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Photo: Pulse Sports
Arsenal's title rivals nobody's naming
Every summer the conversation around Arsenal's title bid drifts back to the same two names, Manchester City and whoever just won it, and every summer somebody points out that's not actually how title races get disrupted. Pulse Sports raised exactly that question this week: which clubs outside the usual suspects could actually make life difficult for Mikel Arteta's side. The specifics of who they picked aren't the interesting part. The fact that the question keeps getting asked is.
The gap Arsenal keep trying to close
Arteta's Arsenal have finished as Premier League runners-up in three straight seasons, first to Manchester City twice, then to Arne Slot's Liverpool. Each summer the business has looked the same: patch the squad, add a Declan Rice type in midfield, try to find the extra few points that separate second from first. None of it has been about City or Liverpool blinking. It's been about closing a gap on the champions, whoever that happened to be.
Why 'outsiders' is actually the right question
Title races rarely get blown open by the two favourites suddenly swapping positions. They get complicated by a third club that wasn't supposed to be there, taking points off the top two when it matters. Leicester in 2016 is the extreme version of that, but the smaller version happens most seasons: a club with a settled system and a manager who's found something, grinding out results nobody predicted in August.
The profile that fits
Aston Villa under Unai Emery are the clearest recent example. Villa reached the Champions League quarter-finals in 2024-25, going toe to toe with PSG over two legs, and did it while still competing in the league on a fraction of Arsenal's spending. Newcastle under Eddie Howe are the other. Winning the Carabao Cup in 2025 ended a trophy drought that had run for decades at St James' Park, and Howe's system, built around Bruno Guimarães dictating midfield, has an identity that travels over 38 games rather than just cup form, even after Alexander Isak's move to Liverpool this summer.
What it would actually take
Neither Villa nor Newcastle needs to finish above Arsenal to matter. They just need to take points off them, and off whoever else is at the top, often enough to scramble the maths in April. That's a lower bar than people think, and it's the bar Arsenal themselves have failed to clear against the bigger two clubs three seasons running.
Sources1 source
Flagside's editors read every piece we publish. We work from the football press, write our own copy rather than reprinting anyone's, and check each article for accuracy and sourcing. Every outlet that fed into this piece is named under Sources.
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