Let’s breakdown the stats for this matchup.

Sunderland Performance

Sunderland have kicked off the 2026-27 season with a win, a draw, and a loss, leaving them in the middle of the table on 4 points.

This matches their position the weighted xG table where they are a bit better then their table position in 10th.

This is a bit of the opposite of last season where they sequenced their goals scored nearly perfectly to max out their table position. The overall underlying numbers would have put them 18th and going down instead of West Ham but instead they ended up finishing in a European position.

Looking at the course of the season, the numbers did improve over the course of the season and so far that trend has continued into the new season.

I came into the season remaining skeptical of this team and so far they have mostly shown that maybe I was too harsh on them. They have already improved 4 points with better performances than they had last season, even with their opening day loss away to Ipswich.

This should make Arsenal’s trip a good test and it won’t be one that Arsenal look past. Especially not after having dropped points here last season.

Sunderland Form

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Arsenal finished top in the League Phase of the Champions League last season winning all eight of their matches.

For this they were awarded a good path to the final (as you’d expect with proper seeding). They were able to avoid the toughest matches and that set them up to have a run to the final where they were a few coin flips away from winning it all.

I think that it is good that UEFA set things up to reward League Phase performances but they can’t help themselves and still feel the need to take every opportunity to draw balls out of bowls and introduce randomness.

This makes it so that even though they want to try and reward teams that do well in the League Phase that is not always a guarantee. and it can still be a bit of a crapshoot because UEFA love adding randomness with draws. Arsenal ended up on the good side of the bracket but they had an equal chance to have ended up in Bayern Munich’s position.

The big question for me then is how much effort should Arsenal put into trying to make sure that they finish towards the top of the League Phase table?

There are obviously a few priorities that need to be balanced here.

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First is that the number one job is to not get eliminated at the League Phase. Last season 24th place needed 9 points and a -2 goal difference, in 2024-25 that was 11 points and a -4 goal difference. It would take a disaster for Arsenal to finish below that and the worst case scenarios for Arsenal should still see them 11+ points.

The next priority here is to finish inside of the top 8 and avoid the first knock out matches. For Arsenal, these games would slot into the part of the calendar that is tough but not back breaking. It would be after the FA Cup 4th round that could be an opportunity to rotate, a home match against Fulham, then a tough match away at Old Trafford.

We have seen that finishing in these spots hasn’t killed teams in the knock out rounds given that PSG has now twice finished outside of the top 8 spots and gone on to win the whole tournament but they are a bit of a special case where they can kind of sleep walk through the first half of seasons figuring things out.

Finishing in the top 8 has taken 16 points in both of the last two seasons. So that should be the rough target for Arsenal, that requires going 5-1-2 or 4-4-0 or better. Arsenal have some tough matches but that on paper looks very realistic as a minimum expectation for this team.

Once we get beyond locking up a top 8 finish, I think that the benefits of moving up additional spots on the table diminishes quite a bit. With the randomness, it just too hard to try and position yourself into an optimal spot for a draw.

Given the Premier League will likely be a slug fest with no breaks, the pre-knockout Champions League matches might be one of the opportunities to get some rotation in and keep the full extent of the squad engaged and sharp.

I highlighted this in my post yesterday about the usage of the squad. I still don’t think that you will see wholesale change from Arsenal most weeks; the players still want to play in these matches, it is important to keep building continuity and chemistry within the squad, and no one likes to see Arsenal lose matches.

As things stand, Arsenal should be in a good position to make this happen and hopefully the march towards 16 points starts tonight with a win away at Napoli.

Looking ahead, Arsenal face one of their toughest stretches of the season: four away matches in the stretch of 10 days, starting with a crucial trip to Italy to kick off the Champions League campaign.

So far this season Arsenal have been able to field roughly the same starting eleven in each match. So far this season Arsenal have made a total of three changes to the starting eleven.

• Two changes from the starting eleven between the Community Shield and first Premier League match.

• Just one change between matches in the Premier League (Ezri Konsa coming in for Cristhian Mosquera in the latest match).

Being able to use the same group of players has been an advantage and has helped rekindle the chemistry within the team and the team has responded with 4 wins from 4. Maintaining this level of continuity over the upcoming run of fixtures would be inadvisable. Given the depth of the squad available to Mikel Arteta, that shouldn’t have to be the case.

Arteta’s rotation has improved

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Arsenal and Chelsea put on one of the best matches of the early Premier League seasons. It lived up to the hype going into it, there was high quality play, incredible athleticism, a good bit of dislike between the teams and in the end three points to the better team.

I am always a bit nervous coming into these big rivalry matches. Not only are they generally the toughest opponents of the season but they weight that they can carry for everyone’s mental well being. If you lose it can really put everything into a dark mood, online spaces turn toxic and the world is about to end but if you win, you feel like you are floating on air.

I have felt that all weekend long and I am reveling in it.

Let’s break it down.

Arsenal vs Chelsea: The Graphics

Arsenal vs Chelsea: The Debrief

16 - Shots for Arsenal, 2nd most for Arsenal, most that Chelsea have allowed this season

9 - Shots on target for Arsenal, most for Arsenal, most that Chelsea have allowed this season

1.98 - Expected goals for Arsenal, 2nd most for Arsenal, most that Chelsea have allowed this season

48 - Touches in the box for Arsenal, most for Arsenal, most that Chelsea have allowed this season

2.42 - Yards per second of attacking speed for Arsenal against Chelsea, the quickest Arsenal have advanced up the field this season

35.8% - The share of Arsenal’s touches that were in the attacking third vs Chelsea

Things didn’t start perfectly for Arsenal in this match. There is no way that they came in with the intention to allow a second minute goal but the reaction to that set back was perfect.

They regained their composure and started to put a strangle hold on the match afterwards. Arsenal played some of their best attacking football in that first half with flowing moves and combination play. On another day this could have been a romp but I will be glad to settle for the two goals scored and the three points.

I am not going to give him a full section here but I wanted to give a shout out to Christos Tzolis. He had a tough outing against Aston Villa but bounced back putting in a great performance here against Chelsea.

I was impressed with the way that Arsenal were able to exert pressure while still keeping a dangerous Chelsea mostly at bay. Coming into this match, this was the blueprint for Chelsea’s early success, score early and then turn the game into a transition track meet where they felt confident that they can out create you.

For the most part Arsenal did not let the game turn into that and they maintained the attacking advantage. It wasn’t flawless given the quality of Chelsea’s attacking players but overall it was damn good. They had a couple of dangerous moves but Arsenal made enough plays defensively to cut it out or apply enough pressure that their execution was off.

When you look at the attacking numbers for Chelsea in this match you really see just how little they had in the way of threat here.

26.8 - The average distance for the shots that Chelsea took in this match

0.03 - Chelsea’s average shot quality against Arsenal in this match. They were averaging 0.16 per shot previously.

2 - Shots that were rated as 5% or better chances, with 0 getting a rating over 7%.

0 - Big Chances vs Arsenal, they had 10 total in the two matches coming into this match.

28 - Touches in the box vs Arsenal, they were averaging 36 per match before this.

19.7% - The percentage of Chelsea final third touches that were in the box vs Arsenal, this is down from 31.4% before this match

Chelsea came in thinking that they were set up to make a statement but left realizing that they still have quite a gap to close to the truly elite teams in the world.

£60 million down the drain, Kai Havertz scores again

3 - Shots (2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

0.19 - Expected goals

1 - Goal

3 - Key passes (passes that led directly to a shot) (3rd on Arsenal, 3rd in the match)

0.23 - Expected goals of the shots he assisted

5 - Shot creating actions (the two actions leading up to a shot) (tied 2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

1.03 - Expected goals of the shots his shot creating actions led to (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

6 - Buildup actions (touches in a shot move, not counting the shot or the pass that set it up)

1.10 - Expected goals buildup (the xG of shot moves he joined, excluding the shot and the assist) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

28 - Pass attempts, 19 passes completed for 67.9% pass completion percentage with a 108.2% pass efficiency compared to expected passing

10 - Penalty area touches (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

7 - Shot zone touches (touches in the central area in front of goal) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

34 - Passes received

7 - Progressive passes received (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

8 - Final third entry passes received (2nd on Arsenal, 3rd in the match)

9 - Passes received inside the penalty area (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

3 - Crosses received (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

6 - Passes received in the shot zone (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

12 - Duels contested

8 - Duels won (tied 2nd on Arsenal, tied 3rd in the match)

Havertz in this match was everywhere and doing a bit of everything. It was close to the ideal match from him, contributing all over, a few moments of frustration, but overall brilliant.

That basically describes him as a striker for Arsenal. Here are his overall numbers for the matches that he has started in the Premier League up top.

People are reluctant to give him the “World Class” tag but he is probably deserving of it for how well he plays as a striker, contributing along so many different facets of the game.

A Captain’s performance from Martin Ødegaard

2 - Shots, good for 0.57 expected goals, and 1 goal scored

56 - Pass attempts (2nd on Arsenal, 2nd in the match), 48 passes completed for 85.7% pass completion percentage with a 106.5% pass efficiency compared to expected passing

8 - Progressive passes completed (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

4 - Shots assisted (tied 1st on Arsenal, tied 1st in the match)

1.03 - Expected assists (the expected goals value of the shots he set up) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

8 - Shot creating actions (the two actions leading up to a shot) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

5 - Passes completed into the shot zone (the central area in front of goal) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

11 - Deep completions (passes completed within 20 yards of goal) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

8 - Passes completed into the penalty area (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

9 - Buildup actions (touches in a shot move, not counting the shot or the pass that set it up) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

76.9% - His expected goals chain as a share of the teams expected goals while he was on the pitch

7 - Duels contested

5 - Duels won

After going down early, Arsenal needed someone to take control and dictate the response and that is exactly what Arsenal got in this match from their Captain. He has been a lightening rod of opinions over the last few years but he has been able to tune that noise out, and has put in some fantastic performances to start the season. He looks healthy and at his best again, when that is the case there are few better than him.

It is only 3 matches into the new season but he already has double the goals , 65% of the xG, 27% of the total shots taken, 25% of his total shots on target from last season.

I hope that this continues.

Dominance vs Chelsea

18 - Matches under Mikel Arteta vs Chelsea

12 - Wins against Chelsea under Mikel Arteta

2.22 - Points per game average against Chelsea under Mikel Arteta

35 - Goals scored against Chelsea under Mikel Arteta

+16 - Goal difference against Chelsea under Mikel Arteta (+0.89 per match)

I hate Chelsea with a passion and it makes me so happy to see Arsenal come in and flip the script on the dominance that they once held over Arsenal. Mikel Arteta loves to beat this team.

I know that if you are a local to North London, Arsenal’s most hated rival is Tottenham but for me thousands of miles away, I HATE Chelsea.

There is just something about the club, the fans, and the way that they operate that really makes me despise them.

That is what makes beating them so sweet and under Mikel Arteta there has been lots of joy in this fixture.

Since January 2020 Arsenal have played Chelsea 17 times, they have won 12 times, losing just once (back in 2021). Over that time the combined scoreline is 34-16. After years of Chelsea coming in and doing the big brother thing to Arsenal, the shoe is fully on the other foot.

This match was no different. The scoreline says this was just a single goal victory but this was much more dominate from Arsenal than what the scoreboard said.

Chelsea got their early opener but that was just about it from them and this match was basically all Arsenal.

Chelsea have been an early media darling with their two opening wins but here they got reminded that they still have a long way to go and that this Arsenal team is quite a bit better than Fulham and Brighton attacking them (plus Arsenal won’t gift you goals like those teams did).

Arsenal remain perfect and look damn good.

📈 The positives:

• Arsenal show that they have the heart and can respond to adversity. That opening goal gave Chelsea exactly what they would have needed and set them up to try and repeat the tactics that have seen them score a 7 goals to start the season. Chelsea did have a bit of threat on the counter attack but Arsenal did just enough to snuff it out. Outside of those few moments, Chelsea just didn’t have enough to generate transition against Arsenal’s midfield or press and they just crashed upon them with wave after wave of attacks.

  

  Even after the game went back to even Chelsea struggled to create much and then when down a goal they managed just 7 shots and none of them worth more than 7% on expected goals.

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If you thought the Premier League transfer window was crazy last summer…well, it got crazier this time around. Somewhere between a boatload and a buttload was spent on player trading this summer, with even some of the league’s top sides taking on complete positional overhauls.

So…who got it right and who’s due another overhaul next summer? Let’s get into the rankings below!

20. Sunderland

In: Malick Fofana (€30m), Dayann Méthalie (€28m), Jules Ahoka (€10m), Juan Riquelme Angulo (€5.85m), Kevin Danso (loan), Thomas Meunier (free)
Out: Eliezer Mayenda (€22m), Anthony Patterson (€9.35m), Dan Neil (free), Arthur Masuaku (free)

This is the right kind of destination for Malick Fofana, who will provide some competition and depth for the emerging (ADAM favorite) Nilson Angulo. In midfield, it’s a lot of the same for the Black Cats, who’ve otherwise added Meunier and Méthalie, more of a punt on a younger talented guy from France. A lot of status quo here overall, which I don’t love considering the underlying numbers on them suggested they overperformed significantly, while also adding European football. I think they needed to do more but recognize that may not have been possible.

19. Fulham

In: Gonzalo García (€40m), Shea Charles (€30.4m), David Affengruber (€12m), César Palacios (€10m), Jonah Kusi-Asare (€6m), Manuel Ángel (€4m), Hugo Larsson (loan)
Out: Saša Lukić (€10.5m), Issa Diop (€10m), Harry Wilson (free), Steven Benda (free), Raúl Jiménez (free)

I love bringing in Larsson, one of the brightest young CMs out there at the moment. That’s exactly the kind of move I think lower mid-table clubs should be making these days. Beyond that, it feels like a lot of bringing in Arbeloa’s guys. Not that Gonzalo didn’t have his moments at Real Madrid, I would just have felt better with a bit more experience coming in, particularly with Wilson and Raúl gone. This season should ultimately center around what guys like Bobb, Josh King, Garcia, Palacios and Kevin can do, and that scares me.

18. Coventry City

In: Caleb Yirenkyi (€27m), Carl Rushworth (€25.7m), Sidiki Chérif (€24.5m), Loum Tchaouna (€23m), Aurèle Amenda (€18m), Taiwo Awoniyi (€10.5m), Frank Onyeka (€7m), Gustavo Hamer (€7m), Ethan Pinnock (€5.85m)
Out: Jahnoah Markelo (€5.15m)

I just don’t think Coventry got it quite right. Yirenkyi is very exciting and should be able to bring in money or keep them a top Championship club, but he’s going to be under such pressure to really perform early. Other than that, some veteran type moves here that are understandable but ultimately underwhelming in Tchaouna, Awoniyi, Onyeka and Pinnock, none of whom even strike me as midtable starters. It feels a lot like Frank’s gonna need to deliver some magic to keep these guys up.

17. Everton

In: Brennan Johnson (€25.8m), Tyrique George (€21m), Hayden Hackney (€19.3m), Christian Nørgaard (€8.15m), Ainsley Maitland-Niles (€3.5m), Jack Grealish (loan)
Out: Iliman Ndiaye (€70m), Dwight McNeil (€25.8m), Beto (€18m), Tim Iroegbunam (€15.15m), Idrissa Gueye (free), Nathan Patterson (free), Seamus Coleman (free)

Easily the worst PR of Deadline Day, but a bit of up and down overall here for me. Ndiaye is such a huge loss for Everton, and I don’t trust George and Johnson to replace his output, even though I believe Johnson is more suited for Everton than his past couple of employers. However, I believe quite a bit in their midfield, particularly with the addition of Hayden Hackney and before even considering the emergence of Harrison Armstrong. But all of that said, they’re also definitely light in defense and Folarin Balogun’s last-minute change of heart leaves them with one real striker and only five senior attackers total, which is risky.

16. Nottingham Forest

In: Liam Delap (€52.5m), Ousmane Diomande (€40m), Daniel Muñoz (€25.7m), Gustavo Sá (€20m), Xaver Schlager (free), Steven Benda (free)
Out: Elliot Anderson (€135m), Taiwo Awoniyi (€10.5m), David Carmo (€9m), Omari Hutchinson (loan), Angus Gunn (free), Stefan Ortega (free), Jota Silva (?), Dilane Bawka (loan), Morato (loan)
Net:

Forest really love to shake things up, and they’ve done so again here. Omari is gone just a season after joining, and Bakwa, another big ticket signing last summer, is also out on loan. Anderson was so crucial to what the side could do last season, and from where I stand, they haven’t properly filled his place. Schlager is a journeyman Bundesliga player who’s solid, but likely not enough to fill in those very large shoes. Meanwhile Muñoz is a good player who’s a bit redundant with Ola Aina and cost quite a bit, and Diomande is still third CB, so one for the future. I also probably would have gone for more of a wide attacker than Liam Delap, as Igor Jesus has looked useful since joining. Big pressure on Gibbs-White here, I think.

15. Tottenham

In: Sandro Tonali (€108m), Mateus Fernandes (€99m), Savinho (€87.7m), Jan Paul van Hecke (€60m), Tosin Adarabioyo (€11.65m), Andrew Robertson (free), Marcos Senesi (free), Martin Dubravka (free), Omar Marmoush (loan), Mykhaylo Mudryk (loan)
Out: Luka Vuskovic (€54m), Cristian Romero (€33m), Djed Spence (€30m), Will Lankshear (€11.7m), Alejo Veliz (€9m), Ashley Phillips (€8.2m), Manor Solomon (€5.85m), Alfie Devine (€5.3m), Kevin Danso (loan), Pape Matar Sarr (loan), Guglielmo Vicario (loan), Dane Scarlett (free), Radu Drăgușin (loan), Yves Bissouma (free)

The window started with an odd quiet competence from Tottenham, as they bagged a very good CB in van Hecke and another very capable choice for third CB in Senesi, then a strong veteran fullback in Robertson. But things went a bit cockeyed from there. The problem with evaluating this window that I’ve seen is that yes, Mateus and Tonali are likely improvements in Spurs’s midfield. But whether they’ll be a €200m improvement is very much in doubt. For me, that would necessitate a run back to the European places at minimum, and I’m not sure they’ve got that in them. Combine that with a double-move for Savinho and Marmoush that will total something like €150m all-in, and I think Spurs have likely lit a lot of money on fire here. Mudryk? Sure, why not. De Zerbi believes in him!

14. Newcastle

In: Matias Fernandez-Pardo (€60m), Nico (€56m), Bazoumana Touré (€50m), Amar Dedic (€35.9m), Aladji Bamba (€35.5m), Lukas Hornicek (€30.6m), Sean Steur (€23.5m), Ewen Jaouen (€21.5m)
Out: Sandro Tonali (€108m), Bruno Guimarães (€87.5m), Anthony Gordon (€80m), Nick Woltemade (loan), Matt Targett (free), Kieran Trippier (free), Emil Krafth (free)
Net:

What, you’re saying the Woltemade signing didn’t work out? Shocker!

Moving on, I’ll start with what I like for Newcastle: Baz Touré and MFP are two exciting young wing talents for the Magpies. The issue, though, is that both are left-sided by trade, making a second consecutive season where Newcastle have spent a ton of money on two guys who play the same position. At least this time they’re both young.

Speaking of, why sign two different keepers for €20m+ when you’re not even in Europe?

OK, moving on - I like Dedic and think he’s going to be good for them. But when you lose Tonali and Bruno in midfield, I think you simply have to go bigger to replace them than Newcastle did. As it stands, this is a big, big bet that young guys like Bamba (10 starts in Ligue 1) and Steur (14 Eredivisie starts) can pick up the slack of basically your two best players. That could get hairy, regardless of how big a fee you brought in.

13. Hull City

In: Nobel Mendy (€23.4m), Konstantinos Tzolakis (€23.3m), Ilyas Ansah (€17m), Tim Iroebugnam (€15.2m), Mohamed Ali-Cho (€15.2m), Christos Mouzakitis (€15m), Lucas Herrington (€14.8m), Brook Norton-Cuffy (€14m), Jens Hjertø-Dahl (€9.5m), Sorba Thomas (€8.75m), Joe Gelhardt (€7.6m), Lucas Gourna-Douath (€4m), Jack Butland (€3.5m), Elliot Stroud (€2.5m), Robinio Vaz (loan), Hidemasa Morita (free), Matt Targett (free)
Out: Ivor Pandur (€7m), Kyle Joseph (€4.7m), Cody Drameh (€4.5m), Abu Kamara (€2.9m)
Net:

Hull City did some good business this summer, but they started from a very low bar. I think Morita and Sorba Thomas are exactly the kinds of players you bring in for cheap in their situation, and I like the top-end shots at Mendy and Ansah in particular, who has popped a bit in my formula. Ali-Cho has potential as a wide man and Herrington definitely looks interesting at fullback. I’m interested to see Hale End’s Norton-Cuffy back in the Prem, though I have my doubts over his fit as a fullback in the league. I think pretty decent overall and enough to keep them on the top end of the Champs if/when they go back down.

12. Crystal Palace

In: Dwight McNeil (€25.8m), Anan Khalaili (€24.5m), Quinten Timber (€20m), Zavier Gozo (€13m), Óscar Mingueza (free), Takehiro Tomiyasu (free), Ben Chilwell (free), Axel Disasi (loan), Honest Ahanor (loan)
Out: Maxence Lacroix (€60.7m), Brennan Johnson (€25.8m), Daniel Muñoz (€25.7m), Danny Imray (€6.6m), Justin Devenny (€5.85m), David Ozoh (€4.65m), Borna Sosa (loan), Nathaniel Clyne (free)

It feels like every window brings a new “can they keep him?” saga at Crystal Palace, and this summer brought us two in Mateta and Sarr. Both staying in London could be huge for Pierre Sage’s men, and I think otherwise this has been a quietly competent body of work.

The absence of Lacroix hurts an already-depleted backline where Guehi is also missed, but the group of Canvot, Tomi, Disasi, Riad and now Honest Ahanor (technically a BlueCo man) is exciting and could help them get through another season at the top level. The Daniel Muñoz sale made the best of the situation, setting a new high for a fullback 30 or older. The guys coming in as a result - Khalaili and Mingueza - should add a lot of attacking ability, but defending may be a little touch-and-go. I like the swap of Johnson for McNeil, who is one of my guys, and Quinten Timber could be a sneaky good addition, given he can play a couple of roles in their system.

11. Bournemouth

In: Álvaro Rodríguez (€25m), António Silva (€25m), Juanlu Sánchez (€11m), Michele di Gregorio (loan)
Out: Hamed Traoré (€7.7m), Álex Jiménez (loan), Marcos Senesi (free), Enes Ünal (free)

A much quieter window on the player front this summer for Bournemouth, but they did lose their manager. I like what the Cherries have done on the aggregate otherwise, particularly nabbing Silva for such a small fee — he’s an enticing young CB. Álvaro is a player whose numbers in a poor La Liga side were very interesting, so I’m excited to see what he can offer as a secondary attacker behind Evanilson. The growth of Alex Scott and Rayan and the return of Junior Kroupi will otherwise be really big to the side’s direction. The only thing I could really add here is with European football to play, they could’ve added more numbers.

10. Liverpool

In: Bradley Barcola (€125m), Jérémy Jacquet (€63.6m), Víctor Muñoz (€40m), Lucca Brughmans (€33m), Ronald Araujo (loan)
Out: Curtis Jones (€30m), Stefan Bajcetic (€1.2m), Andrew Robertson (free), Ibrahima Konaté (free), Mohamed Salah (free), Harvey Elliott (loan)

I only wish I had doubted their haul last summer more ardently. For Liverpool to spend over €250m once again and have as many questions as they do feels like a real dereliction of duty here. And it’s not even that I find Jacquet or Barcola to be iffy signings - I think they’ll both do well at Anfield, though whether the latter lives up to his billing is something to watch. What really would scare me as a Liverpool supporter is that for the immediate future, there is essentially no second option at 9 for Iraola, the club didn’t actually replace Mo Salah, and we’re stuck going into another season with Kerkez-Frimpong at fullback and minimal center-back depth. Things could get scary if the Reds aren’t careful.

9. Brighton

In: Luka Vuskovic (€54m), Zadok Yohanna (€28m), Pascal Struijk (€23.2m), Chema Andrés (€22m), Femi Azeez (€14.6m), Jaouen Hadjam (€13m), Costinha (€12.7m), Promise David (loan)
Out: Carlos Baleba (€75.9m), Jan Paul van Hecke (€60m), Carl Rushworth (€25.7m), Diego Coppola (€17.5m), Danny Welbeck (€5.85m), Joel Veltman (free), Solly March (free), Adam Webster (free), James Milner (retired)

Brighton have Brightoned again. This time they dumped Baleba and van Hecke for nine figures and replaced them with one of Europe’s most promising CBs in Vuskovic and a midfielder my formula loves in Chema. Just like they did with Kostoulas from the Greek league, Brighton have come into the Swedish league and set a new transfer record for Yohanna, a right winger who seems like he’ll be used as an option behind Minteh. Femi Azeez is, to me, a sneaky good signing and may provide them with some real quality in attack that they’ll need throughout the season. And yet, somehow it will once again be all about Dunk and Groß.

8. Aston Villa

In: Johan Manzambi (€60m), Nicolas Jackson (€55.5m), Ibrahim Mbaye (€55m), João Gomes (€40m), Zion Suzuki (€30m), Taylor Harwood-Bellis (€29.2m), Matteo Ruggeri (€25m), Leon Goretzka (free), Alejandro Garnacho (loan), Aaron Wan-Bissaka (loan)
Out: Morgan Rogers (€138m), Ezri Konsa (€59.6m), Ollie Watkins (€58.4m), Youri Tielemans (€41m), Donyell Malen (€25m), Enzo Barrenechea (€12m), Lewis Dobbin (€10.5m), Emiliano Martínez (€8.75m), Lucas Digne (€7m)
Net:

So much change here for Villa, whose identity walked out the door with the losses of Rogers, Konsa, Watkins, Digne, Emi and Tielemans. Cut to John McGinn in that empty room from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

That said, Villa made some moves that I like for them - Manzambi was maybe the most exciting young attacking midfielder on the market, and Jackson is a nice analogue for Ollie. Harwood-Bellis is a very solid CB and Wan-Bissaka is persistently underrated, so should add some to their outlook as well. I also really like the signing of Gomes, one of the few bright spots for Wolves last season. If I’m being honest, the Mbaye signing feels like too big a gamble for this side to make when so much has already changed, and it leaves them short a proven option or two in attack. I would’ve felt better with an Ismaila Sarr type — not that player specifically per se, just someone with a couple more seasons of experience, especially in the PL. These guys need to play both CL and PL ball this season and I’m not sure they’ve got the numbers for it, especially in attack.

7. Manchester United

In: Carlos Baleba (€75.9m), Andrey Santos (€56.3m), Youri Tielemans (€41m), Karl Darlow (free)
Out: Rasmus Højlund (€44m), Radek Vítek (€8.2m), Toby Collyer (€3.5m), Casemiro (free), Altay Bayındır (loan), Jadon Sancho (free), Tyrell Malacia (free)
Net:

The list of business done by Manchester United feels so short compared to the rest of the league, and that may be a good thing for them. In Santos and Tielemans, the Red Devils have picked up two affordable and talented midfielders in a time of pure madness, price-wise. Baleba is a big gamble for me, a bet that he can return to his very best form, and that last season was a mirage. He feels like the right profile to sign along the other two, but a great deal of this window will hinge on whether that translates to good performances. With Casemiro gone, they will need that pop out of the midfield to come from somewhere else.

6. Leeds United

In: James Trafford (€46.7m), Tarik Muharemović (€37m), Nico Elvedi (€8m), Michael Zetterer (€5m), Jean-Mattéo Bahoya (loan), Melvin Bard (loan), Harry Wilson (free)
Out: Pascal Struijk (€23.2m), Joe Gelhardt (€7.6m), Jack Harrison (€1m), Sebastiaan Bornauw (loan), Wilfried Gnonto (loan), Karl Darlow (free), Illan Meslier (free), Maximilian Wöber (free), Sam Byram (free), Largie Ramazani (loan), Lucas Perri (loan), Joël Piroe (loan)

Really like what Leeds have done here, particularly bringing in one of the best midtable goal scorers in Harry Wilson and taking a punt on Bahoya and Bard, two players whose numbers have caught the ADAM formula’s attention plenty. Trafford was very expensive but should add long-sought-after stability in goal, while Muharemović has been one of my favorite young CBs for a bit and looks good.

5. Ipswich Town

In: Julio Enciso (€30.5m), Emersonn (€28m), Abdul Fatawu (€23.5m), Exequiel Palacios (€22.5m), Abdoul Ouattara (€20m), Zian Flemming (€19.8m), Florentino (€18.7m), Saša Lukić (€10.5m), Issa Diop (€10m), Kjell Scherpen (€10m), Daizen Maeda (€9.4m), Chuba Akpom (€9.3m), Cédric Kipré (€4.5m), Kayne van Oevelen (€4m)
Out: Arijanet Murić (€7m), George Hirst (€7m), Harry Clarke (€4m)

I get some strong Sunderland vibes from this Ipswich window, which may not be quite enough to keep them up but should guarantee them another strong run in the Championship and/or profitable sales, if nothing else. I am pro-Enciso and have been watching Fatawu and Palacios for quite some time. The latter’s ability to stay uninjured, traditionally a problem for him, will be huge for Ipswich Town. Emersonn has popped at various times in my rankings, and there are some real wily vets here in Maeda, Lukić and Diop. I think this haul made them the strongest promoted side by a good stretch.

4. Brentford

In: Mamadou Sangaré (€48m), El Hadji Malick Diouf (€40.8m), Jannik Schuster (€18m), Jaidon Anthony (€17.5m), Callum Wilson (free)
Out: Frank Onyeka (€7m), Ethan Pinnock (€5m), Jordan Henderson (free)

Really good, if low on volume. I don’t think Wilson will make much of a dent for the Bees, but Anthony has thrived in similar circumstances and is a useful option for them out wide. In Sangaré and Diouf, they’ve locked up two of the better-performing young, African talents on the market. Really interesting to see the number of weapons off the left in particular in this side, whose odds at a European place feel pretty decent to me.

3. Chelsea

In: Morgan Rogers (€138m), Maxence Lacroix (€60.7m), Marco Palestra (€57m), Geovany Quenda (€50m), Valentín Barco (€40m), Emmanuel Emegha (€25m), Pep Chavarría (€19m), Emiliano Martínez (€8.75m), Danny Welbeck (€5.85m), Jordan Henderson (free)
Out: Enzo Fernández (€145m), Andre Santos (€56.3m), Nicolas Jackson (€55.5m), Marc Cucurella (€55m), Liam Delap (€52.5m), Trevoh Chalobah (€30m), Tyrique George (€21m), Marc Guiu (€15m), Tosin Adarabioyo (€11.65m), Benoît Badiashile (loan), Axel Disasi (loan), Robert Sánchez (loan), Alejandro Garnacho (loan), Mykhaylo Mudryk (loan), Filip Jørgensen (loan), Dário Essugo (loan)

Chelsea supporters seem to be pretty happy with this window, and you could get why…but I still see question marks here. Rogers-Palmer-Pedro up front feels like an exciting and dynamic attacking group for Xabi Alonso, and early returns are good. There are lots of other names who could figure into the attack, but is it too many mouths to feed? For instance, when exactly is Estêvão going to play? What about Gittens or Quenda? That’s €150m+ in fees right there.

Nobody is going to miss Santos, Jackson or Delap, but I think other outgoings may have left Chelsea somewhat vulnerable in the interim. Marc Cucurella was a genuinely integral member of the side, leaving Jorrel Hato with big shoes to fill. Enzo looked to be replaced by Lamine Camara on deadline day, but the deal fell through, leaving Xabi with a Caicedo-Lavia-Barco-Henderson midfield group, plus Malo Gusto and/or Reece James. That feels worryingly thin, especially considering Hendo’s age and Lavia’s injury history.

Emi Martinez might be the signing of the season for some, but I expect he will ebb and flow same as he’d been doing for Villa and Argentina.

2. Manchester City

In: Enzo Fernández (€145m), Elliot Anderson (€135m), Ayyoub Bouaddi (€95m), Iliman Ndiaye (€70m), Allan (€37.5m), Mathys Detourbet (€25m), Jeremy Monga (€11.7m), Gerónimo Rulli (€3.5m)
Out: Savinho (€87.7m), Tijjani Reijnders (€61m), Rodri (€60m), Nico (€56m), James Trafford (€46.7m), Manuel Akanji (€15m), Nathan Aké (€8.2m), Bernardo Silva (free), John Stones (free), Omar Marmoush (loan+obligation), Jack Grealish (loan)

Manchester City’s summer was a mix of eye-popping purchases and era-ending departures. The Citizens have now added Rodri, Akanji, Aké, Bernardo and Stones to an ever-growing list of longtime core players who’ve departed northern England in recent seasons, leaving behind a considerable gap in institutional knowledge. The last time this side was without Rodri, it lacked a serious something in central midfield.

Of course, they didn’t have Enzo or Anderson then, and I think those are two very replacements in a key area of need for City. But the new-look midfield is likely to take a bit of time to jell, and Anderson has largely been great but does have his off days. Bouaddi feels unlikely to play a great deal this season, but certainly shows promise. The question of whether he was worth all that money is a valid one, at least to me.

Ndiaye is a talented player but is a very expensive piece who feels likely to be fourth choice across the attacking midfield more often than not, and who knows what to really expect from Allan, whose CV out of Brazil seems pretty good if not terribly long.

Perhaps the biggest risk here is that City have no depth up top, where Erling Haaland has mostly avoided injury of late, but that hasn’t been the longer-term trend for his career. If he does down for a handful of games, will Enzo Maresca use Phil Foden there? Antoine Semenyo? It’s a big question. And I still think fullback is an area where this club needs a bit more help, unless the plan is to always play Gvardiol out there.

Lastly, how vindicating it is to see them give up on Reijnders, Nico and Marmoush so quickly - those players never felt up to snuff for me, and I’ve criticized their signings plenty.

1. Arsenal

In: Bruno Guimarães (€87.5m), Ezri Konsa (€59.6m), Christos Tzolis (€40m), Illan Meslier (free)
Out: Gabriel Martinelli (€70m), Leandro Trossard (€18m), Gabriel Jesus (€10m), Fábio Vieira (€9m), Christian Nørgaard (€8.2m), Karl Hein (€3m)

I waffled more this season than some others on whether to place Arsenal atop these ranks, but ultimately felt the questions at Chelsea (midfield) and City (attack behind Haaland, wing depth, midfield chemistry) turned this into a bit of a 1a/1b situation between the Gunners and City.

Arsenal ended its first title season in more than two decades in a really strong position, where only true star players could make a significant impact on their title defense. Much to the delight and dismay of many fans, the club’s summer business was focused first and foremost on true earth-shaking attackers on the top end, from Morgan Rogers to Vinicius Junior and Julian Alvarez. None of those three made the move to London for varying reasons, and certainly some will feel as if the club missed an opportunity here.

On the flip side, the club added a man in Guimarães who is quite literally a top-handful type of Premier League midfielder and should immediately raise the bar in multiple ways while also giving the club more opportunity to rest the likes of Declan Rice and Martín Zubimendi more throughout, which should keep them fresher for the run-in. At various points this summer I saw Arsenal fans terrified the club would miss out on Bruno, and that he’d end up in Manchester. So it’s a relief he’s here in more than one way.

The addition of Ezri Konsa provides an almost comical amount of depth in defense, and we’ll see how that move ages once Saliba returns and into future seasons, but for this season it should guarantee Arsenal’s ability to field four top-notch defenders every match. Tzolis, meanwhile, absolutely looks worth the punt so far, even if he did sputter a bit at Villa Park.

There’s little doubt that Arsenal’s body of sales here is excellent and will provide a great deal of flexibility into the future, but the elephant in the room will continue to be the level of talent on the left wing. Keeping Martinelli certainly would’ve helped there, but his contract situation made him an ideal sale. Instead, there will be pressure on Tzolis to come along quickly, as well as Ebere Eze and Noni Madueke to contribute from that side when called upon.

Could Arsenal have reasonably upgraded on those options from the left? Perhaps. I have my doubts over whether a Malick Fofana type would really be a net gain over Eze in particular, and pricing on guys like Ndiaye was prohibitive. Arsenal choosing to keep their powder dry and re-approach when a more enticing option presents itself is what I would’ve done myself, but it’s not without risk - and it does leave a bit of a hollow feeling for this season.

While we’re here, other big winners:

• TSG Hoffenheim: Sold Bazoumana Touré, added Nathan De Cat, Adam Daghim, Mats Rots, Cajetan Lenz, Patrick Wimmer

• AS Roma: Added Santiago Castro, Rodrigo Mora, Konstantinos Koulierakis, Nahuel Molina, Marten De Roon

• RB Leipzig: Made bank on Diomande and Openda, signed El Aynaoui, Estève, Reitz and Guiu for cheap and brought back Nkunku

• Sporting: Quenda, Hjulmand, Diomande, Trincão, Gonçalves out, Zalazar, Ba, Doumbia, Altimira, Irankunda, Silas Andersen, Lima, Kaique in

• Inter: Djed Spence, Curtis Jones, Aleksandar Stanković, Manuel Akanji, John Stones in; Dumfries, Frattesi out

And potential losers:

• AC Milan: Sold Leão, offloaded Santi Gimenez, overpaid for Gonçalo Ramos and Diego Moreira, also acquired Mario Gila and Omari Hutchinson

• Atlético de Madrid: Signed Hjulmand, Kang-in Lee, Cristian Romero, Alex Grimaldo, Jonathan David, Alvarez drama

• Lyon: Openda, Bistrup, Duranville in, Fofana Moreira, Maitland Niles out

• Ajax: Pivoted heavily to journeymen, signing Caio Henrique, Viktor Tsygankov, Thilo Kehrer, Julian Brandt, Daley Blind, Sofyan Amrabat, Tolu Arokodare, Marc ter Stegen, Simon Adingra, sold Mika Godts and Sean Steur

It wasn’t a particularly interesting end to the transfer window for Arsenal. They spent the last couple of days exploring attacking options (Malick Fofana was a fun few hours!) and hoping that Julian Alvarez would have a change of heart.

Ultimately there were no last-ditch fireworks or panic buys and it was decided that the best course of action was to keep the powder dry and roll with the squad as is.

Another transfer window has closed, which gives us a chance to see how things look now that all the pieces have settled into place. Let’s give Arsenal’s moves a rating.

Transfers In:

Bruno Guimarães - £75m, rating: 6.5/10

Ezri Konsa - £51m, rating: 5.5/10

Christos Tzolis - £34m, rating: 7/10

Illan Meslier - Free agent signing, rating: 5/10

Piero Hincapié - £34m (loan made permanent), no rating this was a summer of 2025 deal that for accounting purposes carried over

Total spending of £194m in transfer fees

If you were to have written down the priorities for what the team needed at the beginning of June the list of must haves would have been pretty short. Arsenal’s squad was talented, well stocked for depth and there was really just one position where you could reasonably say that was weak from a first XI perspective.

That position was the left wing.

Arsenal had good players there in Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Martinelli and to a lesser extent Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke.

The goal of Arsenal this summer on most people’s wish list would have been to take this position from good to more than that.

Arsenal did add a right-footed attacker, and I really like Tzolis, but nobody could say with any certainty that he raises the ceiling at this position. I really like the signing and I want Arsenal to make a bet on the upside that he could turn into something special but that is exactly what this is right now, a bet.

Arsenal chased the dream signing for the position trying to sign Vinicius Junior. Arsenal I think rightly balked at the price for the next best alternatives of Morgan Rogers and Bradley Barcola. They explored Kenan Yildiz but they were rebuffed by Juventus. Arsenal tried to enter the race for Julian Alvarez but he decided it was Barcelona or nothing. The other options beyond that left you in the good-but-not-elite range and you would have still been left paying premium prices.

It doesn’t feel good to come away without a certain improvement to address this area of need. Every match where Arsenal struggle in attack will re-open this wound. I am already dreading having to re-litigate this over and over for the next 4-5 months (or maybe even longer) but this was the major need in the squad and now that the window is closed it still is.

The additions that Arsenal did make added quality to the squad, at least for the short term but I am not sure the club accomplished what they set out to do in this window. The quote from Mikel Arteta right after the loss to PSG has been something on my mind all summer long:

“We want to reach another level. We're going to have to show that ambition because they are more than capable of doing it but it's going to demand us to be very, very ambitious, very fast and very smart.”

Part of this is that some of these goals ended up being mutually exclusive. I think that Arsenal showed ambition here, both with the players they targeted and who they actually ended up signing.

But being fast ended up being tough with the World Cup, plus the caliber of player they targeted often ends up being more complicated and slower to get over the line.

Being smart is another tough one to judge.

Throwing out a stupid number for Rogers or Barcola would have met the 'ambitious' brief. Would it have been smart, if it meant blowing past their own valuation?

Arsenal spent a lot of time on the outside shot at Vinicius, that would have been ambitious but it probably delayed being able to move quicker on other potential targets, so was it smart?

Ultimately Arsenal added to a strong midfield group with Guimarães, protected their floor by buying Saliba insurance with Konsa, and made an upside bet on Tzolis. These are solid additions on an individual level and make an already strong team a bit better than it was last year. The big marquee signing never materialized, and that caps how high the overall rating can go.

Overall rating: 5/10

Transfers Out:

Gabriel Martinelli - £60m, rating: 8/10

Leandro Trossard - £17m, rating: 7.5/10

Gabriel Jesus - £8m, rating: 9/10

Fabio Vieira - £7.5m, rating: 5.5/10

Christian Nørgaard - £7m, rating: 8/10

Reiss Nelson - Released, no rating

Jakub Kiwior - £15m (loan made permanent) no rating

Ethan Nwaneri - Loan to Dortmund, rating: 8.5/10

Total incoming of £114.5m in transfer fees

There are no surprises here on the outgoings. Every single one of the players would have been on my list for players that could or should go.

The only thing that kind of surprises me is that with Trossard, Martinelli, and Jesus all leaving there was just one player that joined. They played a combined 6,484 minutes last season in all competitions and that is more than a single player will play by themselves. Arsenal should expect that more minutes will be picked up by players who missed time due to injury but that does still seem like a fairly large share of minutes that will need to be picked up elsewhere in the squad.

Outside of that, I think that the outgoing business ended up being pretty good.

• I can’t believe that Arsenal were able to get a fee for Jesus.

• Arsenal broke their record for a sale with Martinelli and finally seemed to get a bit of that inflated Saudi money.

• Selling Trossard for a healthy fee at 31 is good work.

• Flipping Nørgaard for more than book value is pretty darn good.

• Finding a loan to Dortmund for Nwaneri was a bit of luck but that should be a very good situation for him to develop.

• Only the Vieira sale feels like a disappointment from these. This is one where there ended up only being one club interested and they were able to exploit that Arsenal had no leverage or better alternative. It sucks but sometimes that is how it goes.

Overall rating: 8/10

Final thoughts

This is how the depth chart for Arsenal looks until the start of the January transfer window opens.

On paper, I think that Arsenal have a deep and talented squad.

I think that this will stack up well against any team in the world and I can't think of a fixture where Arsenal wouldn't be somewhere near even odds on a neutral field..

The addition of an elite left winger might have pushed that proposition up a bit higher but it doesn’t take away from the overall strength of the squad. A player that would have just been a fresh face but not a guaranteed ceiling raiser added to this group would have been nice but it probably doesn’t change things drastically for winning the big prizes this season.

The biggest questions for this team will revolve around injuries and if they can keep the key players on the field for the biggest games. I am hopeful that will be the case and the team should have the depth and options to be able to try and keep everyone as fresh and on form as possible.

I remain very optimistic about this team and I am looking forward to seeing how the squad the Arsenal higher-ups have put together performs.

The Premier League transfer window is nearing its annual shut, and based on reports, Arsenal might be trying to squeeze in a move for one of the more fascinating young wingers in Europe.

Per David Ornstein and others, the Gunners are weighing up a move for the Belgian international, with an estimated asking price from Lyon around €40 million. That seems like a song compared to some of the prices we’ve seen flying around for wingers this offseason, and only about two-thirds what Newcastle just paid for Lille’s Matias Fernandez-Pardo.

So what’s the story with Fofana, and would he be a player worth the time and money for Arsenal? Let’s get into it a bit.

The back story

Fofana truly broke through at KAA Gent, emerging as a bench option in the 22-23 season at the young, young age of 17. Over just under 2,000 league minutes, Fofana compiled five assists and scored twice. That effort drew the attention of Lyon, hwo signed him for about €20 million in January 2024.

Fofana has since scored 11 league goals and grabbed five assists in about 33 90s worth of minutes, putting him at an average of a goal contribution every 180 minutes or so. A severe ankle sprain suffered last October knocked him out for much of the season, knocking him out of the spotlight (and out of the ADAM rankings for the rest of the season).

Fofana managed to return in March but played just a little over the stretch, however he has been back in action as Lyon’s season in both league play and Champions League qualifying has gotten going.

As I alluded to, ADAM won’t have a decent rating for Fofana’s last season, due to limited minutes. That said, we can look to the previous season for a bit of a performance assessment instead.

Keeping in mind the fact that Fofana moved mid-season, the winger racked up an ADAM score of 61.6 in 17.7 90s in 24-25, landing him on my “big club targets” list from that summer’s rewriting history series.

That score put him in fifth among wingers who came into the season under 20 years old, behind Kenan Yıldız, Jamie Gittens, Eliesse Ben Seghir, and Arda Güler.

In terms of real standout areas on the stat sheet, Fofana has done well in terms of generating xG, ranking in the 85th percentile among wingers. He doesn’t shoot at a blistering rate, but his average chances put him in the 90th percentile for quality, and he’s above-average so far as a finisher, making him a goal threat.

He’s not necessarily the most creative, but by Goal Probability Added Fofana ranks in the 91st percentile among wide forwards, demonstrating sound decision making. His open play xA is in the 71st percentile, though he is on a high touch count for his position.

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🎯 The main takeaway: Not pretty, but a professional three points

One of the themes of the early part of the season has been that possession has been eschewed by teams that have won but that wasn’t the case here today. Arsenal had over 60% possession here and this wasn’t a game state driven one given that it was 0-0 until nearly the 60th minute.

Looking at the rolling graphic, even after the went up in this match, they continued to have a larger share of the possession and used it as a way to keep control.

This isn’t really the how teams have played this season. Only Manchester City and Arsenal are sitting in the upper right corner here for teams with high possession and having a perfect 6 point start.

There was perhaps a false dawn that Arsenal would be able to turn into a free flowing team after Coventry. I do believe that we will see more and better attacking metrics this season for Arsenal (as long as they can stay somewhat healthy) but this isn’t a team that is going to give up control and the ability to strangle an opponent to death just because everyone else in the Premier League can’t defend.

Arsenal proved that you can win the league playing that way and they might just try and prove that it wasn’t a fluke.

Villa Park is a tough place for Arsenal to win and a professional/mature performance is never one to looked too far down upon.

📈 The positives:

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There is a version of this conversation where Arsenal supporters convince themselves that Gabriel Martinelli is not that good anyway.

That would be a mistake.

Arsenal are set to receive roughly £56.5 million from Al Hilal, with add-ons included and potentially a future sell-on percentage, the kind of offer that forces serious consideration. Martinelli is a very good player. He is also 25 years old, valuable, and occupying one of the positions where Arsenal have the clearest pathways to replacement.

Those things can all be true at once.

On a purely financial level, this looks like excellent business. Arsenal would be receiving a fee that is difficult to turn down for a winger who, despite remaining highly productive, has not fully recaptured the headline numbers of his 2022-23 breakout campaign. The club would also create meaningful flexibility, both in the short term and over the remaining years of Mikel Arteta’s project.

But if Arsenal do pull the trigger, let’s not rewrite the story of the player on the way out the door.

One of the more persistent narratives around Martinelli over the last two seasons has been that he plateaued after scoring 15 Premier League goals in 2022-23. Depending on who you ask, he either stopped developing or outright regressed.

The evidence for that claim has always been thinner than many people seem willing to acknowledge.

In fact, three charts tell a different story entirely.

When comparing Martinelli’s 2025-26 and 2024-25 seasons, the first thing that jumps out is that the underlying chance-generation and chance-arrival numbers remain almost unchanged. Non-penalty expected goals stayed at 0.31 per 90. Expected goals per shot actually improved slightly. Deep touches, progressive carries and goal probability added all remained at strong levels.

The finishing, however, cratered.

Martinelli’s non-penalty goals dropped to 0.07 per 90 despite producing virtually identical xG. His post-shot xG added plummeted. That’s not necessarily evidence of a deteriorating player. Often it is evidence of variance, form, confidence, or simply a cold streak, particularly for players who are on the whole better than their most recent numbers.

The same exercise becomes even more interesting when comparing Martinelli’s current outputs with the season everybody uses as the gold standard.

Yes, the 2022-23 version of Martinelli scored far more goals. Nobody disputes that. But many of the underlying indicators are remarkably similar. The current version still generates non-penalty xG at almost exactly the same rate. He remains heavily involved in dangerous touches, progressive carries and final-third actions. In some areas, particularly ball progression and defensive involvement, he has arguably become a more complete player.

That is not what a collapsed player profile looks like. The 25/26 dropoff would elicit further investigation from any good scout, be it professional or by hobby, and the Martinelli story would undoubtedly revolve heavily around his consistent play next to two players who don’t suit his playstyle in Noni Madueke and Viktor Gyökeres (to say nothing of the 20% drop across the board in the PL and the additional absence of Martin Ødegaard).

Honestly, if somebody approached you with the following sales pitch, many Arsenal supporters would probably be interested: Can I interest you in a 25-year-old winger with elite speed, a 15-goal Premier League season on his resume, 10 Champions League goals in roughly 25 full matches worth of minutes, strong defensive work rate, and underlying chance-generation numbers that remain comfortably in upper-tier territory?

The answer would almost certainly be yes.

The reality is that Arsenal have reached a stage where marginal gains can be enormously expensive. If the club genuinely believes it can replace Martinelli’s output while simultaneously upgrading the squad elsewhere, then a fee north of £50 million becomes incredibly powerful. It can help fund another attacker. It can create future room for future signings. It can improve overall squad flexibility.

Those are legitimate benefits.

What I struggle with is the idea that this would represent the obvious removal of a weak link.

Martinelli has spent much of the past two seasons in circumstances that were not particularly favorable. Arsenal battled injuries. The left side often lacked continuity. Different midfield combinations altered the dynamics around him. At various times he was asked to function as a width provider, transition threat and isolation winger all at once.

Even then, the underlying numbers largely held.

That matters.

Another question here is whether the removal of a guy who’s at the very least still in the conversation for best left sided attacker at the club without an obvious replacement is a responsible move. My best guess is that Arteta, in the absence of another wide signing, would rely on Ebere Eze and Noni Madueke to split minutes with Christos Tzolis, who so far looks great in red. Whether that is enough, time will tell.

Maybe it is simply time for a change. Sometimes players and clubs reach that point. Sometimes the fee becomes too good. Sometimes a squad evolution requires difficult choices.

If that is where Arsenal are, so be it.

But should Martinelli leave, I suspect there is a fair chance we will spend the next couple of years being reminded why clubs such as Bayern Munich and now Al Hilal were willing to invest so heavily in him.

Arsenal may be making the right decision. That does not require pretending Gabriel Martinelli stopped being a very good footballer.

Best wishes, Gabi.

Year four, here we come!

Arsenal today learned their eight league stage opponents in the Champions League. If you’ve forgotten or never cared to learn the rules, the clubs in first through eighth after these matches will advance automatically to the round of 16, while the clubs 9th through 24th advance into a one-round, seeded playoff. Every club who’s qualified for this stage faces two clubs from each pot, which are sorted by club coefficient, essentially a measure of how well you’ve done in UEFA comps over the past five years.

So, without further ado, here’s who Arsenal drew and what to expect:

Real Madrid at home

Manager: Jose Mourinho
Last season finish: 2nd in La Liga, CL quarterfinals (lost to Bayern)
Key players: Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, Federico Valverde
Key additions: Yan Diomande, Marc Cucurella, Denzel Dumfries, Bernardo Silva, Carlos Espí, Ibrahima Konaté
Key losses: Dani Carvajal, Dani Ceballos, David Alaba
Notes: Plenty of familiarity here at this point, and it will be fun to see just how Arsenal fans respond to Vini’s visit to what nearly became his new home. Real Madrid may have swapped out coaches, but Jose Mourinho is doing more of what fans there are used to already, beating Real Sociedad and Espanyol by a combined 6-2 (four Mbappé goals) to open. Old friends Marc Cucurella, Bernardo Silva and Ibrahima Konaté feel likely to start here, if fit, while so far Arda Güler has been the guy off the right wing rather than new signing Diomande.

Bayern Munich away

Manager: Vincent Kompany
Last season finish: 1st in Bundesliga, CL semifinal (lost to PSG)
Key players: Harry Kane, Michael Olise, Manuel Neuer, Luis Díaz
Key additions: Ismael Saibari, Nathaniel Brown
Key losses: Leon Goretzka, Raphaël Guerreiro
Notes: Bayern will again be a high-octane, goal-happy side under Vincent Kompany. New additions Saibari and Brown are both of a profile where they could be starting by the time these guys host Arsenal, or they could be key pieces off the bench. Either way, this will be a fascinating rematch of last season’s league stage match, where Arsenal largely had their way and won 3-1. At the Allianz, things probably won’t be quite so easy.

Borussia Dortmund at home

Manager: Niko Kovač
Last season finish: 2nd in Bundesliga, CL round of 32 (lost to Atalanta)
Key players: Felix Nmecha, Nico Schlotterbeck, Serhou Guirassy
Key additions: Konstantinos Karetsas, Giannis Konstantelias, Joey Veerman
Key losses: Karim Adeyemi, Julian Brandt
Notes: A rematch of a hotly-contested preseason matchup here. You get the feeling, looking around their teamsheet, that this season for Dortmund is going to be at least somewhat driven by what Konstantinos Karetsas can accomplish in their number 10 role. For the first time in awhile, I don’t see a really obvious, gem-of-the-market type of player in their midst aside from the Greek midfielder. This team should instead really rest of the contributions from Felix Nmecha, who became a bit of a key cog last season, and stalwart strikers Maxi Beier and Serhou Guirassy. Overall there is talent here, but a side that Arsenal should still be able to beat.

Real Betis away

Manager: Manuel Pellegrini
Last season finish: 5th in La Liga, Europa League quarter finals (lost to SC Braga)
Key players: Pablo Fornals, Diego Llorente, Antony
Key additions: Troy Parrott, Fran García, Facundo Bernal
Key losses: Sergi Altimira, Nobel Mendy, Pau López
Notes: Another preseason rematch! Real Betis hung three on an uncharacteristically sloppy Arsenal side in the summer, but as matches have begun to count their attack has gotten back to it’s pretty tepid form. They’ve added former Spurs prospect Troy Parrott at striker, where he’ll compete with Cucho Hernandez for minutes. Despite having less than stellar reps among English fans, a lot of this club’s success is determined by Antony, Cucho and Fornals, so they’ll be the guys to key in on in front of what should be a fiery Seville crowd. If Abde Ezzalzouli is fit, he’s a guy to watch off the left wing.

Lille at home

Manager: Davide Ancelotti
Last season finish: 3rd in Ligue 1, Europa League quarter finals (lost to Aston Villa)
Key players: Nathan Ngoy, Hákon Haraldsson, Olivier Giroud
Key additions: Başar Önal, Oscar Gill, Dilane Bakwa
Key losses: Ayyoub Bouaddi, Aïssa Mandi, Thomas Meunier
Notes: Giroud back at the Emirates! Lille were decent last season and made a fairly deep run in the Europa League, but just looked so toothless against Aston Villa. Önal is a guy who has popped on my formulas and is one to keep an eye on, as is the potential exit of Matias Fernandez-Pardo, a key attacker. Haraldsson is an advanced midfielder who’s easy to like and should be key to any Lille output. At the back, the losses of Mandi and Meunier drain LOSC of some of their veteran leadership, but plenty of talent remains in the form of Ngoy and Alexsandro.

Napoli away

Manager: Massimiliano Allegri
Last season finish: 2nd in Serie A, 30th in Champions League league stage
Key players: Scott McTominay, Gio di Lorenzo, Rasmus Højlund
Key additions: Alisson Santos, Vanja Milinković-Savić, Benoît Badiashile
Key losses: Miguel Gutierrez, Giovanni Simeone, Romelu Lukaku
Notes: Napoli will likely have added a new number nine by the time this match is played, giving them another option up top besides Rasmus Højlund. But I still wouldn’t count on this side being the high-flyers they were when Victor Osimhen and Kvaratskhelia donned their colors. Napoli put up less than 1.0 xG in its season opener at Genoa this past weekend, and last season couldn’t even get out of the league stage as they really struggled to attack. Sure, there’s KDB, but he’s not the Kevin of old, making this largely a team carried by former Man Utd players. If Napoli can again rise to the top of the list of Italian sides not named Inter, it’s likely behind McHøjlund and a strong season from a youngster such as Alisson or Antonio Vergara.

Sabah at home

Manager: Valdas Dambrauskas
Last season finish: 1st in the Misli Premier League (Azerbaijan)
Key players: Veljko Simić, Joy Lance Mickels, Tymoteusz Puchacz
Key additions: ?
Key losses: ?
Notes: For the second year running, Arsenal get a very cool story as their pot four home opponent. Sabah outlasted Qarabağ to win its first league title last season (not as amazing as it sounds at first blush, since they were founded in 2017), then took out The New Saints, Finnish side KuPS, Danish side AGF and Israel’s Hapoel Be’er Sheva en route to league stage qualification. Anyone who tells you they know a lot about Sabah’s football is probably lying, but I can tell you their run to the league stage was powered by the key players above — Serbia’s Veljko Simić, Rwandan striker Joy Lance Mickels and Polish fullback Tymoteusz Puchacz, who did play a half-season at Plymouth Argyle. Can those guys accomplish anything in a Premier League stadium? Chances probably aren’t great.

Slavia Praha away

Manager: Jindřich Trpišovský
Last season finish: 1st in Chance Liga, 34th in Champions League league stage
Key players: Michal Sadílek, Lukas Provod, Tomáš Holeš
Notes: Slavia makes two clubs who finished 30th or worse in last season’s Champions League. Their 34th-placed finish was less shocking than Napoli’s 30th, to be fair, and the club are back to take another crack at it. What we know - this is one of Czechia’s most out-and-out attacking sides, banging in 74 goals in 35 league games a season ago. They didn’t have to go through qualifying this season but are off to a hot start in league play, winning their three openers by a 11-2 tally. Longtime Eredivisie player Michal Sadílek and winger Lukas Provod both went to the World Cup with Czechia, as did veteran defender Tomáš Holeš and leading scorer Tomáš Chorý. 22-year-old CB Ange N'Guessan became Praha’s new record signing this summer, surpassing El Hadji Malick Diouf, so the Ivorian will be a key player as well. In terms of system, Trpišovský tends to play an attacking three-at-the-back with wingbacks and two tens behind a striker, so this should be a fun one to watch.

Overall thoughts

There’s definitely some sticker shock among Arsenal fans regarding this draw due to the known brand names involved, but I’m not going as strong on this group of opponents as many.

Using the CannonStats Elo rating system, Arsenal’s draw ended up 23rd hardest.

Realistically the Gunners were always going to have a very tough away game from pot one, where the “easiest” draw was probably visiting Atletico Madrid. Facing Bayern Munich away instead is truly splitting hairs, though I love the idea that we’re discussing whether it’s feasible to again go unbeaten in this phase. Real Madrid are a strong, strong opponent for the home match and Arsenal will have their work cut out for them. But winning this competition involves exactly that sort of thing, and we have reasons to believe Arsenal are capable of beating the Galacticos.

Real Betis are a perfectly respectable side with good players but would’ve been among my three or four leading options for an away match in Pot 2, likely behind a Tzolis Derby in Brugge or a return to Eindhoven but ahead of options like Lisbon, Roma, Porto or Dortmund. Getting Dortmund as arguably the toughest pot two side (among possible options) again isn’t easy, but I’d expect the comfort of the Emirates to be helpful in pulling out a good result here, and I’d probably add that I think this is one of the weaker Dortmund sides we’ve seen in recent memory.

Lille and Napoli are two more sides where the brands are more known and therefore sound scarier, but in each case you’ve got a club going through some major changes, and neither is an attacking machine. There’s absolutely an argument that going to Naples is preferable to Istanbul or Norway in particular, whereas Leipzig and Villarreal likely would’ve been two of the toughest draws away in terms of opponent player quality.

The pot four draw was always going to be a couple of “you should really win this pretty much no matter what” types of games, but there were simultaneously three sides to avoid because they’re better than your standard pot four team — Como, Lens and Stuttgart — and another to avoid because of the annoying travel, which was Sabah away. Missing all of them is about as friendly as things get here.

Overall, Arsenal did draw the hardest team in two of the pots and got them both away, but outside of those matches they ended up doing better than average, including the lowest ranked Pot 2 team.

Regardless of which sides Arsenal had ended up with here, failing to advance or even make the top eight would have been considered a major disappointment. In my estimation, this is still a path that Arsenal should be able to overcome en route to knockouts, and you could say the ordering of the fixtures - which will be done by Saturday - will be as key as anything.

A quick simulation here still puts Arsenal in a very strong position and as long as they take care of business they should be able to avoid the extra matches that play-off brings.

Other winners and losers

• Among the other pot one clubs, I really think Manchester City got the toughest draw (among Pot 1 teams, their draw is rated the hardest). Porto, Lens and Leipzig are among the best sides in their pots, and City got all three of them away. The Citizens will also have to host PSG, which was probably the most difficult home match you could draw, while also picking up a really rough away day at Barcelona. Enough to keep them out of the top eight? We’ll see.

• Speaking of PSG (their is 2nd hardest among Pot 1 teams), I think they got a pretty tough run as well. Villa won’t be the same side they faced in the quarter final two seasons ago, but the Parisians have to go to Villa Park, City, Villarreal and Como, a tough four-pack of away days. They also drew both Roma and Galatasaray, two difficult but winnable home matches.

• I think we’re actually pretty even in terms of difficulty across pot one, but my pick for easiest likely is Liverpool or Real Madrid. The Reds pulled a trip to Club Brugge’s stadium, probably the least difficult from pot two, but going to Turkey has been tough on them in the past, so don’t count out Fenerbahce. Madrid have to visit Arsenal, but otherwise got Inter, PSV, Leipzig and LASK at home and Roma, Shakhtar and AEK away. There should be no last-minute qualifications for them this season.

• Aston Villa likely do have an easy enough path to get through to the knockouts again, but it won’t be all flowers and candy. The Villans will have to take advantage of home matches against Dortmund and Fenerbahce while visiting Brugge and Galatasaray, and I’d think they’ll need at least one win from those away matches.

• Could Bodø/Glimt do it again? A lot of the team that stunned Inter is back, and they got arguably as favorable a home slate as they could’ve in Atleti, Dortmund, Lille and LASK. They’ll need to maximize home field advantage again, because matches away to Bayern, Club Brugge, Lens and Napoli also awai.

• Como are new to the fold and as a pot four club were never going to have a favorable draw. But getting Barca and PSG from pot one and United/Real Betis from pot two is pretty brutal. Big task for Cesc and his guys.

• Manchester United avoided a trip to Barcelona, Paris or Munich, but going to a match at Atleti is anything but easy for them. They also pulled a real sleeper slate of difficult away matches at Sporting, Como and Villarreal. I wouldn’t put it past Michael Carrick’s side to be fighting for its spot until late in the stage.

After an unfruitful chase of Vinicius Junior, Arsenal are back in for another South American forward playing in Madrid.

This time it is Julián Alvarez from Atlético Madrid.

The major complication for this transfer beyond the eye-watering transfer fee that is being quoted is that the player would prefer a move to Barcelona. We will leave that aside for now and instead focus on where he could actually fit in the current Arsenal team.

Here is the breakdown of the minutes spent in each position since he moved to Europe.

He has shown significant ability to float around the pitch and play a bit everywhere but he doesn’t have a locked down position. I know that Mikel Arteta favors positional versatility and has assembled a squad full of incredibly talented players that can play in multiple roles, so it probably doesn’t faze him.

Alvarez kind of falls into the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none category. When I pull up my Arsenal depth chart I am not sure that I see a position here where I would slot him into being “The Guy”.

There is still just a part of me that does wonder if that is exactly what you want from your record signing.

That nagging question got sharpened for me on the latest Arsenal Vision Podcast, where Tim Stillman framed it as a test worth applying to any big signing: is he obviously better than the players already occupying the positions he'd play in?

Is he a better striker than Kai Havertz? Different, sure, but more of a complimentary player than one that I’d say is better or worse.

Is he a better advanced/creative midfielder than Martin Ødegaard? Probably not, especially if Ødegaard is actually fit and at his best, but he could offer similar impact playing the role in a different way.

Is he a better hybrid second striker/winger than Eberechi Eze? Probably but not massively so and they both offer the same ability to turn a game on one moment of magic.

Comparing him to the players Arsenal already have highlights his versatility and quality. He may not be “clearly better” on the stats but he can stand up well against a diverse set of players and hold his own.

Rather than getting too bogged down in a first-XI type thinking, the bigger picture for me would be that he absolutely would make the squad better. He is talented enough that even if he is playing in multiple positions match-to-match rather than just one, that he would be playing enough minutes that he would still be a key player in the squad.

Arsenal will play over 60 matches this coming season. They have had major injuries to Havertz, Ødegaard, and Bukayo Saka in the attacking line over the last two campaigns and this remains one of the biggest limiting factors for how well this team can attack. Adding a player who can carry the attacking burden alongside those three, or in place of any of them, is a luxury Arsenal haven't had in my time as a fan. It would raise the floor and the ceiling at the same time.

On the final 2025-26 version of the player rankings, Alvarez took the top spot for potential/somewhat realistic options among strikers. Here is what Adam wrote as he put him in that number 1 spot:

There may not be another striker in world football who does as many things well as Alvarez. He presses, creates, finishes, drops into midfield and makes intelligent runs behind the defense, allowing him to function as a number nine, second striker or attacking midfielder without sacrificing effectiveness. Argentina went all the way back to the World Cup final before falling 1-0 to Spain, adding another deep international run to an already ridiculous résumé. For this particular model, nobody else quite matches his combination of production, versatility and all-around influence.

I share the enthusiasm about the player and the possibilities at Arsenal. What I can't tell you is where he exactly he fits in, and I've made my peace with that. Mikel Arteta and the management staff at Arsenal aren’t perfect, but they have earned some benefit of the doubt.

I don’t know where the obvious fit in the team is for him right now. Sometimes even when we think we do, having the player in your team and seeing how they fit the dynamics causes you to have to be flexible.

Does he obviously come in and take an established player’s position? I don’t know yet. What I do believe is that he is supremely talented and that he is the type of player that I would want to have in the team in a match that matters. That second part is what can decide whether Arsenal win the biggest prizes.

The Premier League is back and so is the post match debrief.

No need for a big preamble today, let’s get straight into the post after a big win to start off the title defense.

Arsenal vs Coventry: The Graphics

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Arsenal vs Coventry: The Debrief

20 - Shots from Arsenal in this match. Arsenal managed to get to 20 shots in just 6 of 38 Premier League matches last season.

14 - Shots from open play by Arsenal, including all 3 goals scored.

2.07 - Expected goals from Arsenal in this match, this would have ranked 13th most last season.

6 - Shots on target (30%) for Arsenal in this match.

2.49 - Shot placement xG for Arsenal in this match

36 - Touches in the box from Arsenal in this match

22 - Touches in the “shooting zone” for Arsenal in this match

47 - Zone 14 touches for Arsenal in this match

I don’t think that you can draw up or plan for a better start to the season than what we got from Arsenal here.

The team got an early goal so there was never any of that building tension of will it happen? Arsenal added a second goal while they were dominating and gave themselves a comfortable cushion. The team continued to push, even at +2 and got a third goal just after halftime (everything was going so right that even a miskick found the back of the net).

We also got to see a fit version of Arsenal’s best players all playing together and that reminded us of how good this team can be.

Ødegaard, Saka, and Havertz together is magic for Arsenal

This was just the second time that we got to see a Premier League lineup with Bukayo Saka, Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz starting together since Christmas Eve 2024.

Before the match against Coventry we had only gotten to see this trio start together 9 times since the start of the 2024-25 season. That’s eye-opening and is a pretty good explanatory factor for why it seems like the attack has struggled to fully click into gear consistently over that stretch.

This trio has produced some of the best attacking football and the most all around dominate performances that we have seen under Mikel Arteta.

Here is the break down of the high level stats with these three starting and Havertz playing as a striker compared to the other matches going back to the start of the 2023-24 season.

With this trio, Arsenal have not lost a Premier League match and would be on a 95 point 38 match pace. It would project to 91 goals, 19 allowed and a pretty ridiculous +72 goal difference.

Arsenal are still good when they haven’t been able to play these key players together but they are able to reach a whole new level when they are.

This could be one of the key factors for how this season goes.

Christos Tzolis makes it hard to not get excited

0.51 - Expected threat added through passes and carries (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

4 - Shots (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

0.28 - Expected goals (2nd on Arsenal, 2nd in the match)

3 - First-touch shots (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

3 - Shots assisted (tied 2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

0.19 - Expected goals of the shots he assisted

6 - Shot creating actions (the two actions leading up to a shot) (tied 1st on Arsenal, tied 1st in the match)

0.51 - Expected goals of the shots his shot creating actions led to

4 - Passes completed into the shot zone (the central area in front of goal) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

6 - Deep completions (passes completed within 20 yards of goal) (tied 2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

5 - Passes completed into the penalty area (tied 1st on Arsenal, tied 1st in the match)

39 - Pass attempts, 31 passes completed for 79.5% pass completion percentage with a 100.3% pass efficiency compared to expected passing

4 - Progressive passes completed

6 - Progressive carries (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

5 - Progressive passes received (tied 2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

8 - Final third entry passes received (tied 2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

3 - Passes received inside the penalty area (tied 3rd on Arsenal)

8 - Penalty area touches (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

5 - Shot zone touches (touches in the central area in front of goal) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

6 - Zone 14 touches (2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

WHAT. A. DEBUT.

Tzolis has been lighting things up in preseason and I have been fighting the urge to get too overhyped on him. Telling myself it is just preseason. Now he’s done it in the Premier League and that is getting a bit harder. It’s just one match, against a newly promoted team but boy was it a good one.

You can only play the team that is in front of you and so far, he has played with a point to prove at every opportunity.

He’s playing with freedom and directness that is genuinely exciting. Arsenal are still a team that favors attacking on the right hand side but he helped to make sure that there was still threat on the left.

I keep trying to temper the expectations, and he just keeps putting up performances that make that hard. Long may that continue.

Myles Lewis-Skelly making the case for himself in midfield

81 - Pass attempts (2nd on Arsenal, 2nd in the match), 77 passes completed for 95.1% pass completion percentage with a 102.6% pass efficiency compared to expected passing

23.1% - Share of his passes played first time

48.7% - Share of his passes released quickly

16.7% - Share of his passes where he held the ball

2 - Progressive passes completed

6 - Final third entry passes completed (3rd on Arsenal)

3 - Long passes completed (100% completion percentage)

1 - Tackles rode (times he kept the ball through a tackle)

3 - Times he was fouled (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

4 - Times he miscontrolled the ball

2 - Possessions lost on the ball

77 - Passes received (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

3 - Progressive passes received

6 - Defensive third touches

65 - Middle third touches (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

23 - Final third touches

8 - Deep touches (touches within 25 yards of goal) (3rd on Arsenal, 3rd in the match)

14 - Zone 14 touches (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

2 - Tackles attempted (tackles, challenges, and fouls tagged as an attempted tackle), 1 won for a 50.0% tackle success percentage

5 - Ball recoveries (1st on Arsenal, tied 1st in the match)

1 - Possessions won high up the pitch (tied 1st on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

1 - Second balls won

7 - Duels contested

6 - Duels won

This one wasn’t as flashy for Lewis-Skelly as the Community Shield was but it was another solid all around performance for him in midfield.

He kept it pretty safe and played more of a controlling, temp game here. Finding the right times to help set Arsenal up the field and when to keep the ball a bit more and move around the defense.

Arsenal’s midfield is deep and talented, so there will be a fight for minutes this season. Lewis-Skelly is doing everything thing he can to make the choice hard on Arteta for who he will pick.

🎯 The main takeaway: Starting things off with a bang

On paper Arsenal were handed what should have been an easy fixture; a home match against a newly promoted team. These things just sometimes have a way of backfiring as we saw just a few years ago when Arsenal were surprised against Brentford.

What we saw was that this is a different Arsenal, one that looks freer and like they are back to being able to play without the weight of the world on their shoulders. They come in with the swagger of being the CHAMPIONS and played like it.

From the opening kickoff through to the third goal Arsenal dominated the match, generating chances and keeping Coventry from getting a sniff of goal.

Arsenal opened the scoring early, added a second and cruised into halftime on top. Things were going so well for Arsenal that even a mishit shot got Arsenal exactly what they needed to score a third goal.

The rest of the game was played at a much lower intensity and it turned into a glorified training session.

This also goes and puts a nice marker down for the rest of the League. Arsenal are here to ATTACK the title.

📈 The positives:

• Arsenal were able to start Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka, and Martin Ødegaard together in the Premier League for just the second time since Christmas Eve 2024. This was just the 11th time in the league that they have been able to start together since the start of 2024-25 season. That is crazy and goes a long way to explaining some of the attacking challenges Arsenal have had over that time. In this game each of them actually got on to the scoresheet as well. What a start to the season.

Read more

Arsenal have added their third player of the summer, with the signing of Ezri Konsa from Aston Villa.

For the second straight signing, they have broken the record to make him the most expensive player in his age group for his position. Konsa will join on a 4 year plus option deal on a transfer that is worth £51m plus up to £4m in bonuses.

Arsenal have added another versatile player that should be able to contribute in a number of positions.

Let’s take a tour of what his numbers say we are getting in the player.

Ezri Konsa: The Debrief

Starting off with the old classic, here is Konsa’s radar.

Here is the full suite of graphics showing another center back template and what he has also done compared to fullbacks.

I threw in some full back views here but that’s not where he has played primarily and it would be unfair to do deep analysis comparing him against other fullbacks having not played in those positions much.

Here is the minutes by position break down for him over the last three seasons in the Premier League.

He’s primarily played right center back but in a pinch can cover as a right back.

The stats below are for his Premier League production last season and are normalized to per 90 minutes, they are compared against other center backs with at least 900 minutes played in the top five leagues going back to the 2011-12 season.

Passing, Ball Progression, and Carrying Metrics

61.9 - Pass attempts, percentile: 84.8

95.2% - Pass completion percentage, percentile: 99.8

104% - Pass efficiency (the ratio of actual pass completion compared to expected pass completion, 100 is completed as many passes as expected and higher is better), percentile: 80.3

3.44 - Final third entry passes completed, percentile: 70.2

28.9 - Forward passes attempted, percentile: 68.6

46.6% - Forward passes as a percentage of all his pass attempts, percentile: 7.1

1.38 - Progressive passes completed, percentile: 39.0

193.4 - Progressive pass distance in yards towards goal, percentile: 7.5

3.62 - Long passes attempted, percentile: 4.2

2.41 - Long passes completed, percentile: 14.2

66.7% - Long pass completion percentage, percentile: 86.5

0.07 - Expected threat added through completed passes, percentile: 43.2

Konsa’s stats paint an interesting profile as a passer.

He has one of the highest pass completion percentages and has been able to do that on above average passing volume. He also backs that up, completing more passes than the expected completion rate.

The flip side of this is that his mix of passing skews towards the very safe side of passing. He is well below average on progression with his passing and being able to contribute to increasing threat with his passing.

Comparing him to William Saliba you can see the similarities in the profile but with the ball progression quality the outlier.

The passing comparison between Konsa and Cristhian Mosquera is the one that actually shows the largest overlap.

The sample and track record for Mosquera is shorter and less robust but the overall difference, at least from last season, isn’t all that large.

Looking at some of the passing numbers from Gradient sports to get a bit more of a rounded out picture.

0.32 - Balls over the top, percentile: 43

1.05 - Passes breaking the midfield line, percentile: 50

0.4 - Passes into dangerous positions, percentile: 34

90.9% - Pass completion percentage while being pressured, percentile: 100

Switching gears to ball carrying.

2.00 - Progressive carries, percentile: 70.8

0.02 - Expected threat added through carries, percentile: 77.1

0.41 - Carries into the final third, percentile: 62.2

0.44 - Dribbles attempted, percentile: 64.1

0.23 - Dribbles completed, percentile: 55.7

53.3% - Dribble completion percentage, percentile: 33.7

1.18 - Fouls suffered, percentile: 90.7

2.97 - Offensive duels contested, percentile: 75.7

85.6% - Offensive duel win percentage (dribbles completed, tackles rode and fouls won, as a share of every attacking duel he entered), percentile: 82.4

0.18 - Times dispossessed on the ball, percentile: 50.9

2.62 - Turnovers (possession lost through a bad pass, a bad shot or losing the ball on the dribble), percentile: 99.5

With the ball at his feet Konsa is willing to take a bit more risk. He’s still good at making sure that he doesn’t lose the ball and that is probably the biggest plus here, and speaks to his ability to know how to balance that when you are playing in the last line a mistake can be incredibly costly.

Ball Winning Metrics

14.6 - Defensive actions (tackles, interceptions, blocks, recoveries, clearances, shields, offsides won and defensive fouls), percentile: 7.6

4.11 - Defensive duels contested, percentile: 1.3

1.25 - Tackles attempted, percentile: 1.9

0.79 - Tackles won, percentile: 4.0

62.9% - Tackle win percentage, percentile: 63.8

0.82 - Interceptions, percentile: 6.1

0.54 - Blocked passes, percentile: 41.4

1.04 - Blocked shots, percentile: 87.8

3.86 - Ball recoveries, percentile: 25.0

1.29 - Second balls won, percentile: 60.9

4.47 - Clearances, percentile: 41.4

0.12 - Times he was dribbled past, percentile: 97.6

11.4% - Percentage of his tackles and challenges where he was dribbled past, percentile: 85.8

0.39 - Fouls committed, percentile: 97.1

Ball winning metrics, especially for a defender, tell you more about how the player is asked to play in the tactical set up than it does about the quality of defensive work that they do.

What the metrics here point to is that he is much more of the anchor/sweeping up player than the one that will go and attack play to win the ball back. He relies on being in the right position to stop things developing and actually having to engage an attacker is often more of the Plan B, than the Plan A.

Looking again at the unique metrics from Gradient Sports illustrates that he is quite good at this.

1.08 - Positional mistakes made, percentile: 68

0.47 - Positional mistakes leading to a chance, percentile: 50

0.16 - Mistakes made closing down on an attacker, percentile: 88

Aerial Metrics

1.59 - Aerial duels contested, percentile: 3.0

0.88 - Aerial duels won, percentile: 3.6

0.71 - Aerial duels lost, percentile: 93.2

55.6% - Aerial duel win percentage, percentile: 27.4

Given his aerial profile, I wouldn't expect much of an attacking threat.

For his Premier League career he has scored 7 goals in 224 nineties from set play. Last season he was able to generate about 1 expected goal from 11 shots, that was roughly in line with what he has done longer term. He’s not a zero, but this isn’t a major strength in his game.

Final thoughts

Adam put things like this in his post on the transfer:

Arsenal’s reported pursuit of Ezri Konsa is one of those transfers where I find myself nodding along to all the logic while simultaneously not quite loving it.

I might have worded things a bit stronger than not quite loving it but I largely feel the same way.

Konsa is a good player. Just how good is open to debate with some thinking that he is a very good player to people more like myself who view him more like a solidly above average player.

This is one that stats don’t offer a ton of help on, with center backs being one of the positions where it is hardest to pull signal out of the data.

I have built a rating system that tries to capture a bit more, including how when the player is on the pitch the effectiveness of the attackers changes, plus additional credit for playing in a good defense. I don’t think that it is perfect but I think that it can help give you a ballpark idea for a player’s contribution.

Here is Konsa over his career.

This sets the Premier League average at 50 but compares everything to the full population of players in the “Big 5” leagues. He has been an above average center back and compared to the rest of the “Big 5” quite a good player.

I think that this is about right, if Saliba is healthy, it is a no-brainier that you start him above Konsa. The gap between him and and Cristhian Mosquera probably isn’t that large and any difference would largely come down to Konsa having the extra experience that would give him the decision making and positioning.

It would be the same at right back where I think that he is a player that can do a job but that isn’t his strength, you would take healthy Jurriën Timber and Ben White over him.

This would be my expectation for where he fits inside of the squad, slotting into a rotation center back role and as a back up for the right back position.

With the current injuries to Saliba and Timber, plus the injury history of White and to some extent Riccardo Calafiori, adding an additional player to make up the numbers makes a lot of sense.

He is an insurance policy on the season and should help provide peace of mind.

Welcome, Ezri.

When I have been able to commit the time to it, I have loved it but to do it well I needed to be willing to spend several hours additional a week on it and I just don’t have that extra time to spend on this. I am not (nor have ever claimed to be) a professional gambler here, I have been profitable in my bets but not at stakes that are meaningful or with such accuracy that I would boast about it. This is not my expertise or niche, and there are plenty of places out there that will do a better job than me at that.

Instead, I want to commit to posting the model match odds for each round, talk about my plan for what matches I will be watching closely, and note any commentary that is floating around in brain. I want to free myself from the obligation to have a deep informed/research take on every single match.

Let’s test this out and see how this goes.

By default, I don’t send this out to everyone so if you do want to get these in your email, you can update your settings for the individual newsletters that we send out: Learn more here.

Round 1 - Simulated Match Odds

It will be an exciting first week and I am glad that we are getting a full slate of TV time slots getting used here, plus a Friday and Monday game.

I can’t wait to dig into all of this.

Here are the match by match odds. No major commentary from me this time.

Arsenal vs Coventry

Hull vs Manchester Utd

Everton vs Crystal Palace

Ipswich vs Sunderland

Nottingham Forest vs Leeds

Brentford vs Tottenham

Brighton vs Aston Villa

Manchester City vs Bournemouth

Newcastle Utd vs Liverpool

Fulham vs Chelsea

The Premier League season is almost here, which means it’s time to put our opinions on the line. Using Sporting Index point projections, rounded to the midpoint between the buy and sell spread, we’re picking over or under on every team’s expected total, starting at the bottom of the table and working our way up.

Hull - 24.5 Points

Adam: How the Hull did these guys get promoted? Their Championship promotion came despite some fairly mediocre underlying numbers…actually you know what, they were poor. These guys were 23rd in xPTS. That’s second to last! What in the world.

Hidemasa Morita has joined on a free, and I think he and Lucas Gourna-Douath are an interesting midfield in theory. But there’s little wiggle room around the fact that this was a third-tier Championship side and they’ve not gotten much better. Are we really talking about Oli McBurnie starting week one in 2026? Under.

Scott: Under.

Everything points to Hull being one of the worst ever promoted teams. The underlying numbers from the Championship point to a team that would have been more likely to have been pulled into a relegation battle than been in the promotion playoffs. They varianced and perfectly sequenced their way into the playoffs and continued their run to a Premier League season. They are a tough team to model but I see them below 20 points and potentially worse than that.

Ipswich - 33.5 Points

Adam: One year ago, Ipswich looked like a Premier League-level team in the Championship. They finished second on points but first on expected points, created chances for fun and generally spent the season running over opponents.

Gary O’Neil’s group has been bolstered big time in the transfer market, and honestly I really like some of the things going on here. Emersonn is a solid find up front and will be paired with veteran Daizen Maeda in an attack that could create some really fun moments. Abdul Fatawu is a player I’ve had an eye on for a bit as he’s struggled with injuries at Leicester but otherwise produced excellent numbers.

The rest of the window reminds me a lot of what Sunderland did last season, bringing in a mix of proven PL-level vets and dazzling young talents, the type who could produce a vibes-based run. Florentino is a good midfielder, though he was part of a historically bad Burnley side, while Saša Lukić has been something of a glue guy for the past couple of Fulham sides. Issa Diop and Julio Enciso are a couple more PL-proven players who could provide some lift to the Tractor Boys.

I have a hard time fully buying into this side staying up, but if anyone does it, I think it’s them. Over.

Scott: Over.

This is a tough one because I think that the line is set pretty well here for Ipswich and Coventry. I am going to take the over on both with the hope that we can see another genuine relegation battle this season.

Ipswich used their single season in the Premier League well, realizing that they were probably a few years away from sticking and bought younger. It paid off with them winning promotion as a strong Championship team and maybe sets them up for a better run at the PL this season. They (like so many teams here) are bedding in a new coach and that will be a major unknown, but they did go with help a team survive a relegation fight in Gary O’Neil.

This is probably closer to a 35 point team than a 40 point team but that’s still enough to lean over here.

Coventry - 34.5 Points

Adam: Lampard’s Coventry ran away with the Championship last season, but also overperformed pretty significantly, finishing second on expected points.

The addition of wonderkid Caleb Yirenkyi, who stood out at the World Cup at just 20 years old, is a big swing for The Sky Blues, who seem otherwise prepared to ride top contributors from last season like Brandon Thomas-Asante, Ellis Simms, Matt Grimes and Bobby Thomas to a hopeful non-relegation bid.

If I’m honest, I have a hard time looking at the likely XI here and seeing a side prepared to ride out the challenges of a full season in the Premier League. In fact, I’d put them below Ipswich Town in terms of pure “could they do it?” vibesmanship. I think the line here is pretty perfect, but I’ll go under.

Scott: Over.

We will get to see them up close and personal on Friday when they come to face Arsenal. I hope that they go away still needing the full 35 points in the remaining 37 matches.

Coventry were a good value for a Championship winner and were clearly the best team all season long there. They built the team on the back of a strong defense, a good attack, and maxing out set plays. I think that is a pretty good blueprint for translation into the Premier League. I don’t know if they will survive but I think that they could be right around the 38-40 point mark that might be required to do it.

Sunderland - 42.5 Points

Adam: Europa League football and Premier League survival attempts aren’t usually things you try simultaneously, but Sunderland under Regis Le Bris will face exactly that challenge!

This is a tough side to project, but I do foundationally believe that the Black Cats finished higher last season than their performance really “deserved,” for lack of a better word. Whether you side with xPTS and think they should’ve been in the relegation scrap or not, there’s a big gap there between where they actually finished and where they should’ve finished, in my book.

Their literal only move to date has been to add Thomas Meunier, so this side will really depend on Granit Xhaka bringing another season of stellar play, with continued growth from guys like Sadiki and Angulo, as well as Brian Brobbey.

I’m landing more on the pessimistic side here. Again, it’s a good line though. I’ll say over, but just.

Scott: Under.

Don’t back down, double down.

After looking like an idiot, expecting things to come crashing down for Sunderland all last season, I am back again doing the same thing. This time it will work!

On the underlying numbers last season they were below West Ham. They now have the extra fixtures from being in Europe during the midweek, and to date they haven’t added much depth to help account for that. I don’t think I’d make a huge bet that they’ll be relegated but it wouldn’t shock me and I expect that they will be dragged into the fight this season.

I think that they are roughly a low 40’s team and I think that with the burden of extra matches and expectation maybe that is something that enough times drags them down below this points total.

Fulham - 44.5 Points

Adam: I was consistently underwhelmed by Fulham last season, but they still managed to scrape out an underlying performance that was worth 12^th on the table. Now they’ve lost their main striker, their main actual goal threat and their manager, who it felt at times was what was keeping them alive. They’ve replaced most of those with guys who 12 months ago were in the Real Madrid Castilla system.

Maybe Arbeloa wasn’t an actively bad manager for Real Madrid, but I don’t know what he did exactly to attract Fulham, where he brings several of “his guys” from Madrid.

As I look at this group and ponder the reliance on Garcia, Joshua King, Shea Charles and Oscar Bobb, I am dangerously close to predicting they get relegated…it just feels too much like post-Cunha and Ait-Nouri Wolves to me. Under…sorry Emile.

Scott: Under.

We have another team that is facing a new coach situation. Marco Silva isn’t exactly a Pep Guardiola but he was a competent manager with a successful track record in the Premier League and with this team, getting the team to look coherent and play up their talent. They have replaced him with Alvaro Arbeloa and he’s tough to really draw conclusions about. That is the first thing that makes me worry about the downside here for them.

The other big thing is that this team has lost a lot of goals from last year. The players that have left scored 24 of their 47 goals last season. Harry Wilson was on a heater and that was unlikely to repeat but those were still goals that would have needed to have been scored to repeat their performance. They have leaned into some youth signings to try and pick it up and maybe it works out but it is a risk.

I think that there is just enough here that I am feeling the under. I think they are safe and around the 15-17th best team but there is an outside shot that they get pulled into the relegation fight.

Crystal Palace - 45.5 Points

Adam: Palace’s underlying numbers were much better than their actual finish last year, and that usually gets my attention. But looking at this group, I also can’t ignore the switch at manager.

Pierre Sage arrives alongside Dwight McNeil, Oscar Mingueza and Takehiro Tomiyasu, and at a time when Marc Guehi and Maxence Lacroix have departed, giving Palace a different profile than they’ve had in recent seasons. It will be important for Palace to retain Ismaila Sarr, if possible, since Europa League football adds further complexity.

The good news is that Adam Wharton is back, as are the promising defenders Chris Richards, Jaydee Canvot and Chadi Riad. I’m interested to see what Adam’s Guy™ McNeil does here, alongside Yeremi Pino and ADAM formula darling Anan Khalaili. As of this morning they’re linked to midfielder Kevin Danois, another formula guy.

A pretty boring midtable finish around 10^th or 11^th wouldn’t shock me, but if I’m being totally honest, neither would 16^th. The range of finishes is that wide open to me. I’ll take the Over, but if they drop Sarr, I’d reconsider.

Scott: Over.

We repeat ourselves with another club coming into 2026/27 with a new coach and the complications of that.

This is a team that I think is starting from a stronger base. They did lose out on a starter from last year’s team in Maxence Lacroix but as I am writing this have been able to hold on to everyone else major from last season. The first 13-14 players on the team are pretty strong but they have been picked over and replacing quality players is tough, leaving the depth a bit questionable. That will be an issue with a Europa League campaign to contend with.

I think that they are still a solid team and that they should be in the mix of anything can happen mid-table teams.

Leeds - 48.5 Points

Adam: I’ve seen Leeds kind of all over the place in preseason predictions, and after thinking it over, I’m more bullish on them than some of my contemporaries.

This side was better than its 14^th-placed position last season and lost basically no one. Harry Wilson feels like a great free addition, one of Fulham’s real reasons for existing last season. Trafford cost a ton of money but should be an improvement, and I have been saying for a bit how I like Tarik Muharemović at the back. This is not a flashy group of players, but another year together could be a big deal for them. They could also be stagnant with less output from Calvert-Lewin. We’ll see, but I think a slight step forward is coming. This is a great line, but I’ll go Over just to have a different pick to Scott.

Scott: Under.

Leeds got 47 points last season and I think that was pretty fair for them and I total repeat of that, solidifying them in the Premier League is their goal. That will end up a bit under the total here.

I think that the team might still be limited by Daniel Farke on how they can go, but he did help lead them to another year of Premier League football. I am not blown away by the moves that they have made in the transfer market here but it doesn’t look like a disaster.

I think that they should be able to stay above the fray in the relegation fight but it might still be more like a mid 40’s campaign than a high 40’s and that puts me under.

Nottingham Forest - 48.5 Points

Adam: Forest finished about at the level they deserved last season, ending up 16^th on both real and expected points. They were, however, first in expected managers.

Now they’ve got Oliver Glasner, a much more stable option, leading the way. But is their organization stable enough to support him?

Elliot Anderson is a major, major exit. He was probably their best player last season by a distance. That puts a ton of pressure on new arrival Xaver Schlager, to me always a middle-of-the-road player in Germany, as well as the newly extended Sangaré to really step up. Gibbs-White will have to be outstanding as well.

Glasner does seem to get the best out of players in England, but the talent level isn’t convincing to me. We’ll see what he can do here. Just over.

Scott: Over.

Forest crashed back to earth last season after they flirted with Champions League qualification. They also had stylistic whiplash going from manager to manger. They have now made another move to change managers but have done so with a bit more time to allow the team to adapt, going with former Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner.

Glasner at Palace made them a tough to breakdown and dangerous on the counter team, that is a template that fits the talent and on paper should work at Forest. They have lost Elliot Anderson to Man City but they should still have a deep enough squad that they can survive in the mid-table and maybe even surprise.

Bournemouth - 48.5 Points

Adam: Iraola leaves, Europa League football arrives. Whether Bournemouth are ready for it is another question.

Marco Rose inherits a side coming off a superb season, but balancing Europe and the league isn’t easy, and his recent CV doesn’t inspire me, considering he kinda wrecked a lot of great players at Leipzig. António Silva could be one of the smarter defensive signings of the summer, while Álvaro Rodríguez adds another attacking option who had good numbers for a less-sexy side.

I’m interested to continue watching Kroupi, though he’ll miss a stretch of the season to start. He ran well above underlying numbers last year and would be a strong candidate for regression once he’s back. Senesi was also a really important part of this group, so his absence could be critical. That said, there is real quality here, be it Alex Scott, Tavernier, Truffert, Evanilson or Rayan. Those guys should keep Bournemouth football fun for another season, though I’m expecting a slight step backward overall. I think this line is pretty appropriate, but they’ll be just over.

Scott: Over.

If they had Andoni Iraola coming into this season this would be the easiest decision here but they don’t and we have another team with the questions about how they adapt to a new coach. Bournemouth have a bit of the Brentford/Brighton benefit of the doubt here, I have seen them seem to have a really good organization working behind the scenes to keep things going.

There is a good group of talent on the roster (and several players that will be on the wish lists of big teams in the coming seasons), Marco Rose seems like a good coach and he shouldn’t be too large of a departure from Iraola.

My expectation is more like 50 points and that this team should have some upside on top of that if the young player continue to progress.

Newcastle Utd - 48.5 Points

Adam: OK, what hasn’t changed in Newcastle? Bruno Guimarães, Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali leaving is a seismic amount of talent headed out the door. Eddie Howe is gone, too, and Matthias Jaissle now has to rebuild a team that once looked like a Champions League regular.

I actually like several of the incoming names, particularly Amar Dedic and Bazoumana Touré. But Newcastle didn’t fix the fact that they’re basically down to Will Osula and Yoane Wissa at striker, as Woltemade takes on more of a number-10 role. Can Anthony Elanga produce … anything this season? Are Steur and Bamba ready to actually play in midfield in the PL? Because those departures are monstrous.

Missing Europe will help a young side as it finds its way through a big transition, but this season could also get ugly at times. Under, though I think this line moves as they make a couple more signings.

Scott: Under.

Newcastle have seen their numbers drop the most of any team since I have been watching the betting odds. They started the summer over 50 points expected and now seem like they have an outside shot getting pulled into the relegation race. Losing 2/3 your starting midfield, a key attacker in Anthony Gordon, and the ball progression from Kieran Trippier, plus your manager is enough to do that.

I can’t say I have a lot original to say about Matthias Jaissle, but he does have the Red Bull pedigree. The Newcastle group seem happy with him and I will take their word for it.

Newcastle have turned over the squad betting on higher upside younger players. There will probably be growing pains and unless everything breaks perfect, another season under 50 points and in the lower mid-table range.

Everton - 48.5 Points

Adam: I again quietly find myself feeling pretty confident in a David Moyes Everton side. McNeil and Gueye are somewhat significant losses in their own ways, but Everton are precisely the kind of system you’d expect Brennan Johnson to make some trouble in. Hayden Hackney-Kieran Dewsbury Hall is a solid midfield pairing, and I still like Ndiaye if they can keep him. Maybe not incredible but I think reliably ok here. Over.

Scott: Under.

I don’t have a lot to say about Everton. They aren’t all that exciting, the moves they have done are solid but nothing more than that. They have a solid squad that doesn’t have any massive holes in it but also doesn’t really have anyone to get your blood flowing.

Solidly safe, little upside, no major reason to tune in each week if you’re not a fan of the team or who they are playing.

Brentford - 49.5 Points

Adam: I was really hoping Brentford would find their way into Europe last season, but they fell just short. That may benefit them in other ways, namely this Premier League season.

Keith Andrews seems to have outed Thomas Frank as a system manager and looks very steady at the helm here. Meanwhile player movement has been friendly to the Bees, so key guys like Thiago, Schade, Dango, Damsgaard, Jensen, Kayode, Collins and Yarmolyuk are all back. I like the addition of Jaidon Anthony as another attacker who can do surprisingly well with not so much service, but I do have questions whether Thiago can run quite as hot for a second season in a row.

I expect these guys will continue to be a big thorn in the top tier’s paws this season. Over.

Scott: Over.

I was worried about Brentford last season, they were losing some key players and Thomas Frank. They looked like they might be in trouble but in the end their process won out. They know exactly what they are, they are very good at finding it in the market and they continue to find little edges that allow them to continue to punch above their weight.

It would be stupid to count them out again. I don’t know if they will be on the edge of Europe but it does seem like a good bet that they will be able to continue to be one of the better mid-table teams with upside that their youth could take a leap.

Brighton - 52.5 Points

Adam: Brighton have again Brightoned.

They swapped out Jan Paul van Hecke – a key player – for Spurs’s Luka Vuskovic, one of the more intriguing young defenders in Europe. Pascal Struijk will figure significantly this season, one of the better defenders in the PL nobody ever talks about. Mitoma will hope for better fitness, and now Promise David has joined to bolster the striker ranks, but the loss of Danny Welbeck to Chelsea could actually matter quite a bit. Other than Promise, Brighton will have to finally give minutes to Greek youngster Charalampos Kostoulas, be it in league or European play. For me, that creates a big question regarding where goals come from here.

Aside from that, Baleba’s departure will create a hole in midfield, but not an insurmountable one from where I stand. With the addition of Conference League, I foresee a slight step backward in league play. I’m gonna go with an intentionally contrarian under to keep things interesting.

Scott: Over.

Like the other two “B” teams that are well run, there is a lot of trust built up that the team knows what they are doing. They understand their spot in the global pecking order and will sell players when it makes sense, replacing them with the next group of young prospects and get back on to the treadmill of getting to the edge of Champions League qualification.

As I am writing this the Carlos Baleba to Manchester United rumor is heating up and that won’t help here but overall I think that they have enough benefit of the doubt to not change my mind enough.

They are a solid enough squad, with plenty of talent and upside that I think that mid 50’s points is possible again for them.

Aston Villa - 56.5 Points

Adam: Villa last season finished fourth despite only ranking 13th in xG, the ultimate Emery special. Should I be impressed, or should Villa fans be terrified? This season might be the ultimate stress test.

Gone is Morgan Rogers, a very anti-xG type of player. Youri Tielemans crucially has left the midfield. Emi Martinez seems next out the door, and quite possibly followed by Ollie Watkins, another player capable of turning an xG slogfest on its head in one play. And of course, Ezri Konsa is also not walking through that door.

I do like Johan Manzambi, and think Joao Gomes is the type of smart signing you make when you need a PL experienced midfielder. But to replace that much of your foundation, when also adding the Champions League to your plate? Oh, and now Lucas Digne has fully been replaced by Ian Maatsen, whom I’m still not sure what to think about. We’re going to have to see just who comes in at the back and the front to replace Konsa and Watkins, should they both leave.

Even with a not-depleted squad, I’d be leaning on Villa to take a step back due to Emery’s history of lesser league play once he’s in the CL. Now I’m betting hard on it. Under.

Scott: Under.

The underlying numbers HATED Aston Villa last season. If you were betting based on those numbers you would have ended up very unhappy. Maybe there is just a black magic to them where they will continue to defy that gravity. I am skeptical about it and the number of key players and just general turnover in the squad is tough. (I am also lucky enough to see Ezri Konsa leaving before publishing this).

When they were scoring the unlikely goals, the team looked good. When the Morgan Rogers bangers stopped, the team didn’t look so good. Maybe someone else steps and scores those and they just keep rolling on. I am happy to let someone else take that chance and I will hope that this is finally when things come home to roost and they are what is expected of them.

I expect that they will fall back into the mid-table this season.

Tottenham - 60.5 Points

Adam: It seems pretty likely that Spurs will improve on last season’s 17^th place finish. De Zerbi has stayed on, and they played a little better under him. I look at Van Hecke, Fernandes and Tonali as bar-raisers in key positions, even if the latter two did cost a stupid amount of money.

The forward moves they’ll make will play a key role in determining their future, and the latest news – Savinho and Marmoush – does not inspire. But I expect we’ll see at least a little more from Xavi Simons this season, as well as Mathys Tel. Mohammed Kudus? Not sure what to tell you. I was set for a controversial over here, but this line is too high for my taste. Under.

Scott: Under.

Spurs have decided to spend BIG rebuilding the squad and taking a massive pivot away from young athletes to players that have more Premier League experience. They haven’t exactly gotten value for the money that they have spent but I think that they have improved and started to build a team that could actually fit into what Roberto De Zerbi wants to do tactically.

The have midfielders that can actually pass the ball in Mateus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali. Jan Paul van Hecke and Marcos Senesi are not walking errors. Robertson looked old at Liverpool but he’s still a solid player. They seem like they are also making a double swoop to upgrade the attack with former Man City players.

The big reason that I am on the under is that this is still a 20 point improvement that would be needed to be able to take them from 17th back into the top 5 range. That is a big jump for any team and it might be too much even for how much they are spending this summer. Maybe they will make me look dumb and actually make that big of a jump (United did it last year) but you will often be right betting against Spurs.

Manchester Utd - 68.5 Points

Adam: Really weird trying to evaluate these guys, from where I stand. On the one hand, United were the third-best side in the league last season, picked up steam as the campaign went and seem to have found a manager in Michael Carrick and pieces like Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo who can get them closer to the Premier League summit, to say nothing of Benjamin Šeško.

On the other, there are some caveats to what United did last season. They overperformed expected points by about nine, so underlying stuff puts them more about even with Liverpool. They rode a wave of a stupid amount of goals from an aging Casemiro to their place, and also did so while not playing in Europe and suffering early cup losses across the board.

If United are going to replicate or even improve upon last season, it’s going to have to include some better process overall. It will also require some growth from younger guys like Amad, Kobbie Mainoo and Leny Yoro. Bruno Fernandes was the top creator in the league last season but more like a “just barely” best creator than a “wow look at that record-setter.” He will likely continue producing at a high level, and I like what United did adding Tielemans and Santos behind him, though I’m not completely sure how to feel about Baleba, who had a tough season at Brighton. However, he is the profile they needed to add to that midfield. But then, so was Ugarte.

United will need production from their depth guys to compete on both fronts this season, and though the trend that I’ve seen is to expect them to be even better this season, I think the added stress on the squad might have them roughly even year over year. This is a really good line to me and I think they’re within five percent of it either way. Under?

Scott: Over.

Manchester United look competent. They have built a solid squad and so far this summer have made solid improvements to address the needs that they have. Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans should be enough to replace Casemiro. They are also looking to add Baleba to midfield and that should help them with the extra matches of the Champions League.

They haven’t made any attacking additions and they look content to hope that they get internal improvement from Benjamin Sesko.

Overall I think that there is still some fragility and air in the numbers. They were able to focus entirely on the Premier League last season and they won’t have that luxury this season. The underlying numbers were not nearly as good as the results were under Michael Carrick. Bruno Fernandes had a career year at 31 years old and that probably won’t happen again, you never know when that age cliff will come.

I have almost talked myself into the under here, but I am going to hold my initial thought and think that this is a low 70 point team.

Chelsea - 68.5 Points

Adam: Where to even start with these clowns?

How about here: Chelsea finished 10th and missed Europe. However, their underlying numbers were much closer to a top-five side. Then they went out and signed half the continent.

Morgan Rogers is the obvious headliner, and I’m extremely curious to see how he slots in among Cole Palmer, João Pedro and Estêvão, as well as how well Palmer plays in what should be a return back to regular fitness for him. Avoiding red cards, of course, is paramount for Xabi Alonso’s side.

And Xabi is a good manager! I believe he will be a net positive for Chelsea as a whole. But I have some remaining questions about the personnel he’s been given, especially Rogers and whether his Villa bangers will translate to a side that might have to break down more set defenses at times. I’m also marking myself down as skeptical that Jorrel Hato is the right guy to play left wingback, so the loss of Cucurella could be significant here.

Are the litany of other guys still picking up checks from BlueCo and/or transfers in from Strasbourg – Valentin Barco, Emanuel Emegha, Mudryk, Nic Jackson, Romeo Lavia, Disasi, Anselmino, Gittens, Delap, Guiu, Datro Fofana – even worth mentioning? Who the hell knows.

If Xabi Alonso gets this clicking, Chelsea could make the Champions League – the talent is good enough. If not, they’ll have to find some more real estate to sell to themselves, or things will get even bleaker on the balance sheet here. But overall we can’t have nice things, so I’ll say over.

Scott: Over.

The team that is a trading firm with a side of football playing.

They finished a hilarious 10th place but they were a much better team than that and this shouldn’t be the real baseline for the expectation around them. They had bad sequencing, poor finishing luck, and too many red cards. They also seemed to just give up on LinkedIn Rosenior.

Now they have pivoted to a good coach in Xabi Alonso and with that to a new transfer strategy where they are actually okay with players over the age of 22. The squad is still too big and maybe it has more outs that need to happen.

I think that they will be in the hunt potentially for a 70-point season and maybe a bit more than that.

Liverpool - 70.5 Points

Adam: The coronation of the most recent defending champs as the reigning dynasty many expected after last summer never happened (self-back-pats to us for being skeptical there), and a year later, there are more questions than ever about this side.

Starting with the good news – Andoni Iraola is a good coach, and he should bring Liverpool back to the rock’n’roll style they were closely associated with in the Jurgen Klopp era. The less-good news if you’re a Liverpool fan is that, even if they get Bradley Barcola through the door today, there are still a lot of gaps in their squad.

Despite Jeremy Jacquet and Ronald Araujo joining, the center-back spot is still woefully thin, with oft-injured Joe Gomez the closest thing to cover behind Virgil Van Dijk. Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong are still crucial at the fullback spot, where (also oft-injured) Conor Bradley may be forced to play a bigger role, along with Dominik Szoboszlai in a pinch.

Up front, Liverpool have Alexander Isak, who I do feel is likely headed for a strong bounceback season, but who will flank him is a real puzzle. Despite losing the face of their club going back nearly a decade, Liverpool have no real right wing players to speak of outside of Federico Chiesa, and have been strongly linked with a sale of Cody Gakpo from the left wing spot. That would leave newly signed Víctor Muñoz, Rio Ngumoha and possibly Harvey Elliott as other options alongside the potential Barcola. Needless to say, LFC should try and add to those numbers, even if Hugo Ekitike is able to make a quick return from a bad Achilles injury, which isn’t a given.

Iraola’s football should create volume and intensity, and I do believe in much of the talent they’ll send out on a weekly basis. The question is going to be about repeatability of their highs, and whether they’ve got the depth to withstand continued presence in two major competitions deep into a season, especially in attack. I’ll take the under for now, but only slightly, and let’s see who comes aboard in the next fortnight.

Scott: Over.

I think I am bullish on Liverpool. Everything that could go wrong for them, went wrong for them last year. The Slot solving injuries magic didn’t last, they lost key players that were tough to replace (even after winning the transfer window), Salah got old, and they ended up with one of the worst title defense season’s in a while. All that being said, they were still probably the 3rd/4th best team last season overall.

I am a fan of Andoni Iraola, he’s done a great job at Bournemouth and that was a continuation of his impressive stint at Rayo Vallecano. He’s done well adapting to the players that he is given and figuring out the best way to maximize and fit it into his principals of play. It is hard to make the jump up to an elite team as we have seen a number of times but this does seem to be a solid fit between team and coach.

The 71 point bar kind of scares me, but I think that you don’t need to much rosy projections to see a mid 70’s points total here and that this team might have might have a pretty high ceiling.

Manchester City - 76.5 Points

Adam: We should probably talk about the departures.

Rodri, Bernardo Silva and John Stones are not normal players to lose in the span of a year. That’s a lot of intelligence, experience and control disappearing from one squad, compounded by losses I’ve been talking about previously like Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker, İlkay Gündoğan, Aymeric Laporte and Ederson, among others. And I have yet to mention Pep Guardiola.

Yet, City are City. Elliot Anderson has joined in a record-breaking deal, and they’ve still got Erling Haaland, Antoine Semenyo, Rayan Cherki, Marc Guehi, Josko Gvardiol and others. That’s a good base to build from.

My biggest questions are about the rest of the guys here. Can Anderson really rise to Rodri’s level on a more ball-dominant side? Jérémy Doku was genuinely more of a drag on Belgium’s World Cup run than anything – after hitting a level he’s never hit last season, can he get back there again, or was that a fluke? Would Ayyoub Bouaddi be enough in midfield, or would City need another? Can Nico O’Reilly remain the nuisance he was at key moments last season, or will his deficiencies be more pronounced under a less “Pep” coach? What about Matheus Nunes? There are plenty of things to wonder about here, and I haven’t loved the way City have gone about building this squad for a stretch now – impending departures of Reijnders, Gonzalez and Marmoush only prove my point.

Is this the season karma blows up in these guys’ faces? I’m somewhat tempted to call it, but I want to see what happens with the rest of the window. I think a line where they take a slight step back is appropriate, so I’ll say under.

Scott: Under.

I don’t want to overreact to a single data point of getting the snot kicked out of you by Arsenal. I think that will happen to a lot of teams this season but it does give a clearer picture about the gap between City and Arsenal. The overall change factor is what makes me skeptical about them, they have been doing serious rebuilding since January 2025 and have basically turned over most of their squad since then.

They are selling even more of their attacking depth to Spurs and that can allow them to fire the money cannon again at another player or two.

There is still a lot talent in this team but the uncertainty around them has not been higher in more than a decade. Given that, on balance the scenarios where they are more a Champions League level team than a title contending team are more likely and that pushes me to taking the under here.

Arsenal - 80.5 Points

Adam: For all the talk about needing to strengthen here or add depth there, Arsenal’s title-winning season was remarkable in the sense that it tested the side’s depth at every turn. Kai Havertz, Martin Ødegaard, Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke, Mikel Merino, Gabriel, Riccardo Calafiori and Piero Hincapié each missed significant stretches of the season, and I feel like I’m probably forgetting someone or two as well.

Did the club attack as well as some of its contemporaries? No, not all the time. Did it defend much, much better? You bet. And this is without fielding its indisputable first XI before about February.

As such, I don’t view the key to this season to be adding more players here or there – I view it as getting the most appearances out of Havertz, Ødegaard and Saka in particular, while doing their best to protect others like Declan Rice from potential burnout. Bruno Guimarães is undoubtedly one of the best midfielders in the Premier League, so he and Myles Lewis-Skelly’s emergence – not to mention a fitter Martín Zubimendi – should go a long way toward that.

The biggest question for me is centered fully around William Saliba and Jurrien Timber and their projected returns. I do view Ezri Konsa, Cristhian Mosquera and Ben White as worthwhile stand-ins. If Arsenal can hold things together until both players are back, that would be huge.

The other question I encounter most often is all about mindset. Will Arsenal, league title now in tow, approach this season with less pressure and more of a relaxed mindset, which could enable higher levels of dominance? Or, having finally crawled over the line in first, is this a letoff year waiting to happen? After watching the Community Shield, I’m more inclined to believe it’s door number one, particularly given the tone Mikel Arteta sets within the building, but we’ll see.

It’s very, very interesting to me to note that as of now, Arsenal and Liverpool have more of what you might call “title-winning experience” in their buildings than City, who just said goodbye to three more key cogs of their most recent title. Will that make a difference as well?

This line feels low for a title favorite, and last season I predicted Arsenal to win the league with 88 points. At this point it’s as much a bet on decent health as anything, but I’ll take the over here.

Scott: Over.

If Saliba was healthy this line would be higher. If Timber didn’t have big question marks that would move it more. Even with these injuries, Arsenal have the best and deepest squad, reminding everyone about that in the Community Shield.

I am getting heat because I don’t love the Ezri Konsa price but there is no doubt that he will help Arsenal’s floor in the injury absence of Saliba and Timber. They are still a bit short in elite attacking talent but I think that maybe the return to health and addition of more midfield progression will help ease those worries.

I am still bullish on Arsenal and think that another mid-80’s points total is the baseline here.

Those are our picks heading into the new season, but with the transfer window still open, some of these projections could shift. Agree or disagree, one thing is certain: if the Premier League delivers another season as chaotic as the last one, plenty of these over/under calls won’t survive first contact with reality.

Let us know what you think we got right, what we got wrong, and where you see the teams based on these points totals.

Arsenal’s reported pursuit of Ezri Konsa is one of those transfers where I find myself nodding along to all the logic while simultaneously not quite loving it.

That’s probably the simplest way to put it.

Do I understand why Mikel Arteta would want Konsa? Absolutely. If the fee ends up somewhere around £50 million and wages land in the £125-150k per week range, Arsenal would be buying one of the more reliable defenders in England, a player who has spent seven seasons as a Premier League starter and has become a key piece of the England setup. They’d also be buying a guy who will turn 29 in October and likely has little or no back-end value, meaning he eventually leaves for free, be that in 3 years or 4.

The argument largely comes down to one question:

How aggressively should Arsenal prioritize winning right now?

The obvious case for Konsa

Let’s start with why Arsenal are interested in the first place. Konsa is good. He’s definitely better than Cristhian Mosquera, a promising backup who has filled in admirably when called upon over the past 12 months. After all - he’s in the starting XI for the guys who just finished third in the World Cup, and while Mosquera could get a Spain callup soon, he’s not even in the team at this stage (with no legitimate shout).

Konsa has started in the Premier League for seven seasons. He has been a key contributor on teams competing for Champions League places. Every coach he’s played under has trusted him. There is real value there, and when you’re going for a league title with a key player likely to miss months at the start, that counts for something.

As Scott pointed out in his excellent breakdown of Arsenal’s options, Konsa’s profile fits a lot of what Arsenal already look for. He handles pressure well, completes a very high percentage of pressured passes and generally makes smart decisions with the ball rather than spectacular ones. His carrying numbers are solid, even if they aren’t especially exciting, and he tends to rely on positioning and anticipation defensively rather than constant aggression.

That’s actually a pretty natural fit next to Arsenal’s current defensive group, especially Gabriel.

Scott also highlights the positional flexibility. Konsa can play center back. He can play right back. He has a clean injury history. He is available. Teams fighting for titles tend to place enormous value on all of those things.

For an Arsenal side facing a world where William Saliba and Jurrien Timber miss substantial time this season, there’s an obvious appeal to adding another defender who can simply be trusted to play 3,000-plus minutes if needed.

For reference, Scott’s full piece is here:

Arsenal appear to be pivoting

The bigger picture here, however, is interesting. For years, Arsenal have largely operated within two timelines simultaneously.

The first timeline is the “win now” timeline. The second is the “stay elite for a decade” timeline. Those goals usually overlap, but sometimes they pull in different directions.

Signing someone like Riccardo Calafiori fits both timelines. Signing Mosquera fit both timelines in its own way as well, adding a young player who isn’t far off the title-winning level, with room to grow into it.

Konsa feels different. This is very much a move that says “We’re trying to maximize the next three seasons.” Arteta has spoken to this before, and it’s been reported that with Liverpool and City each facing some sort of transition in the near-term, Arsenal believe now is the time to go big.

Maybe that’s the correct approach.

The other side of that sword, though, is that Bruno Guimarães isn’t getting younger. Viktor Gyökeres isn’t getting younger. Ebere Eze isn’t getting younger. Eventually Arsenal will need to replace portions of this core while simultaneously dealing with aging pillars like Gabriel, Martin Ødegaard, Declan Rice, Kai Havertz and David Raya all also moving deeper into their own careers.

A lot of those key pieces are going to arrive at similar stages of their careers around 2029-30, and it will be on Arsenal to either 1) have already secured pieces that can be brought along and installed in their place or 2) do what Liverpool and City have done more of recently, which is go into the market and pay big to try and keep their levels really high as an aging star leaves (Barcola for £130m, anyone?)

Viewed through that lens, maybe the club has simply decided that the best approach is to push all its chips toward the middle of the table and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow arrives.

I get that logic. I really do.

The price is what gives me pause

The fee is a confounding factor in all of this.

I haven’t seen a solid report nailing the number down yet, but let’s call it £50 million. That’s roughly €58 million. Seems fair, given Aston Villa were reported asking for 60 and Arsenal didn’t want to pay that.

At that price, Arsenal wouldn’t simply be signing an older defender — they would be making one of the biggest bets on an older defender in football history.

A €58 million fee would comfortably eclipse the previous record fee paid for a center back aged 28 or older.

Leonardo Bonucci’s move to Milan for roughly €42 million in 2017 has long been the benchmark. Cristian Romero moved this summer for around €40 million. Kalidou Koulibaly’s transfer to Chelsea was also roughly €42 million.

Konsa would clear all of those by a healthy margin. And that matters because age-related decline doesn’t need to fully arrive for value to disappear.

Even if Konsa remains a very good player through age 32, Arsenal are still unlikely to recover a meaningful portion of the transfer fee. The second that contract is signed, most of that £50 million is effectively gone. Both in real-life, cash terms, and in regulatory, book value-type terms.

That’s not necessarily a reason not to do the deal; it’s just the reality of the investment. And it’s very likely that — just like Liverpool and City have done — Arsenal ends up moving out the majority of the Bruno-Eze-Viktor-Konsa-Kai-Gabriel group, among others, for next to nothing in terms of incoming fees.

Then there is Mosquera

The other part I can’t quite shake is how this affects Arsenal’s younger defenders, namely Mosquera.

The easiest way to justify signing Mosquera was that Arsenal had identified a long-term Saliba deputy and eventual starter candidate.

The talent is obvious. The pathway also looked obvious, though he obviously would only be Saliba’s successor in a worst-case scenario.

But if Arsenal sign Konsa a year later, where exactly does Mosquera play? This season in a vacuum, particularly the first half, it feels very obvious and easy to say that the minutes will be there between covering RCB, RB and LCB.

Scott’s piece argues that longer term Konsa could slide into the sort of role Ben White occupies, potentially opening the central pathway back up. But I don’t love the idea of Konsa - or Mosquera, for that matter - as the long-term backup at fullback. That feels like it could be leaning too much into defensive solidarity at the cost of properly supporting the right side of the attack.

Maybe that’s what happens, though. Or maybe, Mosquera develops at left center back, a position that he (like Saliba) played prior to joining Arsenal, and despite being right-footed. If Arteta will relent on the left-footed left-back thing, he could even replace Gabriel in the future. Or, maybe somebody eventually leaves…and maybe that’s Mosquera. Given Arsenal’s paltry price paid for him, there is profit to be made there, and he would undoubtedly garner interest if put on the market.

Another consideration: Maybe Arsenal have simply decided that, in this age of too-much-football, stockpiling talented defenders is simply a good problem to have. But at some point, I do believe there has to be an actual developmental pathway for young players signed for the first team. Otherwise Arsenal will end up repeatedly buying succession plans before the previous succession plans have had a chance to succeed.

The strongest argument for doing it anyway

Here’s the thing: This season? The move makes a ton of sense.

It’s very obvious Arsenal are trying to make title challenges as inevitable as possible. Konsa probably improves the floor of the squad immediately. If Saliba misses time, you’re covered. If Timber misses time, you’re covered. If Ben White misses time, you’re covered.

All three of those are likely to happen this season (or already happening). And as we’ve seen, even just from last season, there is enormous value in eliminating disaster scenarios.

Arsenal are no longer trying to become contenders — they’re trying to become serial winners. The clubs that operate at that level often make moves that look slightly excessive on paper. Maybe that’s the point.

My verdict

I fully understand the appeal.

Konsa is proven, durable, versatile, fits the system, fits the dressing room, is homegrown, is already close to Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Ebere Eze and Noni Madueke, and probably raises Arsenal’s title odds immediately.

My hesitation isn’t really about the player; It’s about the timeline.

At £50 million, Arsenal would be making an unprecedented investment in a defender entering his age-29 season. They would also be doing so after investing in younger defensive options who still need pathways to meaningful minutes.

I think both sides of the argument make sense.

If Arsenal win two or three titles over the next few years, nobody will care about resale value. But we might care if those titles don’t materialize and we’re stuck trying to reload an aging lineup. Hell, we’ll probably care once that day comes even if we do win the titles, such is the impossible bar set by fans.

To cut it down to brass tacks here, the move makes Arsenal better today. The real question is how much tomorrow they’re willing to sacrifice to do it, and whether we might decide that that time whether the sacrifices being made on the back end are too great.

We’ll see, but for now - this season gets a little less scary with Konsa in the building. And that’s a good thing.

His supporters will point to his 21 total goals scored last season, his impressive on/off numbers, and that he was a true “9” in a mold that Arsenal have lacked for years. His detractors will counter with his more middling non-penalty goal tally, his lack of technical security, and the missing impact against better teams.

This is unfortunately a situation where both sides here seem pretty dug in and are talking past each other. My own perspective is that they both make good points about him and they are describing an above average but flawed/limited player. The disagreement on Gyökeres at Arsenal hinges much more on how much of him the team needs rather than the simple binary of is he good or bad.

Season 1 - Met Expectations, but it was a low bar

Coming into last season I set benchmarks for what I expected from him, built from his Champions League output and an adjusted-down version of his Portuguese league numbers, mixed with what I thought a viable Arsenal striker needed to produce. Because he's a striker who provides most of his value around the box, I focused on shots and goals: 2.7 shots and 0.45 goals per 90 in the Premier League.

Here is how things ended up over the course of the season:

He never got the same shot volume that he had previously and didn’t hit the number I had set for him. At Sporting he had 3.9 and 3.1 shots per 90 in his last two seasons (Domestic + Europe) before he moved to Arsenal.

For goal scoring he did better, landing right where I'd set it (0.43 vs 0.45). His shot volume dropped but he compensated for that with an increase in his average shot quality.

My expectation for his overall game and contributions outside of the box were pretty low and watching him week in and week out didn’t change that.

I do think that his hold up/outlet play improved as the season went on but it went from yikes that is bad more to something closer to average. I don’t think that he made enough impact, even when the team played more towards his strengths, and that when he was going up against significantly stronger defenders every week, he looked much more ordinary than when he played in Portugal.

Was it good enough?

So he hit my expectations. But that's a separate, and less important, question than whether hitting them was good enough.

The answer to this rests largely on how big of a role that you want him to have. If you want him to be the primary starter for a team that is competing for the Premier League title and trying to win a Champions League, probably not. If you think or want him to be more of a rotation and secondary option for this level of team, you are probably more content with that.

Last season he ended up tied for 8th in non-penalty goals in the Premier League. That’s quite good for a player that isn’t your number one attacking threat but would be quite disappointing if he was.

On a per 90 basis he lands in roughly the same spot, finishing 9th in the Premier League.

Looking at his season in a more Arsenal-specific context, the verdict again points closer to, “eh, it was fine” than anything else. Since Mikel Arteta became the manager at Arsenal, just six players have bettered his 11 non-penalty goals from last season. Here is the full list of the goal scoring leaders since the 2019/20 season.

If you want the binary, massive success or massive failure, his numbers from last season unfortunately aren’t going to give it to you. His season won't be memorialized as anything great or historic. But he scored 11 non-penalty goals that made a meaningful contribution to a title win.

Four of them broke a deadlock, and another two pushed a one-goal lead to two.

What should we want and expect for the coming season?

Last season probably wasn't the plan the club had when they signed him. I don't think he was bought to be a backup, but I don't think he was bought to be the every-match starter either. My expectation, and how things played out when he was fit, was that Kai Havertz would still take a big share of the striker minutes.

Gyökeres was thrown into the starting role from matchweek 1 and he was often the only option, with injuries limiting the alternatives. That made adapting to a new league harder, and he had his own injury absence to work through as well.

He ended up playing a bit more than two thirds of available Premier League and Champions League minutes, and closer to three quarters of the minutes he was fit for. Having watched a season of it, that is more than this squad should be asking of him.

There have been rumors of a move to Spain, and that's something Arsenal should be open to. There's no need for a fire sale, but if an offer came in that got their fee back, that would make sense for everyone.

If he stays, my expectation, barring another injury hit year to Havertz, is that he plays materially less than he did in 2025/26. His role and squad position would be closer to the original plan but maybe even limited to certain matchups. When I have been imagining the squad usage this season, I have penciled him in for him for something around 30-50% of available minutes rather than the 73% he had last season. He can still make an impact.

There will be matches that suit his strengths. He is one of the very few players in this squad who will stretch a defense and operate as a low-touch, off-the-ball attacker, and that's a thing Arsenal genuinely need. If things go more to plan, there should be fewer matches where he looks like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. The opposition matchup and the talent around him can and should be better matched to produce better outcomes.

No one will mistake him for a super star, but if he is playing less than half of Arsenal’s minutes and producing at the level that he did last season, more people will be content with him. If he is playing primarily against the right opponents and as a way to keep other attackers fresh, that is a way that he can still produce value to Arsenal.

Correction: 2026-08-18 - The previous version of this post gave him credit for just 1 goal that helped Arsenal go from +1 game state to a +2, it was actually 2 times. This happened vs Nottingham Forest and against Sunderland. I regret this error and the text above has been corrected.

🎯 The main takeaway: Even with the transfer anxiety, this is still a damn good team

I don’t think that you could have written this up better for Arsenal. A goal in the first minute, followed by strangling and controlled performance where you add on a second goal and then a third just after half time.

This match should give Arsenal a ton of confidence coming into the season and it is a great reminder of just how good this team is, even if it isn’t perfect and that there aren’t still items on the squad building shopping list.

During the transfer season, all of the players that Arsenal don’t have seem to grow in people’s estimation while the players that are in the squad are old news and not nearly as exciting.

This is a glorified friendly and it is tough to read too much into it but I do think that Manchester City would have wanted to win this one. They came in with more to prove and Enzo Maresca will have wanted to make his first impression. Arsenal little bro’d them here from start to finish.

Sometimes it is nice to be slapped in the face and reminded that there is a reason that Arsenal won the Premier League and made it to the Champions League final. That was probably not even Arsenal at their best last season as the had to often gut and grind matches out due to injuries.

I am looking forward to Friday and start of the title defense.

📈 The positives:

• A healthy Martin Ødegaard is still one of the best midfielders in the world. It was nice to be reminded about that.

  

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