With Mikel Arteta set to sign a deal potentially taking him through to 2030, football.london predicts what the Arsenal team could look like for the 2030/31 season
Max Dowman is a star for the future
Max Dowman is a star for the future(Image: Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
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Arsenal’s rise to again be one of the World’s best teams has taken Mikel Arteta more than half a decade to re-establish, but after becoming champions in 2026, the aim has been to maintain their winning run. Arteta is expected to have his new deal announced, which could keep him at the club until 2030.
The Arsenal team will look very different in close to four years’ time, but many will hope the manager remains in charge for what would then be more than a decade at the club. When Arsene Wenger left, few would have thought the 22-year tenure would be so soon followed by another manager in place for double-digit years.
How many titles the side could win between now and 2030 is an exciting prospect, which in itself details how much improvement has occurred at the North London side. But thinking ahead, perhaps more excitingly, is considering what the starting eleven could look like in the future.
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From back to front, starting with the goalkeeper, football.london has given it their best shot. David Raya is already 31, and while the Spaniard has the capacity to play for three more seasons at the top level, starting the 2030/31 campaign might be a stretch.
Tommy Setford immediately comes to mind, but knowing Mikel Arteta, it might be the Spaniard instead who wants Premier League proven quality to come in and be a ready-made replacement. For me, one keeper stands out who could become that player, and that is the now Leeds United goalkeeper James Trafford.
Leaving Man City after they replaced him almost immediately after he arrived with Gianluigi Donnarumma, Trafford is already excelling with Leeds, and at just 23, he will be just 27 when the 2030/31 season kicks off and could be one of the best in the league by then.
In the back line, Jurrien Timber, William Saliba and Riccardo Calafiori are certainly young enough now that their trajectories toward establishing themselves as a continuation of the Arsenal backline could still be set. However, the young talent of Marli Salmon is what could perhaps rise to replace Gabriel, who would be closing on 33 years old by the 2030/31 season.
Saliba moving to the left-centre half, a now 21-year-old Salmon will have made plenty more appearances by now, maybe even being an established figure in the back four too. There is little doubting the player’s quality and ceiling.
Into midfield and captain Declan Rice and Myles Lewis-Skelly, then 31 and 22, have continued the foundation of the Arsenal midfield, but it will be a 20-year-old and world-renowned Max Dowman who inherited the role of Martin Odegaard and has become the country’s most exciting young player. A senior England international too, Dowman in 2030 could be spoken about as one of the best young players on the planet.
Into the forward line and only Bukayo Saka remains, now 28 and fully into his prime years of his career. Hopefully, having shaken off the Achilles tendonitis problems he has been dealing with in his mid-twenties, Saka remains one of the Premier League’s best, with no new signings or youth talents able to displace him.
On the left, another Arsenal talent who will have arrived in the summer of 2027, Andria Bartishvili. Dubbed the next Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, there is a lot of excitement around the Georgian attacker and hope that he can develop into a top wide left forward, a position the club have been crying out for.
Finally, as transfer fees continue to rise through the years, while the £100million barriers have been comfortably broken, the French Eli Junior Kroupi has remained with Bournemouth, continued to bang in the goals in the Premier League and to prize him away, the Gunners had to part with a record-breaking £150million to sign the talented forward.
But finally, after many years, Arteta gets his hands on a striker who completes his dream team, and while many Premier Leagues have been won, the club are now on track to match Liverpool and Manchester United’s league haul of titles.
Arsenal 2030 predicted XI: Trafford; Timber, Salmon, Saliba, Calafiori; Rice, Lewis-Skelly, Dowman; Saka, Kroupi, Bartishvili