Mikel Arteta has joked that Arsenal will have to win every Premier League match next season to become champions.
The Gunners have battled Manchester City for the title over the past two seasons but lost both times despite showing continuous improvement.
Poor form at the back end of the 2022/23 campaign saw Arsenal fall short before taking City to the final day in May, only to lose out again.
They could well be set to go toe-to-toe with the reigning champions once again this time round, but Arteta believes there’s only one way to beat them.
When asked in a press conference about what it will take for Arsenal to get ahead of City and win the title, he said: “114 points, if we do that we win the league for sure.”
Martin Odegaard was alongside him and delivered a smile before Arteta himself started to laugh along with others in the room.
“This is the objective and from there let’s see where we get but today this has to be the target, win every single game,” he added.
“Earn the right to win it and have a bigger probability than the opponent to win the game. When we have difficulties, that we are still better than the opponent, that’s the objective of the team.”
Totalling 114 points requires teams to win all 38 of their matches in a Premier League season, a feat that, unsurprisingly, no side has ever achieved before.
City and Liverpool currently share the record for the most wins across a league campaign with 32 – the former did so in the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons, with the latter hitting that tally in 2019/20.
Winning every single game would take a monumental effort and it’s highly unlikely that any side will ever do so.
Despite this, Arsenal know they still need to improve even further if they are to win their first league title since 2004.
Their pre-season commenced with a 5-4 penalty shootout win over Bournemouth following a 1-1 draw in the United States.
Arsenal face Premier League rivals Manchester United on Saturday night [01:00am UK time on Sunday] before further friendly clashes against Liverpool, Bayer Leverkusen and Lyon.
The Gunners have only made one signing so far this summer as David Raya completed his permanent move from Brentford after his loan.
However, they look set to announce the arrival of Riccardo Calafiori from Bologna soon in a £34million deal rising to £38million with add-ons.
Arsenal open the 2024/25 Premier League season at home against Wolves on August 17th and will hope it can kickstart a third consecutive title challenge.
News Summary:
- Mikel Arteta gets laugh from media room with ambitious points tally for Arsenal
- Check all news and articles from the latest Football updates.