Arsenal head into 2025-26 hoping this is the year they win some major silverware. Can they do it? Will they do it? There are plenty of questions to be answered ahead of the new campaign.
Three years, three title challenges, three second-place finishes.
After near misses in each of the last three seasons, everyone at Arsenal heads into the new campaign really, really, really hoping this year is different.
Mikel Arteta has transformed this team into a wonderfully consistent team that is incredibly hard to beat, but he hasn’t quite been able to get them over the line to win the title.
So, after a huge summer of spending and preparation for 2025-26, can this be the season they mark their improvement with a major trophy?
As we head into a monumental season at the Emirates, we ask five key questions for the club, manager and players.
Do Arsenal Now Have a Goalscoring Striker, and is He the Final Piece in the Puzzle?
For many fans, there has long been a simple solution to Arsenal’s current conundrum.
They’ve finished second in each of the last three seasons without having an out-and-out goalscorer up front. Therefore, signing a centre-forward who could get them 20 goals should be enough to get them over the line.
Arteta ignored calls to spend on a new striker last summer, and Arsenal ended up unable to make a proper go of their title challenge, helpless as Liverpool soared away at the top of the Premier League table in the season’s final months.
This summer, he couldn’t really afford not to go all out to sign a goalscoring centre-forward. Had he again chosen not to and Arsenal had again fallen short, he would have been roundly accused of negligence in the transfer market.
So, Arsenal went out and signed the most prolific forward in Europe from the last couple of years, as Victor Gyökeres joined on the back of scoring 97 goals in 102 games in two years at Sporting CP. He scored 68 in 66 Primeira Liga games in that time, also adding 17 assists.
Viktor Gyokeres goal involvements at Sporting CP
Those numbers prove Gyökeres knows where the back of the net is. The question for this season is whether the 27-year-old can adapt quickly to the Premier League and translate some of that goalscoring nous to a bigger league. He has never before played in one of Europe’s top five leagues, although he did score six goals in eight Champions League games last season.
If he does score reliably, the next question for Arsenal is whether that really is all they need to beat Liverpool and Manchester City to the title. It’s obvious to say more goals will increase their chances of success, but Gyökeres coming in would mean another player drops out. That player could well be Kai Havertz who, for all his limitations as a goalscorer, does an awful lot of good for the team, particularly out of possession.
In Gyökeres, Arsenal have a striker who scores goals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will improve both straight away and sufficiently enough to win the title.
Do Arsenal Need to Attack More?
After an unexpected title challenge in 2022-23 built on chaos, momentum and team spirit, Arsenal’s football has been much more controlled in the last two years. Their attempts to win the league have been in no small part because they have had such a mean defence. The meanest in the Premier League in each of those years by some distance, in fact.
“Attack wins you games, defence wins you titles,” as goes Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous phrase. Arsenal, having gone so hard on making their defence watertight and yet failing to win the league, might now be starting to doubt Fergie’s words.
So, should Arteta stick to his guns and double (or triple?) down on the solid foundations Arsenal have built at the back, or do they need to attack a little more next season?
Liverpool won the title last season scoring 14 more goals than anyone else. Manchester City won it the year before after scoring 96 times – five more than any other team. In fact, 2019-20 is the only one of the last eight seasons in which the top-scoring team hasn’t won the league.
Arsenal scored a relatively meagre 69 goals last term. That was only five more than 17th-placed rivals Tottenham. And they also once again relied arguably too much on set-pieces.
They scored 15 goals from set-pieces, with only three teams scoring more. Chances from set-pieces made up 27.4% of their expected goals total for the whole season – the sixth most in the league. Liverpool were bottom in this regard, with just 12.2% of their xG coming from set-pieces.
It’s true that if the ball goes in, it doesn’t matter how it’s happened. Arsenal fans love how good their team is at corners. Every time they win one, there is a buzz around the stadium about what is to come. And rightly so.
But there is also an argument that they need to make more of the significant attacking talent in their squad. Arsenal ranked seventh for xG from open play last season, with just 43.1, below Spurs and only just ahead of Manchester United. Liverpool produced 66.2 open-play xG.
Arsenal xG open play Premier League 2024-25
Only a few teams spent more of their opponents’ time in possession in the Premier League last season with a low-block defence than Arsenal, as the below graphic shows.
That might be skewed a little by Arsenal’s league-high six red cards and their attempts to protect a lead when down to 10 men, but even so, it’s clear they dropped back far more often than their rivals at the top of the table.
Premier League 2024-25 defensive blocks used
Perhaps a more attacking Arsenal would have avoided drawing 14 Premier League games last season; only Everton (15) drew more.
Arsenal threw away a lead in nine of their 12 score draws. If they had attacked more, might they have put a few more of those games to bed?
It’s impossible to say for sure, but there will be at least a few observers who will say Arsenal would benefit from going for the jugular a little more often.
Will Games Against the Mid-Table Teams Remain Problematic?
On a related note to the previous point, Arsenal’s record against the mid-table teams last season was bitterly disappointing.
They won only six of their 18 games against the nine teams who finished between seventh and 15th position, and didn’t do the double over any of them.
Meanwhile, only Liverpool had a better record than them in games between the teams who eventually finished in the top six, and Arsenal won all 10 of their games against the eventual bottom five.
That stubborn middle group essentially proved Arsenal’s downfall. They won 33.3% of their games against the middle nine teams, and won 70% (14 of 20) of their games against the rest.
Arsenal surely need to win a few more of those games against the mid-table sides this season. More strength in depth, which they certainly have now, will help, and that could be the difference in overcoming some of those tricky mid-table teams against whom Arsenal came unstuck last term.
Is This the Year Saka Explodes?
Bukayo Saka is already right at the top of the game. It would be reasonable to say he exploded a long while ago.
But in terms of his output at the sharp end of the pitch, his numbers haven’t quite taken off, especially if you compare him to the likes of Mohamed Salah, for example.
Saka hit 25 Premier League goal involvements in each of the two seasons before managing 16 in an injury-hit 2024-25.
Salah, meanwhile, has managed at least 27 in every one of his eight seasons at Anfield and more than 30 on five occasions. He hit a record-breaking 47 last term, having also managed 42 in 2017-18.
Saka is of course much younger than Salah. He only turns 24 next month. Salah, at that age, was still at Chelsea. A lot has changed since his Stamford Bridge days.
In that context, Saka’s got a lot of time on his hands. It’s not like he needs to be producing 30+ or 40+ goal involvements to prove his worth to Arsenal or that he’s an elite player.
But his numbers prove he is edging towards that kind of output. If he stays fit, maybe this can be the season he truly takes off.
His 0.83 goals or assists per 90 in the Premier League in 2024-25 was his best ever rate, a steady improvement from 0.71 two years before and 0.77 the year after that.
Bukayo Saka Goal Involvements by Premier League season
The challenge now is to produce at the level he can for a full campaign. The signing of Noni Madueke should help keep Saka fresh and firing by allowing him more consistent breaks when he needs them; by playing less he should actually be able to produce more.
The stage appears set this season for Saka to break the 30-goal-involvements mark. At least.
Does Arteta Have to Win a Trophy?
The Arsenal manager is absolutely desperate to win a major trophy. His team is unquestionably good enough to be winning the biggest and best silverware on offer, but the fact remains that they haven’t quite got over the line in the Premier League or Champions League. A 2020 FA Cup – with a starting XI made up entirely of players no longer at the club – remains the club’s only trophy since Arteta took over.
Under the Spaniard, Arsenal have made vast progress. They’ve gone from consecutive eighth-place finishes in the league to consistently challenging for the title. There’s no doubt he’s done an exceptional job.
But some people would still maintain that he needs something more tangible than second-placed finishes and good cup runs to mark the progress that has been made. There might even be others who start to lose patience with him should they again fail to win a trophy this season, particularly after such a big outlay in the transfer market this summer.
That probably isn’t entirely fair, but this group of players is good enough to be winning trophies. There’d be no better time to start doing so than the present.
Make no mistake, this is a huge year at the Emirates.
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