Arsenal's Title Defence and Treble Ambitions
Arsenal’s title defence is barely a week old, and already the old guard are lining up to crown them again.
Paul Scholes and Gary Neville both believe Mikel Arteta’s side will retain the Premier League, a statement that would have sounded fanciful not long ago. Now it feels almost routine. Arsenal finally ended their 20-year wait for a league title in May; the question being asked this season isn’t whether they can compete. It’s whether anyone can live with them.
They opened with a statement. Newly-promoted Coventry City arrived full of hope and left with a 3-0 defeat, brushed aside by a champion team that looked sharp, settled and utterly unbothered by the weight of expectation. It wasn’t just three points. It was a reminder: the bar has been set very high.
Arteta has not stood still. Arsenal have added depth to a squad that already looked complete. Ezri Konsa has come in to bolster a defence that was one of the league’s meanest. Bruno Guimaraes offers craft and control in midfield. Christos Tzolis adds another attacking option to a front line already packed with quality. These are not speculative signings. They are upgrades for a team that just won the title.
The timing helps them too. While Arsenal look settled, their biggest rivals are wrestling with change. Manchester City and Liverpool both head into this campaign under new managers after the departures of Pep Guardiola and Arne Slot. Two giants in transition. Two dressing rooms adapting to new ideas. Arsenal, by contrast, know exactly who they are and what they’re doing.
That stability has fuelled a bolder conversation. The title is the main target, but whispers of a treble have already begun to circle. They come from painful experience as much as ambition. Last season, Arsenal reached the Champions League final only to lose to Paris Saint-Germain, and fell short in the Carabao Cup final against City. Two chances at silverware, two near-misses. The sense of unfinished business is obvious.
On The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast, former Arsenal striker Dion Dublin refused to laugh off the idea of an unprecedented treble.
“I’m not going to back Arsenal to win the treble, but I’m not going to rule it out either,” he said. “They’ve got the best and most settled squad and there’s a real harmony at the football club.”
Scholes, who knows exactly what a treble looks and feels like from Manchester United’s 1999 vintage, didn’t hesitate to back that view.
“I agree with that. I think it’s very possible with the way they’re looking,” he said. “I still think in the last week of the transfer window they could bring another player, which is scary. They’ve just signed Ezri Konsa as well who is a top-class defender.”
The word “scary” hangs in the air. Not because Arsenal are perfect, but because they are champions who still look hungry, still recruiting, still pushing standards higher.
Neville has seen enough already. On Sky Sports, when pressed for a title prediction, he didn’t hedge.
“One hundred per cent Arsenal,” he replied. “They’re way out in front. With what they’ve got already now in defence and in midfield, with the good attackers that they’ve got, they’ve got a really good standard, then they’re fine.”
That is the view from the pundits’ chairs. On the pitch, the next test comes quickly.
Arsenal travel into their second league game on Monday night, facing an Aston Villa side already under pressure. Villa’s summer has been unsettled, their opening day brutal. A 4-0 hammering by Brighton exposed frailties and raised questions about their direction before the season has even settled into a rhythm.
For Arsenal, it’s a different kind of challenge. When your rivals stumble early, the temptation is to glance at the table and dream. Arteta will have no time for that. With City and Liverpool adjusting to life after Guardiola and Slot, every dropped point feels like a gift to the champions. Every convincing win feels like another brick in a wall that might shut the league down early.
So the message inside the Arsenal camp will be simple: focus. Win again. Win well.
If they walk past Villa with the same authority they showed against Coventry, the noise around the Emirates will only get louder. Title talk will harden into expectation. Treble talk, once dismissed as fantasy, will start to sound less like a stretch and more like a challenge this squad is being dared to meet.
