Arsenal Premier League Odds: Is it time for a changing of the guard at the top?

The last time Arsenal lifted the Premier League trophy was in 2004. It wasn't just any old triumph - 26 wins and 12 draws, 30 league goals for the peerless Thierry Henry, and the award of a deeply respectful, timeless accolade - 'Invincibles.'

They've been runners-up on four occasions since, including in the last two PL campaigns, but that huge trophy continues, for now, to elude them. It's 20 years and counting. Can 2024/25 see the Gunners finally return to the summit of English football? For Arsenal Premier League odds and more, kindly read on.

Last season: 2nd

Top scorer: Bukayo Saka (16)

Transfers in: Riccardo Calafiori - Bologna (£42m), David Raya (already in situ on loan - now a permanent deal) - Brentford (£27m). Kieran Tierney and Marquinhos have returned to Arsenal from loan spells at Real Sociedad and Fluminense respectively.

Transfers out: Emile Smith Rowe - Fulham (£27m), Mohamed Elneny - Al Jazira (free), Arthur Okonkwo - Wrexham (free), Albert Sambi Lokonga - Sevilla (loan), Nuno Tavares - Lazio (loan), Cédric Soares (out of contract).

First game: Wolves (H)

Prediction: 2nd

Premier League Odds

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From the outside looking in, it's crystal clear that Arsenal are desperate to once again take top spot in English football's most coveted domestic competition. They've come mighty close in the last couple of seasons, and for long periods it frankly looked theirs to lose - and they duly obliged.

There's an anxiety, a fever almost, among supporters, players and management alike that won't be assuaged until or unless they can lift that 20-year weight from collective shoulders. An obsession? I wouldn't argue if that was your take on affairs.

I see a ready parallel with Liverpool, who managed to crush their own demons with that authoritative title win (with seven games left, no less) in 2020 after agonising and character-building near-misses. Arsenal at least aren't chasing a first-ever PL crown - they have three.

In 2019 the Gunners appointed former player Mikel Arteta to the position of head coach. He hit the ground running by taking the FA Cup in his first season, and was rebranded as 'manager' the following year, reflecting that success and his enhanced stature at the club.

It's not all been plain sailing since, but he's weathered one or two squalls to emerge as a strong and highly credible, if excitable, tactician.

It's perhaps ironic that Arteta spent three years from 2016 as an assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, doubtless a priceless learning experience, and it's his old boss who remains the main stumbling block as the man from San Sebastián tries to deliver what the red half of North London yearn for so much.

Arteta bought two City players he knew well to add title-winning experience to his squad, namely Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko a couple of seasons back. They made an immediate impact but I think it's indicative of the strides Arsenal have made since that neither would in all candour consider themselves absolute cast-iron starters right now, such is the talent within the Emirates dressing room.

They were crucial in the process of narrowing the gap however, and their contribution should not be underestimated.

Arsenal's big summer capture has been defender Riccardo Calafiori, to boost an already elite back-line. It's not difficult whatsoever to envisage another massive title challenge, the squad nicely tweaked with the acquisition of the 6ft 2in Italian international who's only 22 years of age. William Saliba and Gabriel have company. The rest of the division have a potential headache.

In midfield Martin Odegaard pulls the strings and is top-drawer. Declan Rice was last close-season's statement signing and he's certainly made his mark. Kai Havertz joined from Chelsea as a midfielder-cum-striker and after an ordinary start chipped in with important PL goals (13) and assists in the last campaign.

Eddie Nketiah, despite an October hat-trick against Sheffield United, found opportunities harder to come by as the season progressed due to the form shown by the German international, now a real penalty-box menace.

Other notable forward options include top-scorer Bukayo Saka, brilliant right-sided magician for club and the English national side; Belgian Leandro Trossard, with 12 PL strikes in '23/24; and the Brazilian flyer Gabriel Martinelli, who for me after a sensational '22/23 just fell short of those lofty standards over the last 12 months. Injury certainly didn't help, and he's too good not to hit those heights once again.

They're a formidable outfit. A manager in situ who has learned from the very best, and on two occasions very nearly engineered that changing of the guard. Big club mentality. Expectant fan-base.

The Gunners had a magnificent chance in 2023, led by playing thrilling, expansive football, and yet imploded in sight of the winning post. You-know-who picked up the pieces, including handing out a savage late beating at the Etihad.

More pragmatism last term, less flamboyance, but another Etihad trip with the finishing line in sight was perhaps again their undoing - settling for a sterile, stifling, unambitious draw when a glorious winning marker was there, potentially, to be put down.

So what's in store for '24/25? This is a very good football team, well-led, full of talent and more experienced at these rarefied heights with every passing year. What stops me from predicting a first place, well within their compass in theory, is the outfit mentioned a couple of times above.

Manchester City lost influential departing duo Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez last term, KDB, Erling Haaland and a below-par Jack Grealish for extended periods, and still found a way to make it four league titles in a row - entirely unprecedented, and in the midst of the greatest pressure in a sporting sense that one could imagine.

Signings, and I'm especially thinking Jeremy Doku, will have had 12 months to further get to grips with Pep-ball. If Arteta can get past the juggernaut he'll have earned it, and I'm thinking he'll have to wait awhile yet.

Football Odds

Arsenal are 7/4 to win the title, behind City (6/5), and we reach the giddy heights of 7/1 before we find Liverpool. It's 16s bar the three. If you're with the Gunners, then that's your bet.

For me, and I know it's not what my dear old Dad would have called a working man's price, I'd have to back them at 4/6 in the market WITHOUT Manchester City. They really should be finishing top-two, and if it's in first place, you win, albeit at reduced odds; and if they're second to City, more likely in my view, then get in the queue and collect.

Their biggest challenge will probably be psychological. How are those scars from the last two campaigns healing? If the situation arose again, would they back themselves in a key showdown instead of prioritising the avoidance of a spanking?

The next nine months or so will tell us all we need to know, and it's pretty certain to be epic.

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