This Time It's for Real: Arsenal Can Win the Premier League Next Season

We’ve been here before. Arsenal over the past decade have become the epitome of consistency, but with that they have also become the most tedious club in European football. Their seasons—with one or two exceptions—follow the same pattern, giving this summer a familiar feeling.

It goes like this: Arsene Wenger’s side start the campaign off poorly, raising questions over whether they can finish in the Premier League’s top four. But the Gunners’ form soon picks up in the new year, making a charge into the Champions League places by April and May. And so with that streak fresh in the mind, the claim that Arsenal can win the title next season is made over the summer. Only for the cycle to repeat itself all over again. 

But this time it’s for real: Arsenal can win the Premier League next season. Wenger’s team can break the tedium they have endured for the past 10 years and reclaim their place at the top of the English game.

So what’s the difference this time around? It all comes down to the growth and development both Wenger and the Gunners have undergone over the past two seasons. Arsenal might have finished in roughly the same place, with roughly the same number of points, but they have made genuine progress over that time.

For starters, Arsenal are now in a position to hold on to their best players. Perhaps not from the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid—who seemingly have their pick of the world’s best and most expensive talent— but certainly from Manchester City, whose tendency to shop in north London completely undermined Wenger’s own plans for a few years between 2009 and 2012. 

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Of course, it’s not that Arsenal have all of a sudden become a more attractive proposition—but that they are finally paying the money necessary to keep their best players. Theo Walcott was the first one to break the club’s once-strict pay structure—signing a new contract worth £100,000 a week two years ago—with Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud both receiving deals that they would only have received elsewhere in years gone by.

The Gunners have also taken to flexing their financial muscle in the transfer market, with Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez the most notable top-level players to have arrived at the club over the past two seasons. Wenger, for so long reluctant to spend big, has finally recognised the need to whip out the chequebook every so often.

"We have fought many times for the title. People always remember who won it, but the fight has been very tight for long periods in the last eight or nine years,” said Wenger last year—as per Jeremy Wilson of the Daily Telegraph. “We have a big competition in England, we have to accept that. 

“The Premier League level goes always up and this season Chelsea have started very well. They will be difficult to catch, but everybody will fight to come back on them. After 13 or 14 games, you cannot say that the title race is over. You cannot say that is not catchable.”

Wenger threw in the towel very early on last season, but his side are almost in a position to throw down a gauntlet. Almost.

While Arsenal are indeed in good shape ahead of the new campaign, there is still plenty of work to be done over the summer. In fact, this could prove to be the most pivotal off-season in Wenger’s 19-year Gunners career. Even with his team off on holiday, the Frenchman must appreciate the gravity of the next few months.

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A number of pieces have fallen into place for Arsenal. Giroud continues to prove himself as a striker good enough to lead a top-tier side, with Sanchez already a glittering star of the Premier League and Ozil finally acclimatising to the English game. The Gunners have even found themselves their first dependable  goalkeeper in years—David Ospina.

In Francis Coquelin, Arsenal might have also unexpectedly found the protective midfield barrier they have desperately lacked since the departure of Patrick Vieira. Wenger might have got somewhat lucky with that development—even admitting he wasn’t convinced the young Frenchman would become such an important first-team figure—but he cannot afford to sit around and wait for some of his other fledgling talents to butterfly. 

Despite their development in pretty much every other area of the pitch, it is in defence where Arsenal are still somewhat short. When compared with the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City and even Manchester United, the Gunners have clear deficiencies at the back—and that must be addressed if they are to mount a sustained challenge at the top of the table next season.

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Arsenal have focused much of their transfer-window efforts on adding depth to their squad, particularly in defence. Calum Chambers and Gabriel Paulista are both adept performers, but they hardly improved the Gunners’ first team. Wenger must find experience and a new leader at the back.

He must recognise that his team is on the brink of a title challenge and accelerate their progression in the transfer market, even if that goes against his principles and values as a coach. If the Frenchman has just two years left at the club (with his contract set to expire in 2017), then the tone of his legacy in north London will be set next season and the season after that.

There’s more on the line than just the fortunes of one isolated season. Wenger has reversed some of the derision that had come to define his career by winning back-to-back FA Cups, but now it’s time to prove he can build one last great team at Arsenal—and his first in the Emirates Stadium era.

Title challenges aren’t normally validated or disproved until the final weeks and months of a campaign, but in Arsenal’s case, their candidacy could be decided before the season has even started.