Arsenal's Season Challenge: Arteta Demands Hunger to Defend Title
Mikel Arteta has thrown down an early-season gauntlet to his Arsenal squad, demanding they prove they have the hunger to defend their Premier League crown – and making it clear that Myles Lewis-Skelly will not be sacrificed to fund the champions’ rebuild.
Arsenal open their title defence at home to Coventry on Friday night, stepping into a campaign that asks them to do something they have not managed since the 1930s: retain the championship. History is against them, but the recent numbers are not. They have won 17 of their last 18 games against promoted sides and have gone 45 such fixtures at the Emirates without defeat, a run stretching back to November 2010.
They are expected to win. Comfortably, even. Arteta is not buying that storyline.
“We need to breathe and we need to take this organically because it’s going to be a long marathon,” he said on the eve of the season.
The Community Shield win over Manchester City has sharpened expectations, but inside the club the message is about evolution, not celebration.
“What we need to show is that desire and ambition to be better than what we were last season, a month ago, or a week ago when we played Man City. We have the ability to improve, to evolve, and that’s what I sense and I feel around the club and especially around the players.”
The pressure of being champions will follow them into every stadium. Arteta knows it, and he welcomes it.
Asked if Arsenal now start with a target on their backs, he pushed the idea away – at least for now. “Today, no, because we start from scratch and we’re going to have to prove we have the level to go back to that position again,” he said. The last three seasons have taught him that the picture at the top can twist quickly. “At some point we were first, at some point we were chasing it, and you never know what’s better. You give me the choice, I want to be first, I want to be hunted, and I want to be in control of our future, rather than depending on somebody else.”
That desire for control extends to the club’s brightest academy product.
Arteta shuts door on Lewis-Skelly exit
Myles Lewis-Skelly’s emergence has been one of the stories of Arsenal’s year. The 19-year-old midfielder started the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain last season and shone again in Cardiff on Sunday, standing out in the win over Manchester City.
Financial reality has swirled around him. Arsenal have committed £75m to bring Bruno Guimarães from Newcastle, and it is understood Lewis-Skelly was offered to Manchester United and Chelsea earlier in the window as the club explored ways to balance their books.
Arteta’s stance now is emphatic. He is “100%” confident Lewis-Skelly will stay.
For the manager, this is about more than squad depth or resale value. It is about identity.
“The players that have been raised in our system, and they feel generally that love and that connection with the club, bring something else, there’s no question about that,” he said. Those players, he believes, carry an edge that cannot simply be bought. “We need to look after them in a really special way because they bring value that is very difficult to find. That’s why, when we can, we want to protect those assets as much as possible, develop them and make them extremely important for the club.”
Arsenal step into a season where every rival will try to drag them down from the summit. Arteta, by drawing a line around his homegrown talent and demanding more from his champions, has made one thing clear: if they are going to be hunted, they intend to be stronger, not softer, than the team that got there first.
