Anything can happen in football.

In 2024/25, Liverpool ran away with the Premier League, winning the league with 4 games to spare. They then spent over £400m in the summer of ’25, saw their form collapse and finish 5th.

Having won the league last season, Arsenal have decided against the widescale overhaul of the squad that Liverpool opted for and have made tweaks. This has left Arsenal fans a little deflated ahead of the season. However, there is still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about Arsenal doing back to back for the first time since the 1930s.

Champions despite an injury crisis

Winning the league by 7 points looks like we won it at a canter, but we only clinched the title with 1-game to spare. Man City bottling the title in the run-in.

We could have won it at a canter were it not for injuries to key players.

Kai Havertz missed 26 Premier League games through injury. Ben White was also unavailable for over 20 games. Martin Odegaard was only fit enough to start 16 league games, and Bukayo Saka only started 25. William Saliba and Gabriel both had spells on the sidelines, as did Riccardo Calafiori, Mikel Merino, Noni Madueke and Cristhian Mosquera.

Despite having players missing for a total of 1043 (3rd highest in the league), we won the league.

When you consider that those 2 sides with worse injury issues than us finished 12th and 17th, last years victory is even more incredible! Now imagine what we could have achieved with that squad were it not for the injuries.

Signing Bruno Guimaraes

For me, signing Bruno Guimaraes is the most important thing we could have done this summer.

Last season, Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice both ran out of steam. Rice played 4,459 minutes in all competitions, with Zubimendi playing 4,274. That workload is simply not sustainable and it cost us the Champions League final.

Alongside Rice and Zubimendi, Bruno Guimaraes is in the top 5 central midfielders in the league. Other contenders include Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Bruno Fernandes, Dominik Szoboszlai and Elliot Anderson. It is not too hard to make a case that our trio are better than at least 4 of those mentioned (and excluding outgoing Rodri).

Bruno Guimaraes, alongside the developing Myles Lewis Skelly, mean that we do not need to rush back either Zubimendi or Rice from the World Cup. It also means that the pairs workload will be dramatically reduced this season. The result will be instead of playing on fumes come the end of the season, they will all be fresher.

Last season we played 63 games across all competitions. That is 11,340 minutes for 2 midfielders (based on 90 minutes). I would expect Rice, Zubimendi and Bruno to be around the 3,000 to 3,500 minute mark, and MLS to play around 2,000-2,500.

If we make the Champions League final come May ’27, our key midfielders could have the equivalent of 16 less games in their legs. That is absolutely huge!

Rivals losing players

This summer, Arsenal have not lost a single key player.

The only departing player to play any significant minutes last year is Leandro Trossard. And he has been replaced by Christos Tzolis (more on him later). Karl Hein, Jakub Kiwor and Christian Norgaard have also departed. None will be missed.

The last few weeks of the window will also likely see Gabriel Jesus and Ethan Nwaneri depart. Neither did much of note last season so their exit would not weaken us.

Gabriel Martinelli could also be out of the door. But he will only exit on our terms, and if a replacement can be recruited. It will be said to see the Brazilian depart – we have seen him arrive as a boy and turn into a man – but he has had a couple of rough seasons.

Meanwhile, all our title rivals have lost key players, and 3 of them have changed manager:

Manchester City: Pep Guardiola, Rodri (pending), Bernardo Silva, John Stones, Nathan Ake
Manchester United: Casemiro
Aston Villa: Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans, Lucas Digne
Liverpool: Arnie Slot, Mo Salah, Ibrahima Konate, Andrew Robertson
Chelsea: Marc Cucurella, Trevoh Chalobah

Many of those who departed were amongst their sides most experienced players. They were their leaders. You can not easily replace the experience and leadership the likes of Rodri, Silva, Stones, Casemiro, Tielemans and Robertson brought on and off the pitch.

And whilst others have lost some of their main lieutenants, in Bruno we have signed a leader. And that will have another huge impact.

Christos Tzolis

One big criticism of Andrea Berta this summer has been our inability to recruit a “big name” left winger.

We pivoted away from Morgan Rogers to chase Vinicius Jr, losing out on both, whilst also declared ourselves out of the race for Bradley Barcola early on. I get the frustration.

In recent weeks, social media scouts have cried that we should “be focusing on the next big name, not trying to sign a big name”. They then point out the ages and experience of the likes of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Bradley Barcola and Desire Doue when PSG signed them, or Vinicus Jr and Michael Olise when they went to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich respectively. This is all justifiable points, but then it is laughable that they do not put Tzolis into this category.

I see a lot of fans saying we should sign Mika Godts and that PSG are “showing us how to do it” in the transfer market. But Godts is a similar profile, with similar experience, as Tzolis. the Greek man is only 24 remember. The same age as Kvaratskhelia when he went to PSG and Olise when he went to Bayern.

It has only been pre-season, but Tzolis looks like a superstar in the making. He will be a game changers for us this season, I am sure of it.

Experience, experience, experience

Last season, pundits predicted we would bottle the title because we did not have the experience of how to get over the line.

Despite suffering an injury crisis, and having key players running out of steam, we won our last 5 games in a row to clinch the title.

Declan Rice with his “it’s not done” galvanised the team and reminded them what was still possible. The players will only become mentally stronger for that, knowing what needs to be done to win the league.

From David Raya to Gabriel and Saliba, Zubimendi, Rice and Havertz. We have a spin of players that are now Premier League champions and will be able to lead us through those tough games. And whilst we have kept the experience, other teams are losing it. What we did last season would only have made us better.

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Will win win the league? It is impossible to answer that. But I believe we are stronger this season then we are last. And that is all you can do.

Keenos

Well that results has put a few people on their places…

I have not really understood the negativity around Arsenal this summer. We have spent close to £150m, signed a fantastic new left winger and one of the best midfielders in the league. We have also kept hold of key players.

Last season we won the league. And we would have won it comfortable were it not for key players getting injured – remember, we had the second most injuries of any Premier League club.

Despite being Champions, and strengthening, many fans and pundits were writing us off. All because we missed out on Vinicius Jr.

Meanwhile, every one of our title rivals has lost key players. From Rodri to Cucerella, Mo Salah to Bernardo Silva, our opponents have lost leaders. We have not.

The most laughable criticism has been that aimed at Andrea Berta.

On social media, a small minority have fans have begun getting very noisy about our Director of Football and calling for him to be sacked. These same people have probably spent the last 4 years shouting “Arteta Out”.

The only conclusion I come to is these people are unhappy, and will always look for someone to abuse at Arsenal. We win the league, they can no longer criticise Arteta so go onto Berta. We win again next season, they will probably move onto the Kroenke’s, the medical department or Gunnersaurus. They will always find someone to try and reflect their own misery onto.

So we won 3-nil, against Man City’s strongest XI, the likes of Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi being on the bench, and William Saliba, Jurrien Timber and Gabriel Martinelli not being in the Squad.

Myles Lewis Skelly showed that he is ready to play more in midfield. Martin Odegaard looked sharp. And Christos Tzolis looks like he could become the signing of the season.

On the Greek-man, it is interesting.

Having missed out on Vinicius Jr, a lot of online wannabe scouts have moaned that we would not be buying the best left wingers available. We should be targeting the next Vinicius Jr, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or Bradley Barcola. Is that not what we have done with Tzolis?

At just 24, he looks ready to explode into superstardom. A mixture of Leandro Trossard and Santi Cazorla with some Alexis Sanchez thrown in. He has looked scintillating in preseason and the only way is up. Why a find.

So we lift the shield. I am very much in the “glorified friendly” camp. Same with the European Super Cup and Word Club Cup. But teams and fans are increasingly putting value on these.

Were the Community Shield named the “English Super Cup”, I wonder if it would be viewed differently. We now have 18 of them, and Arteta has won his 3rd.

For Super Mik, that is now 1 Premier League, 1 FA Cup and 3 Community Shields. More will come and I am here for it.

UTA

Keenos

There is a lot to like about Jarell Quansah.

Still only 23, he is homegrown with top level experience in both the Premier League and Bundesliga at centre back and right back.

At 6 3, Quansah is strong and athletic. He is is very good in buildup, comfortable under pressure, receiving from the keeer and progressing the ball through the midfield. He is certainly a lot closer to what William Saliba gives us compared to Cristian Mosquera.

A rumoured fee of £40-45m feels a lot more sensible than the £70m Aston Villa are demanding for Ezri Konsa, who is nearly 29.

Quansah has the added bonus of also having played a lot of games at right back. I still expect Ben White to stay, but Quansah would give us additional cover there.

Mosquera has shown himself as more of a Gabriel than a Saliba. A player who wants to be aggressive, feel contact and attack the ball. Defences are all about partnerships and we have seen in pre-season that Gabriel and Mosquera doesn’t really work. I think the Spaniard will move to the left side and become Gabriel’s understudy.

Some will say “Marli Salmon deserved a chance”. No. He is just 16. Let him continue to develop. He is the future. But he is not ready now. Let him make his mistakes in the U21 and then out on loan. He has another 4 or 5 years of development ahead of him.

Keenos