The international break is both a time to reflect for clubs like Arsenal but also to look forward. Not only in yearning for the next week to speed around the corner and return domestic football to our screens but theorise about the longer term.
What Arsenal might look like next season with the changes expected in the market, in the squad and from the youth academy has reached a peak. 2025 has, as football.london understands it, been a year targeted by the club with great excitement.
Not only for what the current season might culminate in but the business that is being looked toward to set up the next phase of this infamous project spearheaded by Mikel Arteta. With that in mind, we take a look at what the Arsenal team might look like come the start of the next season and which familiar and new faces are still part of the team.
As has been the case with the youth investment of Arteta’s project, the back line remains consistent and David Raya’s first full season as a permanent player is sure to land him yet more plaudits. The interesting position in the side however could be at right-back with an all-out battle between Ben White and Jurrien Timber having already begun to materialise.
Timber, right now, has had arguably the more impressive start to the campaign which extrapolating would give him the edge in any line-up for next season right now. William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes will of course be continuing their stalwart reputations as the league’s best centre-half partnership, perhaps by then the best in Europe.
At left-back, Riccardo Calafiori will be a much more refined version of himself. Yet his backup option will be far thinner in depth with Takehiro Tomiyasu, Kieran Tierney, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Jakub Kiwior all having potentially left the club by this point.
Instead, the role will be filled by exciting young star Myles Lewis-Skelly who will also play a role in providing depth for the midfield as well. There may be another exciting starlet to talk about soon, but Lewis-Skelly should certainly not be overlooked.
Into midfield and Declan Rice will, by this time be a fully-fledged number six, returning to the role after Mikel Merino’s progression into the starting eleven. Both Thomas Partey and Jorginho’s contracts will have expired by this point too, opening the door wider for Merino.
However, he still might yet face the challenge of starting all matches with Martin Odegaard’s midfield partner instead being Ethan Nwaneri. The then 18-year-old who made his debut nearly three years earlier in the Premier League will be a far greater figure in Mikel Arteta’s plans and an attacking midfield selection to strike fear into opposition sides.
The forward line is where it gets interesting as Kai Havertz may indeed meet his match when it comes to the striker role. Havertz will continue to offer brilliant quality, competition and rotation to several roles, but the multi-million-pound striker signing fans have been calling for might finally arrive and for us, Viktor Gyokeres looks to be a prime candidate to claim that title.
He of course will continue to be flanked by Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli. Yet there may be more quality there too as the club return for Nico Williams as a possible option in the attack.
