Mikel Arteta has challenged Arsenal to keep their feet on the ground as they close in on a piece of history. A win over Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday would give the Gunners eight straight victories to begin a season for the first time since 1903, but the manager made clear that the milestone cannot become a distraction.

“We’ve got a really tough opponent tomorrow so we’re going to have to earn the right to win the game,” he warned. “But certainly that will be the mindset of the players and the team.”

Arteta was also asked whether he had expected Arsenal to open the campaign with seven consecutive wins. He said the signs were encouraging over the summer, even if he knew the challenge would be severe.

“Well, we know how complicated it is to win a football match at this level,” he confessed. “So to win seven, it tells the story.

“After the World Cup , especially, there were a lot of unknowns about how the players and the team were going to react. We didn’t have any time with them to work together. But I said from day one, I think the attitude and what I was seeing, I was really impressed with.

“Then you have to put it down to performances. We had a bit of luck as well, for sure, to win four matches. And we are here. And then we want to make another one for sure tomorrow.”

Arsenal’s best start to a season remains the eight-game run from 1903-04. In that era, Woolwich Arsenal were in the Second Division, and their sequence included emphatic wins over sides that finished in very different places in the table. Even so, the campaign also featured a 4-0 victory over Manchester United, with Arsenal ending the season with the division’s highest totals for goals scored and fewest conceded.

Martín Zubimendi’s position in Arsenal’s setup has changed quickly. After being close to a regular place last season as the Gunners won the Premier League and reached the Champions League final, he now finds himself searching for a way back into Mikel Arteta’s strongest side.

There were already warning signs at the end of the previous campaign. Zubimendi did not start the Champions League final, the semifinal second leg, or any of Arsenal’s last four Premier League games in midfield. In three of those matches he came on as a substitute, and in the other he was used at right back.

The 2026/27 season has brought more uncertainty. Across Arsenal’s first four matches in the league, Zubimendi has not started in the Premier League. He has been used from the bench against Napoli in the Champions League and against Manchester City in the Community Shield. Much of that is down to the rise of Myles Lewis-Skelly, who is also keeping summer signing Bruno Guimarães out of Arteta’s preferred XI.

His first start of the campaign came this week, and it arrived in an unfamiliar role. Zubimendi filled in at right back against Ipswich Town in the Carabao Cup after the injury to Ben White. With competition in midfield so strong, that may now look like his clearest route back into the team.

Jurriën Timber has only recently returned from a long spell out and was rested for the Ipswich match. Ezri Konsa and Cristhian Mosquera can both play at right back, although Mosquera is currently sidelined and Konsa is covering for the injured William Saliba.

That leaves an opening for Zubimendi if he can adapt again. Arteta has already shown a willingness to use technically gifted Spanish midfielders in altered roles, with Mikel Merino previously thriving as a makeshift striker.

Mikel Arteta has revealed that Arsenal’s summer work was deliberately made awkward, with the manager using preseason to prepare his squad for the kind of disruptions that can unsettle a title challenge.

The Arsenal boss said he wanted players and staff to face unexpected problems before the Premier League season began, so they would be better equipped when those situations arrived for real. He pointed to the long flight delay that affected preparations for Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Napoli as the sort of issue he has tried to rehearse.

“I love those challenges,” Arteta laughed. “I try to create them in preseason. So when they happen, we already experience them and we already know. So, get to the stadium very late, change the routine as soon as the players have to do something else.

“Because when it happens, and it can happen, you can miss the flight, the train can be delayed, there’s so much traffic, and I don’t want the players-but not only the players, the staff as well-panicking. So, when that happens, adapt to it.

“O.K., we have another two or three hours on the plane, how can we use them? Play together, spend some time together, sleep, use it, but certainly don’t complain and then use it as an excuse because that’s not helpful at all.”

Asked whether he had been involved in delaying Arsenal’s travel, Arteta joked: “We can’t get that done yet, but just delaying the meals, delaying the transport, taking a different route … we’ve done many things: made the dressing room hotter, more difficult, more challenging, less beds. Those kind of things.”

He added that the aim is to help the squad cope with different matchday conditions rather than be rattled by them.

Arteta’s methods have often drawn mockery, but he will feel justified after leading Arsenal to Premier League glory last season. During that title run, he brought a dog named “Win” to training and later joked that its name had been changed to “Won.”

He also used a pickpocket disguised as a waiter at a team event, had players handle a lightbulb to underline energy and connectivity, and asked the squad to squeeze lemons to show there was always more to give.