Photo from Freepik
Morning all.
The 2025/26 Premier League season kicked off last night with Liverpool v Bournemouth. Slot’s side won 4-2 but for much of the game, Bournemouth gave them plenty to be concerned about. With better finishing, my new local club would have left Anfield with at least a point. I thought Anthony Taylor and VAR made a few poor decisions and not all favoured the home team. Antoine Semenyo was superb for Bournemouth.
Yesterday, Mikel Arteta held his first pre-match press conference of the campaign which included fitness updates, his thoughts about the next ten months and whether or not players will be moved on before the summer transfer window closes. The latter was simple:
“I’ll leave that to Andrea [Berta] and the club. My main focus is just about performing, preparing the games in the best possible way and winning. Now we start the season, it’s been a long pre-season with the market and being so active in it.”
As far as players joining Arsenal, I think the club has done really well but I still think we’re a left sided player light.
Fitness wise, everyone barring Gabriel Jesus would appear to be ready to go, including Leandro Trossard if he trained yesterday. Rumour has it that Unai Emery wants him at Aston Villa. If true, they will want him on the cheap I’m sure. Every club wants our players on the cheap which is probably why Vieira, Nelson, Hein and Lokonga are yet to move on. Zinchenko’s comments about last season being awful as he wasn’t playing reminds me a bit of Ramsdale when he was cast aside for Raya although the Ukrainians comments came from an extract in his book rather than an interview. I wouldn’t be happy sitting on the bench for most of the season as I’m sure you wouldn’t either and unless Arteta plans to use him more which I personally doubt, he could be another who is searching for first team football elsewhere. Running his contract down at his age would be foolish in my opinion.
Arteta was asked if there is more pressure on us to win the title this season:
You keep digging, digging, digging. You have to keep digging because one day, the gold is going to be there. That’s all the time, what I’ve been taught, I’ve been educated and that’s it. For three seasons, we have more points than any other team in this league. It’s incredible, that’s why we have all the consistency. Now we have to do it in a season, to earn one more point or the same amount of points and more goals difference than any other team. That’s the objective.
I think what Mikel meant is that for three calendar years we’ve had more points but now his team has to replicate that in a ten month season.
He was also about his views on the tweaks to the rules in the Premier League and what happened last season:
It was very particular, and it only lasts for a few weeks and we were really punished for those few weeks but hopefully it won’t happen again. I think they’ve been very clear, we have very good meetings with the referees when we came here and in the manager’s meeting as well. I think it’s very clear what to expect and I wish everybody the best. I think we’re going to need the best of all of us and to have the best Premier League ever, which I think is going to happen, and hopefully we’re going to come on top of that.
He’s right of course, the new rules were implemented in Arsenal fixtures early in the season. Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard fell victim of them and paid the ultimate price, a sending off for a second booking for kicking the ball away. Both were ridiculous and no other player in the league suffered the same fate. Another case of double refereeing standards was over the weekend when Saliba was sent off for denying a goal scoring opportunity. Fine, but less than 24 hours later, an almost identical situation was dealt with by way of a booking for a Chelsea player.
The inconsistencies didn’t stop there though but we dissected them throughout last season. If Webb’s motley crew continue to as poor and inconsistent this coming season then Arsenal as a team need to be smarter. I know they shouldn’t need to be but it’s probably the only way to beat the officials at their own game.
Thankfully, Raya has been releasing the ball a bit quicker during pre-season so hopefully he won’t be the guy who concedes a corner for holding on to the ball for more than 8 seconds. It used to be 6 seconds but funny enough, the referees never bothered to implement the law. Imagine how many free kicks would have been conceded if they had.
Only captains will be allowed to approach referees during Premier League matches this season. Yellow cards can be shown to players who approach officials without permission and behave in a disrespectful manner. This rule should increase the yellow card tally for every club, if of course the law is applied in every game and for both clubs.
The last big change is yet another attempt to reduce the “grappling inside the penalty area”. Now this I can’t wait to see in action because let’s be honest, it happens in every single game played. It’s been tried many times I think but officials get more and more complacent as the season goes on. Apparently, VAR as well as the officials will be trying to spot if an offending player is watching the ball or his opponent. Good luck with that I say…
Catch up in the comments.