Arsenal is set for yet another tour of the United States, with scheduled matches against Bournemouth, Manchester United and Liverpool in different American cities, before returning to London to host the Emirates Cup with fixtures against Bayer Leverkusen and Olympique Lyonnais. Arsenal's first competitive fixture takes place on August 17th, when Wolves come to town. Bearing in mind that the European Championships finals take place on Sunday, July 14th, the timeline between that fixture and the start of the Premier League season will be exactly one month, which will be very grueling for the likes of Saliba, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka that have been mainstays in their national team setup.

Arsenal's captain, Odegaard, spoke with the media chums about his reflections from the club's performances last season and the current pre-season training preparations in Marbella,

"The summer has been good. I'm obviously disappointed not to be in the Euros, so it's been a bit strange to watch the games, but I've had some more time to relax and disconnect and I think I needed that after a long season and all the emotions that come with it. We're here now to start preparing for a big season. It's a nice place to come to train and work and a good way to start the season to work towards the big goal of being even better than last season."

"First of all it was a good season. We made history and we have to be proud of that, but it wasn't enough to win it and that's what we wanted to do, so we all felt a bit disappointed with being so close. In football there are small margins. It's easy to look at one game but I think you have to look at the whole season. We didn't have the consistency to win it and we have to earn it and we know we can improve, get better and that's what we're working on. We were so close but we're going to come back even stronger now I'm sure."

In the last two campaigns, Arsenal has left the trenches of struggling to make Europa League football to genuinely challenging for the Premier League title, and on both occasions, Arteta's men have been thwarted by the juggernaut simply known as Manchester City. Pep Guardiola's men are the standard in England's elite club football division and any team that thinks they are up for it have to challenge them and try to sustain it till the end of the campaign. Liverpool was the only team that has managed to do this in recent memory, with their 30th English First Division title in 2020.

Liverpool, under Jurgen Klopp, were serious contenders but more times than not, they fell short, like Arsenal has done in the past two seasons. Mikel Arteta spoke about these fine margins,

"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. I think we understand where those margins are. I think we have come very far. We have been really consistent now in the past 24 months in terms of performance and the levels that we want to hit. But those margins are super small. One thing is to get the 90% that we want and actually the 10%, 5%, 1% is what defines success and winning major trophies. Now we have to continue to do all the right things that we are doing and just make those small margins that are going to be able to win the tournaments."

We are in a new campaign, and it comes with its own fair share of expectations. Arsenal will once again be expected to challenge for the Premier League title, and the football machine never stops.

The expectation is to keep improving, and with the right signings, as well as consistency from the players, they might just go all the way this campaign.

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