Arteta Demands Desire as Arsenal Begin Title Defence Against Coventry
Mikel Arteta has challenged Arsenal to prove they have the hunger to defend a Premier League title — something the club has not managed since the 1930s.
Speaking on the eve of the new season, August 20, Arteta said his players "need to show that desire and ambition to be better than what we were last season, a month ago, or a week ago when we played Man City" (The Guardian). That City match was the Community Shield, played on August 16 in Cardiff, which Arsenal won 3-0.
Arteta was blunt about the mentality required. "I want to be first and hunted," he said, "and in control of our future rather than depending on somebody else" (The Guardian). It is a clear reference to the title run-in Arsenal navigated last spring, when a late Leandro Trossard goal beat West Ham 1-0 on May 10 to restore a five-point lead at the top (Reuters).
Friday night's opener brings Coventry to the Emirates. The odds favour Arsenal heavily: they have won 17 of their last 18 matches against promoted teams and have not lost at home to one since November 2010 — a run of 45 matches (The Guardian). Arsenal have also won their opening-day fixture in each of the last four seasons (ESPN).
The headline Arsenal did not want going into the weekend was the future of Myles Lewis-Skelly, the 19-year-old academy graduate who started in midfield for Arsenal in last season's Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain. He had been offered to Manchester United and Chelsea earlier in the transfer window as Arsenal sought to raise funds following their £75m purchase of Bruno Guimarães from Newcastle (The Guardian).
Arteta shut that down. "I'm 100% confident he will remain an Arsenal player," he said (The Guardian).
Lewis-Skelly's rise has been rapid. He burst onto the scene as a fearless teenager during the 2024-25 campaign and became the second-youngest Arsenal player to feature in a league derby against Tottenham (Reuters). In the Community Shield win over City, he was outstanding in midfield, threading a pass to set up left back Calafiori for a calmly taken goal (Reuters).
Alongside Martín Zubimendi and Guimarães, Lewis-Skelly gave Arsenal complete control of midfield that afternoon (Yahoo Sports). For a teenager shopped around weeks earlier, it was quite a statement.
For Arsenal fans, the message from their manager is simple. The trophy is theirs. Keeping it is the hard part — and the work starts Friday.
