanently,
This means the starting line-up and bench Arteta names against Bournemouth will be almost entirely unrecognisable from his very first. There will be a new face in goal as £24m signing Aaron Ramsdale swaps sides given he was in goal for the Cherries in December 2019, conceding to Aubameyang just after the hour mark.
Now that Saka has cemented a place in the Arsenal team as a right-winger, he's off left-back duty which points towards a completely new defence whilst Xhaka could be joined in the engine room by Thomas Partey and Martin Odegaard with Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli lining up in attack.
As the Gunners eye a return to Champions League football, there have been some significant changes along the road and Arteta reflected on the transformation when asked if he feels like he finally has his team after inheriting players from Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery.
"It was from the first day because I made the decision to come here and coach those players and I always felt they were our players," he said. "We always tried to get the best out of them, help them and try to improve them. Obviously when you then recruit you want to recruit alongside the club the players who you can feel can make the difference."
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