It is incredibly early days in Arsenal’s title defence campaign of 2026/27, but manager Mikel Arteta could not have really wished for a better start to this season as we have already established back to back victories – keeping two clean sheets – to notch up six points in the table.
Routine Opening Day Start
The victory over Coventry on the opening day was routine and Premier League betting would have predicted such with relative ease, but Monday evening’s clash with Unai Emery as his Aston Villa side was never going to be a walk in the park, despite all of the playing changes they have seen. It was probably a great game for the neutral, Arsenal edged control to take a 1-0 win, but you can see why Villa would argue they were worthy of a point. Three points and a solid, controlled and organised performance from the first test of the year has to be applauded.
We now prepare for the trip to Chelsea to meet their new manager Xabi Alonso, whilst we see if there were any late Deadline Day moves – either way another good week on the training ground will do our newbies the world of good as they continue to settle into life and begin to better understand Arteta’s wants from them.
250 Not Out
Our gaffer himself has another reason to celebrate Monday’s victory, it represented his 250th top flight game in charge for us, and after lifting last years’ title and consigning the runners up tag to where it belongs, he is now part of the elite 250 Premier League club. He now joins Arsenal great Arsene Wenger, Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola and select others in the rare breed cohort and takes his place as the 10th member.
The 44 year old Spaniard will no doubt be delighted with that recognition, but he would much prefer to see the Gunners register back to back league titles given how hard that has been, on a historical front, to achieve. We have already gone into this campaign as favourites to do that, and those in the Emirates Stadium faithful will know that our chances of achieving just that are now probably slightly more favourable, giving the comings and goings that we have seen from those sides that we would have to consider rivals.
Arsenal Ahead Of Transition Clubs?
Liverpool, Manchester City, and I suppose we should include Chelsea and Manchester United in that, are all clearly in a transition phase again and neutrals can already see where their play will cause issues in their consistency levels. They should not be ruled out, things will settle and they ‘should’ click, but at worst we have an opportunity to open up an early advantage – on the favoured front, City and Chelsea are also joint on points with us right now, but we can see where the slip ups will come, and our stability can only help consistency.
Our stability can also only help improve Arteta’s own win percentage, which currently sits as the fourth best amongst the 250 club where he is only beaten by Guardiola, Ferguson and Jurgen Klopp.
Let us see where he sits on that front come the end of the season, and then importantly, where we do.
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