Arsenal FC Restarted Season Preview, Best Starting XI

Another milestone in Project Restart was reached today when the FA announced the upcoming fixture schedule! It’s been about three months since we’ve seen live football in England, but the light at the end of the tunnel is very bright now.

With that in mind, let’s commence our restarted season previews, complete with a best potential starting XI. Up next is Arsenal FC.

Next Match: June 17 at Manchester City, at Sheffield United June 28 for a FA Cup quarterfinal match

Current Position: 9th in the table and 8 points off the top four, 3 points off the top six.

Transfer Noise: For Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, it’s like the classic rock song by The Clash “Should I stay or Should I Go Now?” Arsenal are reportedly going after some of the biggest names out there, like Bayer Leverkusen’s Kai Havertz, but how realistic is it?

Word is they won’t have a big transfer budget to work with, so it may not be a very exciting transfer window after all. Go here for the all transfer rumor XI and here for the XI with top transfer targets acquired and key players retained.

Season Goals: It’s been shambolic at this club lately, but they are probably on the right path now under Mikel Arteta. Arsene Wenger stayed a year or two longer than he should and Unai Emery was a disaster hire. Cleaning all that up means that a top six finish this season would be pretty good/best that can be hoped for.

Keys to Reaching those Goals:

Arteta needs to continue tweaking his lineup until he finds out who really fits his system best. This year is more about building a new identity and showing improvement continuously. It’s been slow but we’ve seen some growth.

Best Potential Starting XI:

Nketiah

Aubameyang Ozil Pepe

Ceballos Xhaka

Saka Mustafi Luiz Bellerin

Leno