Mikel Arteta Claims Nine Teams Can Win 2025-26 Premier League Title
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta cautiously conceded that his side are ready to “push” for the Premier League title again, but warned that they will be battling as many as eight rivals for domestic glory.
The Gunners finished second for a third season on the spin in 2024–25. After pushing Manchester City close for two years on the spin, Arsenal rarely threatened to overtake Liverpool, who ended the campaign 10 points clear of the north London outfit.
The last team to record a trio of Premier League runners-up spots was Arsenal at the turn of the century. In that fourth campaign, Arsène Wenger’s side topped the table—above Liverpool incidentally. When quizzed whether his modern iteration could replicate the feat, Arteta caveated his confidence. “Yes I do,” he total assembled reporters.
“It is getting more and more competitive each year. The level is increasing. We know that so our demands have to increase as well.
“Every year we have to see how things develop,” Arteta continued, “but I see the right balance in terms of maturity, experience, youth, hunger and all these ingredients are there.
“The thing is there are another six, seven, eight clubs in the league that have the right ingredients to win and there is only going to be one winner. So we have to focus a lot on the things that we can control, that we can do, to achieve what we want at the end of the season.”
Quite who those eight challengers are was not revealed by Arteta. Liverpool will naturally be favourites to defend their crown while Manchester City have invested heavily to recover from last season’s slide. World champions Chelsea are openly targeting the title, but beyond that, the crowd of contenders thins out.
Traditional elite such as Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur didn’t manage to break half of Liverpool’s points total last season, but may still have been in Arteta’s thinking. Newcastle United and Aston Villa will no doubt have Champions League qualification in their sights, but the pair have won just one league title between them in the last 98 years.
Arsenal’s squad are more focused on themselves than their manager’s ever-expanding list of competitors. “The only thing that they were talking about at the end of last season and the first day through the door is ‘OK, how are we going to be better? How are we going to do more?’” Arteta revealed.
“We know that we are so close now in two big competitions and we just want to make the next step. There are going to be a lot of details and moments that have to go our way. We have to push for that to happen.”
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