Arsenal’s hellish start to the Premier League season means the onus is on the Gunners to get their transfer business finished promptly. Mikel Arteta is yet to improve a squad that limped towards second place last season and barely challenged Liverpool, who, buoyed by the impending arrival of Florian Wirtz, already look stronger than they did last term.
Six extremely tough fixtures mean there will be no easy start for Arsenal in 2025-26. A potentially rejuvenated Manchester United welcome them to Old Trafford on the opening weekend. Leeds, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Newcastle follow in a burdensome run of games. By the start of October, the difficulty begins to lift, but Arsenal cannot afford for a new centre-forward and potentially additions out wide and in midfield to be only settling in by that point. They must be familiar with Arteta’s methods in early August.
Arsenal are understood to be actively trying to sign a new No. 9. When Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus were ruled out for the majority of 2024-25, the north Londoners at times seemed unstructured and lacked a clinical edge.
Benjamin Sesko and Viktor Gyokeres are the main targets for that position. Reports claim that an offer of personal terms has been made to Sesko, but no deal has been agreed with his club, RB Leipzig.
Gyokeres is seemingly at war with Sporting CP over his own future. Keen to depart, there is an apparent conflict in how each party believed the 27-year-old would depart. It was widely reported last season that Gyokeres would be allowed to leave for around £59million, but Sporting vehemently deny that to be the case.
That means that beyond the extreme competition for centre-forwards in the market this summer, signing the specific targets could also present major hurdles. Arsenal must overcome those problems soon to ensure they start well next season.
Too often clubs leave their business until late in the window. Sometimes they can get away with it, with much easier fixtures allowing them to slowly bed in their new signings.
Arsenal will not have that luxury, though. If they start the season slowly, every club in their first six fixtures has the capacity to take advantage of them. Last term, Arsenal were beaten 1-0 by Newcastle on matchweek 10 and found themselves seven points behind Liverpool, who had leapfrogged Man City and remained in first place for the remainder of the campaign. The Gunners never really recovered.
Liverpool and City have already improved their squads. Arteta surely knows that Arsenal must do the same before his side travel to Manchester on August 17.