Phil Jones has made a clear case for Arsenal as the team to beat in 2025\/26, arguing that Mikel Arteta\u2019s squad combines tactical variety with the physical tools to sustain a title bid. Arteta has faced criticism for a perceived reliance on set-pieces, free kicks and throw-ins, but Jones says that is only one element of what makes the side strong.<\/p>\n
“I enjoy it,” Jones said of modern football in his first appearance as a regular voice on a new weekly show. He expanded on the point in a longer interview, praising the return of different facets of the game and Arsenal\u2019s capacity to handle them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at football now and I think I\u2019m glad that throw-ins are back in. I\u2019m glad that deep free kicks and duels are back in the game and it\u2019s not a game of chess all the time because that\u2019s what we loved, we grew up watching and loved so much and, you know, it makes it so competitive now in games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the best thing you can say about Arsenal at the minute is is that they\u2019re suitable and adaptable to any situation in game. So if they need to get ugly, they can get ugly. If they need to play their way through the thirds, they can play their way through. If they need to play on transition, they can do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can play any team at any time for any sort of strategy they want to play. And I think that\u2019s the biggest compliment I can pay Arsenal. And that\u2019s why, for me, they will win the league this year. I think this is the year they win it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones spoke from experience. The former Manchester United and England defender was a key squad player in United\u2019s 2012\u201313 Premier League title triumph and rose through the ranks at Blackburn Rovers before joining United. He made 229 appearances for the Red Devils across 12 years.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on his own career and the demands on modern defenders, Jones warned about the athletic profile required of young players. \u201cWhen I got into Blackburn\u2019s first team, I thought I was good enough technically,\u201d he reflected. \u201cI thought I was good enough, but I was nowhere near sort of the athleticism that some of these players … the strength that some of these players now are coming into the team with, I didn\u2019t have that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think to myself now, if I was coming through in this day and age … yes, I think I would have had a good career still, but I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019d have played at that top, top level. I\u2019m not trying to do myself a disservice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the the strength of these boys coming through now is incredible, at 16, 17 years old, and you have to have that as a defender. You have to be quick now. You don\u2019t really get away with being slow or not being able to play high up the pitch. Teams like to play on the halfway line. If you haven\u2019t got the capability of sprinting back 30, 40 yards, you\u2019ve got a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Phil Jones believes Arsenal’s adaptability under Arteta makes them favourites to win 2025\/26. strongly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4910,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[1081,1019],"class_list":["post-4911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4911","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=4911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}