Arsenal's Title Defence: Champions Ready to Dominate Again
Arsenal’s title defence is barely under way, and already the old guard are convinced they are the team to beat.
Paul Scholes and Gary Neville both believe Mikel Arteta’s side will keep their hands on the Premier League trophy this season, backing the champions to ride the momentum of last year’s long-awaited triumph into another dominant campaign.
Champions start like champions
Arsenal ended a 20-year wait for the league title in May. There was no sign of a hangover on opening weekend.
They brushed aside newly-promoted Coventry City 3-0, a routine, almost ruthless win that felt more like a continuation than a fresh start. Same patterns, same control, same authority. Just more depth.
Arteta now works with a squad that looks stacked in almost every department. The core that delivered the title remains intact, but the bench is heavier, the options richer. For a club that spent years chasing, not dictating, that shift is stark.
Compounding Arsenal’s advantage is the turbulence around them. Manchester City and Liverpool, the two sides who have set the standard over the past decade, are both in transition. Pep Guardiola has gone, Arne Slot has departed Liverpool, and both clubs are feeling their way into new eras. Arsenal, by contrast, are settled and sure of themselves.
No wonder the bookmakers and the pundits are pointing in the same direction.
Treble talk already in the air
The league is the main target. It always is. But the conversation has already drifted towards something bigger.
Last season, Arsenal came agonisingly close to a historic breakthrough in Europe, only to fall at the final hurdle against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. They also lost the Carabao Cup final to Manchester City. Two shots at silverware, two bitter endings.
That pain has not killed the ambition. It has sharpened it.
On The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast, former Arsenal striker Dion Dublin stopped short of predicting a treble, but he refused to dismiss it.
“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 better than almost anyone what it takes to win the treble after Manchester United’s 1999 heroics, did not 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.”
Recruitment that screams intent
Arsenal’s summer business has underlined their ambition to turn last season’s near-misses into a sustained era of success.
Arteta has added Bruno Guimaraes, Christos Tzolis and Ezri Konsa to an already polished squad, and crucially, he has integrated them quickly. These are not speculative signings parked on the fringes. They are ready-made upgrades and serious competition for places.
The message is blunt: winning the league once is not enough.
Neville sees the same thing. On Sky Sports, when pressed for his title pick, he did not hesitate.
“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.”
From a former Manchester United right-back who has rarely been shy about criticising Arsenal over the years, that is a striking endorsement.
Villa test as rivals stumble
Next comes the first real check of their early-season resolve.
Arsenal travel into Monday night’s Premier League clash against Aston Villa with a perfect start and a growing sense of inevitability around their performances. Villa, though, arrive in a very different mood.
Their summer has been unsettling, their opening weekend brutal. A 4-0 hammering by Brighton exposed frailties and uncertainty, the kind of defeat that lingers. They badly need a response.
Arsenal, sensing weakness across the league, cannot afford to relax. With traditional rivals dropping points and wrestling with form and identity, Arteta will demand sharpness, not complacency, from his star-laden group.
Another commanding win would not just preserve their perfect record. It would crank the noise around the Emirates up another level and force the rest of the league to confront an uncomfortable question:
If this is Arsenal still warming up, what happens when they hit full speed?
