- Is Arteta the Next Guardiola in the Premier League?
Manchester City has dominated the Premier League for around a decade, and all thanks to Pep Guardiola. That man has been a pain to every other Premier League club since he came in 2016, winning six EPL titles in nine seasons, including four Premier League titles in a row, while his style of play, backed heavily by the Manchester City board in the transfer market, saw Guardiola win at the highest level and dominate the league like it was the Bundesliga or Ligue 1.
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But things have finally changed, and after Arsenal finally ended City’s dominance by winning the 2025/26 Premier League title, it is beginning to look like the league has a new boss.
Arsenal had spent years chasing Manchester City, finishing second three times before finally getting their hands on the Premier League trophy, and they did it with an impressive 85 points while City finished seven points behind them.
Now, with Guardiola gone and Enzo Maresca taking charge of Manchester City, Arsenal have already sent another warning to the rest of the league by beating City’s new side 3-0 in the Community Shield, with Riccardo Calafiori scoring after just 23 seconds before Kai Havertz and Martin Odegaard completed the victory.
So my question is, is Mikel Arteta the new Guardiola, and are we about to enter the Gunners’ season?
For years, Arsenal were simply the team trying to catch City, but Arteta has slowly turned them into a side that now looks capable of setting the pace themselves, with Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Declan Rice, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes and David Raya forming the core of a team that has developed into one of the strongest squads in England.
Arteta has also been at Arsenal since December 2019, making him the Premier League’s longest serving current manager, and that continuity could become a major advantage now that City are beginning a new chapter.
The biggest difference now is that Arsenal no longer look scared of Manchester City.
They have spent four seasons trying to break City’s grip on the league, they finally won the title last season and then returned to beat them 3-0 before the new campaign had even started, with City struggling to create clear chances while Arsenal looked sharper, more organised and much more confident.
The Community Shield is only one game and nobody should use it alone to predict the next nine months, but when you put that result together with Arsenal’s title win and City’s decision to replace Guardiola with Maresca, you can see why many people are beginning to believe that the balance of power has shifted.
Of course, Arsenal still have plenty to prove before we can start talking about another Manchester City type of dominance.
Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea have the resources to challenge, while City still have Erling Haaland, Phil Foden and enough quality to recover from one poor performance, but Arsenal now have something they have been searching for throughout Arteta’s reign: a winning foundation, a young squad, a settled manager and the confidence that comes with finally beating the team that stood in their way for so long.
Arteta also understands Guardiola better than most managers because he worked alongside him at Manchester City, learning from the man who turned City into the dominant force in English football, but the Arsenal manager now has the chance to build something different and possibly something even more important for his own legacy.
Guardiola created the City era, and Arteta may now be creating the Arsenal era, because if Arsenal can turn last season’s title into the beginning of sustained success rather than a one off achievement, then the question will no longer be whether Arteta is the next Guardiola, but whether he has finally created his own version of dominance in the Premier League.
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