Arsenal's Title Defense: Arteta's Demands for Hunger and Evolution

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 their title push.

Arsenal open the new campaign at home to promoted Coventry on Friday night, stepping into a role they have not occupied for generations: champions expected to go again. Not since the 1930s have the club successfully defended a league title. That history hangs over them now.

The numbers say they should start strongly. Arteta’s side have won 17 of their last 18 league games against promoted opposition. No newly promoted team has left the Emirates with three points since November 2010, a 45-match stretch that underlines just how ruthless Arsenal have become in these fixtures.

Yet Arteta is treating this as something different. A reset, not a lap of honour.

“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, tempering the excitement that followed their sharp Community Shield victory over Manchester City. The message to his players is simple: last season’s levels are no longer enough.

“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,” he said. “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 challenge now is psychological as much as tactical. Arsenal are no longer the chasers. They are the benchmark.

Asked if his team start with a target on their backs, Arteta pushed back at the idea that anything is guaranteed. “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 league table, for now, is clean. Reputations count for nothing.

But he does not hide which position he wants to occupy once the season settles.

“I think that happened in the last three seasons – at some point we were first, at some point we were chasing it, and you never know what’s better,” he reflected. “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 demand for control stretches into the transfer market, where Arsenal’s big move has already been made. The £75m signing of Bruno Guimarães from Newcastle has reshaped their midfield and their balance sheet. To offset that, the club have explored sales – and one name has repeatedly surfaced.

It is understood that Myles Lewis-Skelly was offered to Manchester United and Chelsea earlier in the window as Arsenal looked at ways to raise funds. On the pitch, the 19-year-old has done everything to argue against his own departure. He was outstanding in midfield against City in Cardiff on Sunday and had already shown his temperament by starting last season’s Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain.

Arteta is adamant: Lewis-Skelly is going nowhere this window. He is “100%” confident the academy product will remain an Arsenal player.

For the manager, this is about more than squad depth. 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, in his eyes, carry an intangible value that cannot simply be bought, no matter how strong the transfer budget looks.

“We need to look after them in a really special way because they bring value that is very difficult to find,” he continued. “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.”

So Arsenal walk into opening night with a champion’s burden, a manager demanding evolution, and a young midfielder he refuses to lose. The marathon starts against Coventry. The question now is whether this group can handle the hunt they say they want.