Arteta wants to wield a new Arsenal in 2025/26

It was a disappointing 2024/25 Premier League campaign for Arsenal fans and manager Mikel Arteta as we once again finished as runners up in the battle for the top flight trophy and whilst there was plenty of frustration amongst the fanbase, we should not forget how well we had done as we were again consistent in our challenge and it really would not take much to have put us over the line.

The same old issues unfortunately came to bite us, but whilst we had improvement on a set piece front and a far more dominating defence, our chance creation and goal conversion slipped further for yet another successive season. In many ways this was made worse by the gaffer highlighting the fact that his main priority in the January transfer window was to finally solve the died in the wool striker hole that had gone unanswered for years – and naturally, we then failed to sign one.

That will not dampen spirits ahead of the new campaign though and with the plethora of ways to watch football these days, some fans will even have their own dedicated IP address as they search for greater internet download speeds so that they ensure the days of buffering are long over, and on an improvement front the board have again backed our 43 year old gaffer to the hilt and having spent over £100 million on Kepa, Martin Zubimendi, Christian Norgaard and Noni Madueke, Arteta finally answered the centre forward question with the £64 million capture of Sporting Lisbon striker Viktor Gyokeres.

The 27 year old Swedish international talent’s spell in Portugal’s Primeira Liga has seen a return of 97 goals in 201 games across all competitions, so for every understandable reason Gunners fans are relishing to see what he is capable of doing for us once he has settled into life at the Emirates Stadium properly.

Although no sensible fan truly bases season predictions on pre season friendly games, everyone was paying attention to our Hong Kong clash with Tottenham Hotspur as it is such a rare occasion at the best of times, and not least this clash was the first north London derby to be held outside of the United Kingdom. In front of a record crowd of 49,975 we lost to a Pape Matar Sarr lob from near the halfway line.

That is not the important point though, Arteta has been experimenting with our playing style during this pre season and it certainly came to the fore in this game. Last season’s set piece focus continued as we showed off some new routines, but one of the starkest things to come out of the tour of Singapore and Hong Kong was the fact that we are playing far more on the front foot and are being more direct, with less emphasis on the backwards and sideways tippy tappy nonsense – or as the experts would have us believe ‘the slow build up’ style that apparently displays intelligence.

It is a good tweak from Arteta as Arsenal had become predictable and whilst that did not always count against us with the quality in our squad, when we were not at our best, teams took advantage with their defensive play and it went a long way to explaining why we drew far too many games last season.

Mixing it up better will work to our advantage, particularly with our new signings, and Gyokeres could benefit the most when he is in tune with his colleagues as we again showed that we are prepared to shoot more when a chance opens up, as opposed to playing it safe.

It could be a very interesting season indeed.