Mikel Arteta believes transfer activity in the Premier League will soon start to increase after a quiet summer, sending a warning to Manchester City from their nearest title rivals.
Arsenal have finished runners-up to City for the last two seasons, pushing Pep Guardiola’s men all the way on both occasions. They will hope for third time lucky as they attempt to win the Premier League for the first time in 20 years. City are looking to extend their historic run of four titles in succession to five, in what could be Guardiola’s final season at the Etihad.
Previewing his side’s campaign, Arteta offered an explanation to the lack of transfer deals so far, echoing the sentiments of City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
Al Mubarak had suggested that Premier League regulations meant that there would be fewer big transfers this summer, and so far only clubs needing to meet Profit and Sustainability Regulation deadlines have been trading.
With the new regulations, there are certain things we have to respect and be conscious of,” Arteta told ESPN. “And then obviously the Euros and Copa América are slowing everything down. Hopefully now it is going to pick up a little bit.”
However, Arteta did fire a warning to Arsenal’s rivals, insisting they have so far been ‘aggressive’ in the market and are looking to strengthen a side who finished just two points off City last term.
He continued: “There are things that we have to improve, that’s for sure and we are going to try to. But the market is tricky. We have been very aggressive, we are very determined and we have a clear idea obviously of what we want to do. It will come down to finding the right agreements at the right time.”
Predicting that the title winner in 2025 will need over 90 points again, Arteta insisted Arsenal must embrace the pain of last season. “I don’t want to get over it,” he said. “I am really satisfied with the way the team is performing, the way the players are evolving, what the team transmits, the momentum we have as a football club.
“But we need that pain and that hunger to achieve what we want to achieve because the competition is unbelievable and we are going to need everybody feeling that way to achieve it.
“When you are analytical and you gather all the stats and everything the team has done over the past 11 months in the Premier League, we should have won it. That’s what the stats say. The reality is that we didn’t so there is something that is there that we haven’t managed as well as Man City or other clubs in the past.
“At the end, we are going to have to be that good that our worst version is going to have to be much better than the best version of the opponent. This is what we are going to try to do and in order to do that we are going to have to dominate a lot of things that are going to be difficult to identify with your eyes when you watch a football match. I’ll leave it there.”
