After so many years of almost boring stability and steady-as-she-goes management, it’s all change for Arsenal at the Emirates as we enter the new Premier League season. A new manager, new players, and now a new owner, mean things will certainly be different at the club going forward. But will it make a difference where it counts (on the pitch), and will it help Arsenal end their recent run of frustratingly-average form?
Last season (the 21st under Arsene Wenger) was the final straw for the Frenchman. Finishing sixth—which was effectively at the bottom of the Big Six’s personal Premier League, with victories in just half of their games—Arsenal ended up 37 points off champions Man City and 7 points adrift of fifth-placed Chelsea. Their run to the semi-final of the Europa League was impressive, but it was still no substitute for Champions League football.
Unai Emery – the first new manager for over two decades
So, what can we look forward to as the all-new Arsenal take to the field? With back-to-back opening games against Man City at home and Chelsea away, it’s not the easiest of starts for new boss, Unai Emery. He’ll need all the skills and strategies that took Paris St. Germain to the French domestic treble last year just to get out of the starting blocks in the Premier League, and fans will have to allow for this.
New players will certainly help, with Arsenal finally shaking their reputation for lacking transfers with several new signings. Even so, these hardly rival the kind of spending sprees the likes of Liverpool have been enjoying this summer. A new keeper (Bernd Leno) and new defenders (Stephan Lichtsteiner on the right and Sokratis Papastathopoulos in the centre), plus exciting Uruguayan midfielder Lucas Torreira, will strengthen things across the field and should help the team avoid the more than fifty goals conceded in the last campaign.
Torreira in action at the 2018 World Cup
However, despite the changes, many pundits still think The Gunners won’t have the firepower to compete, with the likes of Manchester City still predicted to be too much to handle. After three defeats from three last season, with an aggregate score of 9-1, the Etihad outfit are simply in a different league.
However, the next transfer window (from 1st January) could be much more interesting, especially now that American billionaire Stan Kroenke has taken full control of the club. Kroenke’s company KSE, which also owns the LA Rams, says its ambitions for the club are “to see it competing consistently to win the Premier League and the Champions League.”
The fans, however, are no so convinced, with the Arsenal Supporters Club stating that “The AST is wholly against this takeover, which marks a very sad day for Arsenal football club.”
Fortunately, one thing Arsenal fans have in abundance is patience. If anything, it was their abundant patience with Wenger that led the club into its current troubles. But with new management, new players and new owners, they’ll need every ounce of that resilience to keep them going while all the changes bed in and start to make a difference. Until then, fans will probably have to endure more of the same, with experts predicting another so-so, fifth-place finish. But maybe, just maybe, the title-winning days of 2004 could soon be returning to Highbury.
