Analysing the Top Six Teams and Their Aspirations for the New Season

#6 Arsenal

Will Arsenal deliver this time?

Last season: 6th

Transfer activity:

Ins:

Bernd Leno (£22.28m)

Sokratis Papastathopoulos (£14.26m)

Stephan Lichtsteiner (free)

Lucas Torreira (£26.73m)

Matteo Guendouzi (£7.13m)

Outs:

Most notable: Per Mertesacker, Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla

Pre-season preparation:

14th July, beat Boreham Wood 8-0

19th July, beat Crawley Town 9-0

20th July, lost to Brentford 2-1

26th July, drew against Atletico Madrid 1-1 (lost 3-1 on penalties)

28th July, beat PSG 5-1

1st August, drew against Chelsea 1-1 (won 6-5 on penalties)

4th August, play SS Lazio

There is a new dawn at Arsenal since for the first time in 22 years, we're going to see a new man in the dugout at the Emirates. Arsene Wenger stepped down at the end of last season and Unai Emery was appointed to replace him.

Since taking charge of the club, the Spaniard has been making remarkable changes in Arsenal's approach to games, adopting a more tactical approach and putting more emphasis on the defensive side of the game - the absence of which led Arsenal to concede goals for fun last season.

He has also worked on aspects such as the positioning of the players, the pressing of the opponent without the ball, being proactive with the ball rather than being reactive.

The training regime has become much more physically demanding than before and games are going to be preceded by thorough preparation. All of that has been evident in the games they have played in pre-season.

In the market, Unai Emery intended to have his business done early to enable him to have time with the new signings and integrate them seamlessly.

With the exception of Lucas Torreira, whose nation, Uruguay, reached the quarter-finals in Russia and Stephan Lichtsteiner who exited the World Cup at the round of 16 with Switzerland, the rest of the new arrivals have had a full pre-season with the rest of the team.

Arsenal sent only 7 players to Russia, which made the rest of the players available to Unai Emery from the start of July. Therefore, as other teams are fretting with players suffering from the skirmishes of the 2018 World Cup, Arsenal have enjoyed the luxury of having most of their key players available.

Thomas Tuchel warned rival teams in the Premier League of the threat Arsenal could pose. In his post-match interview after his team were ruthlessly hammered by the Gunners in Singapore, he said:

"It could give (Arsenal) a big advantage. Chelsea had few international players when they became Champions two years ago. It is a big advantage. It is very complicated for us. To manage is almost not to manage."

He could be right, Arsenal don't look ready to win the league just yet, but they could get the kind of results that may surprise many.