It’s going to be a big 2026-27 for…

In time honoured tradition, the week the season starts I focus on three players for whom the upcoming campaign has plenty riding on it. Strangely, considering Arsenal won the Premier League last season (always worth reminding oneself) it was pretty difficult to pare this down to just three players. I could just as easily have written about any one of White, Saka, Eze, Gyokeres, Madueke or Havertz.

Martin Odegaard

‘He missed five or six months [last season] for different things, and it was extremely difficult for him to get any momentum. So I’m sure this year, if we can maintain him fit and available, and with the players around him, we’re going to see a very different Martin. And I sense from the first day that he joined that he has something else on the belly that he wants to prove and show because the team needs it as well.’

Not my words Carol, but the words of Mikel Arteta after Martin Odegaard absolutely ran the show against Manchester City in Cardiff on Sunday. By his exalted standards, Odegaard has endured two very ordinary seasons in a row, now. He remains a very important player for Arsenal, not least due to his technical quality and match intuition.

However, he has slipped from the ‘indispensables’ division occupied by the likes of Rice, Gabriel, Saliba, Raya and Saka. Ebere Eze, Mikel Merino and Max Dowman are all gunning for his spot (Ethan Nwaneri probably won’t be by the end of the transfer window) and Bruno Guimaraes has crowded the midfield picture further. The Brazilian, in particular, presents a challenge to Odegaard because Bruno is an excellent progressive passer.

In my view, I think a top team ought to be very comfortable having two excellent progressive passers in their midfield (and Myles Lewis-Skelly adds to that calculus further). However, arguably Guimaraes’ presence reduces the dependence on Odegaard to provide the expressive brush strokes from midfield.

However, an Odegaard with a fully purring engine is a player that quickly becomes indispensable in pretty much every scenario. Put simply, injury issues have provided caveats to his slightly flat form over the last two seasons. But he cannot really afford another underwhelming campaign.

If he enjoys strong fitness but does not impress, then conversations will need to be had. If he continues to be dogged by fitness concerns, we are probably still having the same conversation but with slightly different words. He has two years remaining on his current contract and there are no reports of discussions for an extension at this stage.

This season will define the terms of his extension at the very least and may even determine whether he gets one at all. Personally, I think if Odegaard stays fit we will see the best of him, he has the quality, he has the correct attitude. He just has to put it all together again.

Riccardo Calafiori

Another player whose quality is beyond doubt but his fitness record leaves question marks. Calafiori is one of a handful of senior players who was not at the World Cup this summer and who has enjoyed a full pre-season. He is coming into his third season at Arsenal now and, much like Odegaard, this probably represents a ‘contract season’ for the Italian.

Because what Calafiori offers Arsenal is really unique. Arteta has always had an avant garde taste in left-backs who occupy spaces all over the pitch. Calafiori is one of those footballers who really could play anywhere too, when Arsenal suffered their great striker shortage of 2025, his name was proffered prior to Mikel Merino bagging the ‘makeshift striker’ gig.

His run and finish against Manchester City in Cardiff was symptomatic of his jazz fusion approach to left-backing. Calafiori is a strong defender too, solid in the air and solid in the tackle. I think he can add a greater sense of mystery to the Arsenal attack but to do that he has to be fit. I think the Champions League Final in May would have gone quite differently had he and Timber been fit to play to their best.

The presence of Piero Hincapie ought to mean that Arsenal can look after Calafiori without overloading him. Arsenal have undergone a lot of churn at left-back under Mikel Arteta; Saka, Xhaka, Tavares, Tierney, Tomiyasu, Maitland-Niles and Zinchenko have all played there under his charge.

Calafiori really fits the mould of maverick left-back that Arteta really seems to like. My best guess is that the manager trusts Gabriel and Declan Rice to plug the gaps while Calafiori goes galivanting like a horse that shed its jockey and, if you are the opponent, you can hardly detail someone to man-mark the left-back. Calafiori is a real asset to Arsenal as a joker in the pack. But he needs to stay fit.

Martin Zubimendi

There is a spicy take that if Arsenal really need to sell a footballer that top clubs would really want to pay money for this summer, Zubimendi might be a good bet- probably better than selling Lewis-Skelly. Zubimendi enjoyed an excellent first half of last season before his performances looked increasingly fatigued as the Premier League meat grinder took its toll.

Declan Rice was the only outfield player to play more minutes than Zubimendi last season, so we can forgive his rust. However, the last couple of months have not been encouraging for him. He lost his place to Myles Lewis-Skelly for the run-in and the Champions League Final and the signing of Bruno Guimaraes suggests his starting spot will be even tougher to win back than it had looked in May.

There is plenty of football next season and there will be a lot of minutes to go around. However, as it stands, he would probably do well to get close to the 2,995 minutes he played last season unless there are injuries. He will still be an important player this season but he probably won’t enjoy the prominence we would have forecasted 12 months ago.

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