Wayne Rooney suggests the stakes for Mikel Arteta are high as Arsenal sit top of the table after nine games. The club have opened a seven-point lead over Liverpool, with Manchester City six points behind. Bournemouth are four points adrift, while Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland lie five points back.<\/p>\n
That positional advantage has encouraged talk of a genuine title opportunity, even while questions remain about Arsenal\u2019s ability to create open-play chances. Rooney, speaking on his podcast after Arsenal\u2019s win over Crystal Palace, reflected on the squad\u2019s readiness. “The squad is good enough now and I think they\u2019ve had the experiences which have got them close, but I think they\u2019re ready for it,” he said.<\/p>\n
Rooney then outlined the consequence he believes would follow a failed title bid. “If they don\u2019t win it now, you\u2019d probably see a change of manager,” he predicted.<\/p>\n
Arteta is contracted to the club until 2027 and there has been no suggestion internally that he intends to depart before then. He was heavily involved in the contract renewals for Gabriel and William Saliba, which extended both defenders through to the summer of 2030, an indication of long-term planning under his leadership.<\/p>\n
Gary Neville voiced a similar conviction about Arsenal\u2019s prospects. “This has got to be them, hasn\u2019t it?” he asked on his podcast. Neville argued the club need not rewrite the record books to secure the title. “They\u2019re not going to have to go and get 100 points, they\u2019re not going to have to get even 90 or 95 points to win the league, mid-80s, high 80s will win them this title, and they can do that,” he said.<\/p>\n
Neville added that Arsenal\u2019s consistency and defensive organisation set them apart from rivals. He listed attacking and set-piece threats including “[Eberechi] Eze,” “[Noni] Madueke,” “[Gabriel] Martinelli,” “[Leandro] Trossard” and “[Declan] Rice” and praised the balance across the squad.<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola has also predicted that Arsenal and Liverpool, along with a third unnamed contender, would be difficult to catch this season. The debate now centres on whether Arsenal can sustain their start and convert it into a first league title in 21 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney warns that if Arsenal do not win the 2025\/26 title, the club may consider a managerial change<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[1087,1019,253],"class_list":["post-4072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-coaching-change","tag-creative-players","tag-declan-rice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}