Arsenal’s Premier League 2026/27 season gets underway this Friday, August 21. The Gunners will take on Coventry City in the opening fixture of Arsenal’s Premier League 2026/27 season.
The Gunners, who are the defending champions, will start as the favourites to win the title once again. They showed their might in the 3-0 win over Manchester City in the FA Community Shield last weekend. However, other teams cannot simply afford to sit back and relax as the holders race to another title in Arsenal’s Premier League 2026/27 season.
How the Opposition Teams can Plan against the Gunners in Arsenal’s Premier League 2026/27 season
Arsenal started without Bukayo Saka on the right flank in the FA Community Shield match and did not show the familiar tendency to build their attacks through the inside-right channel.
Noni Madueke, who started on the right in place of Saka, showed an urgency to break through from counters to expose the space left open by Nico O’Reilly, Manchester City’s left-back. Martin Odegaard also shunned his tendency to get to the inside-right channel and made a number of runs through the middle.
Arsenal’s passing inside the opposition half was also slick, and they gave the Manchester City defence hardly any time to regroup.
In such a scenario, the ideal way to foil Arsenal’s attacks will be to slow the pace of the game down and make sure that the Gunners are not able to breach the opposition defence with their quick passing. If the opposition team are playing with a 4-2-3-1, both of their defensive midfielders should stay back and block the passing channels of Odegaard, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Bruno Guimaraes, so that none of the trio is able to play through passes past the defensive line.
Moreover, the Gunners’ left-back, Riccardo Calafiori, frequently moved inside to increase his team’s presence on the inside-left channel as well and combine with Christos Tzolis. That means that the opposition right-back will have to combine with the right-sided centre-back often to counter that presence.
If the opposition team is playing with a 4-2-3-1, the right-sided central midfielder should also drop back to help the right-sided centre-back out in countering that threat. The wingers of the team could also fall back and work in tandem with the central midfielders to help the full-backs deal with Arsenal’s threat through the channels.
Thus, the extra attention the opposition teams had to give to Arsenal’s attacks through the inside-right channel previously will have to be distributed to their attacks through the inside-left one as well. Hence, while their team does not have the ball, both the defensive midfielders of Arsenal’s opposition will have to stay back and distribute themselves to either side of the pitch to help the centre-backs out to stop the Gunners in Arsenal’s Premier League 2026/27 season.
It could also be helpful to press Odegaard, who has a tendency to carry the ball from deep. If the opposition forwards can press the Norwegian midfielder immediately after losing possession, it could be helpful in preventing an attack. The key thing will be to prevent Arsenal from breaking quickly into a counter-attacking move.
Long balls can also be played towards the right side of the pitch to exploit the space left open by Calafiori. Teams have exposed Arsenal that way in the past as well. Ben White is unlikely to make too many overlapping runs down the right flank, but Calafiori remains an offensive threat through the left, and it has to be taken care of by attacking his side of the pitch.
The key thing will be to stop Arsenal having enough numbers inside the opposition penalty box. Through passes played from the middle third and breaching the opposition’s line of defence could prove to be very dangerous in this regard. Hence, it will be the job of the opposition’s defensive midfielders to block those passes in Arsenal’s Premier League 2026/27 season.
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Arsenal Have Difficult Matches at the Start of their Campaign
The Gunners will take on Aston Villa and Chelsea in their second and third matches, respectively, in Arsenal’s Premier League 2026/27 season. Both of those matches are potentially very difficult, and one could see Arsenal drop points right at the beginning of the season.
The opposition teams will have to make things as difficult as possible for the Gunners in Arsenal’s Premier League 2026/27 season. They cannot afford to allow Mikel Arteta to run away with the title.
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