Premier League football makes its long-awaited return to Emirates Stadium soil on Saturday afternoon, when Arsenal pit their wits against Wolverhampton Wanderers on matchday one.
As the Gunners begin their latest quest to kick Manchester City off of their throne, Gary O’Neil‘s men have top-half aspirations in mind for 2024-25.
Match preview
A couple of months before Mikel Arteta‘s native Spain won the gold medal in the 2024 Olympics men’s football tournament,
the Arsenal boss once again had to settle for silver in the Premier League,
as the Gunners failed to end two decades of top-flight hurt since the Invincibles of 2003-04.
However, while their title fight tailed off towards the end of the 2022-23 campaign,
the Gunners were still in with a chance – albeit a wafer-thin chance –
of pipping Man City to the post on the final day, but a hard-fought 2-1 win over Everton ultimately went unrewarded.
Arteta’s Arsenal can no doubt be described as going from strength to strength, though,
and there were only two blots on the Gunners’ notebook in pre-season,
a penalty shootout loss to Manchester United – whom they beat in 90 minutes – and a narrow defeat to Liverpool.
The Gunners have already competed in two Emirates bouts this month,
teaching German Invincibles Bayer Leverkusen a lesson in a 4-1 romping before beating Lyon 2-0 in the latest edition of the Emirates Cup,
their fifth successive competitive or non-competitive win at their North London home.
Not since a controversial 3-1 loss to Aston Villa in 2013 have Arsenal commenced a Premier League season at 3 pm on a Saturday,
but it has been 45 years since the Gunners last failed to score in a competitive showdown with Wolves, who have conceded to their capital counterparts in 33 games running.
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That sensational sequence unsurprisingly represents Arsenal’s longest-scoring streak
against a single opponent and Wolves’ longest run without a clean sheet against a particular side,
and the Old Gold faithful may travel south in more hope than expected this weekend.
Arsenal’s possible starting lineup:
Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko; Odegaard, Partey, Rice; Saka, Havertz, Martinelli
Wolverhampton Wanderers possible starting lineup:
Sa; Doherty, Mosquera, Toti, Ait-Nouri; Sarabia, Lemina, Gomes, Podence; Cunha, Hwang