Arsenal’s players had barely finished celebrating their first league title in 22 years before the debate started. Can they do it all again? Mikel Arteta’s side have spent the summer answering questions about their squad, their mentality and their ability to go back-to-back, and pre-season gave an early hint of exactly where this Arsenal team believes it stands.
Their upcoming Premier League meeting with Leeds United is the next test of that belief, and the Arsenal vs Leeds United odds give a useful read on how much of it the market shares.
A Statement of Intent in Cardiff
That hint arrived in emphatic fashion. Arsenal dismantled a Manchester City side already adjusting to life without Pep Guardiola, winning 3-0 in the Community Shield at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.
Riccardo Calafiori needed just 24 seconds to open the scoring, before Kai Havertz and Martin Odegaard added further gloss on an afternoon that felt less like a curtain-raiser and more like a statement of intent. It’s Arsenal’s second Community Shield in three years, but the bigger prize is the one that has eluded them for nine decades.
The Curse of 1935
That’s the number that looms over this season: the last time Arsenal successfully defended the league title was 1935. Since then, plenty of dominant Arsenal sides have won the league once and failed to go back-to-back. History, in other words, is not on their side. But this Arsenal side is different from anything Arteta has built before, and there’s a reasonable case that the squad, the manager and the mentality are all in place to break that curse.
A Squad Built to Go Again
Arsenal have already spent over £140m this summer, adding genuine first-team quality rather than squad fillers. Bruno Guimaraes arrived from Newcastle to give Arteta a midfielder with the passing range and physical presence to control games at the highest level, while Christos Tzolis brings directness and end product from the wing after a prolific spell in Belgium.
Piero Hincapie, bought after being on loan with the club last season, adds depth and versatility across the back line, and Illan Meslier’s arrival on a free transfer gives Arteta serious competition for the goalkeeper jersey. None of that is defensive squad-tinkering; it’s a champion side actively trying to get stronger, with Arteta making no secret of his ambition to add further.
Arteta’s Growing Pedigree
Then there’s the manager himself. Arteta has spent years being questioned for tactical caution and near-misses, but last season he delivered the league title and took Arsenal to a Champions League final, only to lose on penalties to Paris Saint-Germain.
That run to Munich matters more than the result. It’s evidence this group can compete for 60-plus games a season without collapsing under the weight of expectation. A manager who has already navigated a title run and a European final has fewer excuses for wilting in the face of a title defence, and the Community Shield thrashing of City suggests the players share that belief.
The Case Against
The counter-argument is just as real. Retaining the title is a different psychological test to winning it for the first time in 22 years. The hunger that drove Arsenal through the run-in last season has to be manufactured all over again, this time with a target on their back.
Chelsea and Tottenham have both spent heavily and reshaped their midfields, Liverpool and Manchester United remain serious threats, and even a City side in transition under Enzo Maresca has too much individual quality to write off after one bad afternoon in Cardiff. A deep Champions League run also means less rest and a congested calendar, which has undone title winners before.
The Verdict
So can Arsenal do it? The squad is stronger, the manager is more battle-tested, and the Community Shield send-off could not have gone better. But 1935 is a long time for a reason: winning the league is hard, and winning it twice in a row is harder, and the football betting odds reflect just that.
This season will tell us whether Arsenal have built a genuine dynasty, or whether they’re the latest in a long line of Premier League champions to discover just how difficult the second title really is.
