Can Arsenal defend their title?

Everything is visible in the eyes. Every summer during Manchester United's golden era, Sir Alex Ferguson said he looked into his players' eyes for cues. He tried to understand whether they remained hungry enough for new successes, or whether they had already had their fill of victories. Pep Guardiola did the same at Barcelona, ​​Bayern and Manchester City. "You look your players in the eye - it's a bit like looking at a loved one," he told reporters while leading Bayern in 2014. "Either you see the passion and the willingness to allow yourself to be seduced, or you notice how that passion fades away." So it's no surprise that Mikel Arteta is using similar wording ahead of the start of the Premier League title defense on August 21. He talked about "the energy in their bodies, in their eyes, the way they look." Winning the club's first Premier League title since 2004 has become a real mania for Arteta, his staff and players — if not from the very moment of the Spaniard's appointment in December 2019, when such success seemed almost unreal, then at least since the beginning of the 2022/23 season. Then Arsenal finished second for the first time in three consecutive times. During that title race, Arteta said the team was "obsessed" with the task of winning the Premier League. It was noticeable. And now it all starts again. In an interview with Arsenal's official website, Arteta spoke about the responsibility to build on May's success, about the desire to take the club to another level, about the need to have a stronger squad, stronger individual players. According to him, the team has already identified areas in which to add, and also understands what will be necessary to achieve this goal. The most obvious area for improvement is no secret. Arsenal scored 71 goals in the Premier League last season, by a wide margin the fewest among the English champions since Leicester in 2015/16. At the same time, 25 goals after the standards became the best indicator for the champion in the entire 34-year history of the Premier League. But 42 goals from the game is by far the worst result of the champion in the last decade. Chelsea scored the fewest goals in open play among title-winning teams in the 2016/17 season with 61 goals. To put the scale into perspective, every other English champion in the last ten years has scored at least 45% more from free-kicks than Arsenal did last season. And Manchester City in the 2018/19 season — almost twice as much. Season Champion Goals from standards Goals from the game 2016/17 Chelsea 2017/18 Manchester City 2018/19 Manchester City 2019/20 Liverpool 2020/21 Manchester City 2021/22 Manchester City 2022/23 Manchester City 2023/24 Manchester City 2024/25 Liverpool 2025/26 Arsenal The Premier League averaged just 2.75 goals per game last season - down significantly from 2.93 the season before and 3.28 the year before. From play, teams averaged just 1.8 goals per match, compared to 2.15 the previous season and 2.38 in the 2023/24 campaign. This is part of a general trend of declining performance. But it's fair to say that Arsenal didn't just follow this trend - Arteta's team was among its main leaders. The performance of Arsenal's attacking players last season was surprisingly poor for the champions. In terms of the number of productive actions in the Premier League, Victor Jokeres became the best - 15 (14 goals and one assist), followed by Leandro Trossard (six goals and six assists) and Bukayo Saka (seven goals and five assists) - with 12 productive actions each. Eberechi Eze scored nine (seven goals and two assists). Next up are midfielder Declan Rice with nine assists, fullback Jurrien Timber with eight, as well as Martin Edegaard, Mikel Merino and central defender Gabriel with seven each. For comparison, in the previous season, Mohamed Salah made 47 productive actions (29 goals and 18 assists), helping Liverpool win the title. Luis Diaz (13+5), Cody Gakpo (10+4), Dominic Soboslai (6+6), Alexis McAllister (5+5), Trent Alexander-Arnold (3+6) and Diogo Jota (6+3) also made significant contributions to the championship season. A year earlier, Erling Holland was the main striker of the future champion Manchester City with 32 productive actions in the championship (27 goals and five assists). He was followed by Phil Foden (19+8), Julián Alvarez (11+9), Rodri (8+9), Bernardo Silva (6+9), Kevin De Bruyne (4+10) and Jeremy Doku (3+8). The numbers look disappointing for Arsenal. But such an obvious weakness of the championship team, especially in the attack from the game, can be seen as an opportunity for growth. Two previous champions after winning the title