Mikel Arteta on Premier League Challenges and New Rivalries

Mikel Arteta believes the changing faces in Premier League dugouts – starting with Enzo Maresca at Manchester City – can drive Arsenal to an even higher level as they begin the season by defending their crown.

On Sunday in Cardiff, Arteta and Maresca meet for the first time since the Italian was handed the impossible job: succeeding Pep Guardiola at Etihad Stadium in the Community Shield. A curtain-raiser, yes, but also the first glimpse of a new managerial landscape.

Arteta has already nailed his colours to the mast on Maresca’s potential impact.

He backed the former Chelsea head coach to do an “unbelievable job” at City and pointed out that they are just one of nine Premier League clubs starting the campaign under new management. It is a league in flux at the top, but Arsenal’s head coach sees opportunity, not comfort.

Rivalries that raise the bar

The narrative going into the season is clear: with so much upheaval elsewhere, Arsenal are being painted as overwhelming favourites to retain their title. Arteta wants no part of that talk.

Pressed on his budding rivalry with Maresca, he widened the lens. Xabi Alonso has arrived from the Basque coaching production line to take charge in England. Roberto De Zerbi is now at Tottenham, and Arteta has not yet faced him in the league since his March appointment.

“Well, [rivalry] with a few managers as well [as Maresca] and some new ones coming into the league that are exceptional as well,” Arteta said.

“We know this league is full of incredible managers. It is so challenging every week to prepare games against them. That will elevate our level and my level for sure and we will try to be better.”

The competition, he insists, will come from everywhere and for different reasons.

“Every club would have their strengths. Some because they have won a lot in the last 10 years, some because of the squads, some because of the money they have spent.

“We know ours and ours is related to what we have been producing for the last four or five years in a really consistent way, but as well, we can be better and that is what we are focusing on to sustain that consistency.

“You called it stability, but I don’t want to be stable, I want to be better and more ambitious. That is what we want.”

Stability, in other words, is a starting point, not a destination.

Selection calls and new faces

Arteta’s first big decisions of the new campaign will arrive before kick-off in Cardiff.

He will leave it late on the fitness of England pair Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka, both only just back in training this week after a draining World Cup that followed a demanding 2025-26 season. Both carried fitness issues through stretches of last year. Both remain central to everything Arsenal do.

Waiting in the wings are the new signings.

Summer arrivals Bruno Guimarães and Christos Tzolis are in line to make their competitive debuts for the Gunners against a City side that had the better of last season’s head-to-heads, winning two of the three meetings, including the Carabao Cup final at Wembley.

That defeat still lingers. So does the memory of City as the benchmark. Guardiola has gone, but the question remains.

Life after Pep – but City still loom

Asked whether City will still be Arsenal’s main threat for the Premier League title without Guardiola on the touchline, Arteta refused to narrow the field.

“We will have a lot of challengers,” he said. “Looking at the squads, at the managers and at the clubs they are, but we know that.

“We need to focus on ourselves and making sure that we maximise every resource we have to give ourselves the best chance. Then, day by day, it is going to be a long, long run.”

The Community Shield will not decide that race. It will, however, show how ready Arsenal are to defend what they have built – and how quickly Maresca can reshape a City side stepping into a new era.