Front line revolution! Arsenal bet on Yorke. Can the 97-ball god striker activate the Gunners championship engine?

Premier League 2025-26 series preview: Arsenal preview - Is Yorkress the last piece of puzzle? New changes to have an orthodox center should improve Arsenal's offensive sharpness.

In most of last season's weekly attrition, Mikel Arteta repeatedly refuted the claim that Arsenal, a team lacking pure scorers, missed the championship.

For a team with the top scorer in the intra-league (Kay Havertz) scored only nine goals, these issues are related. Viktor Gyokeres is under pressure, but it would be better if he can score 20 goals and help Arsenal win the Premier League championship for the first time since the 2003/04 season.

Under Arteta, Arsenal have finished second in the past three seasons, but the 2024/25 season is the first time in this period that they rarely look really expected to reach the top and scored 22 goals less than the 2023/24 season.

With the defensive champion Liverpool investing heavily, Manchester City also hopes to return to the dominant level. Can Arsenal launch a more convincing challenge this time?

Arsenal's 2025/26 signing situation

Yorkres, who may spend £64 million, scored 97 goals in 102 matches for Portugal Sports, but he never played in the Premier League for Brighton before Coventry City made his mark in the Champions League.

Spanish midfielder Martin Zubimendi - signed from Real Sociedad for £55.8 million - will improve the team's conveyor line as an all-round midfielder, while Denmark's Christian Norgaard joined from Brentford for a moderate price of £15 million, adding hardness to the team's midfield.

English striker Noni Madueke spent £52m to join from Chelsea, offering a much stronger competition on the offensive end than Arteta's gambling on loan last season. Meanwhile, all-rounder, 21-year-old defender Cristian Mosquera has joined for £13 million and has played in a staggering number of minutes for Valencia over the past two seasons, and this reliability may be important for a line of injury-related defense.

David Raya's £5 million substitute Kepa Arrizabalaga still holds the honor of the world's most expensive goalkeeper, thanks to the £72 million transfer fee paid to Athletic Bilbao in 2018.

What other changes may happen to Arsenal in the 2025/26 season?

After Edu left office in November, Andrea Berta ushered in his first full season as athletic director, but he has left his mark with the aforementioned signing. Another newcomer, 15-year-old attacking midfielder Max Dowman, has performed brilliantly as a backup surprise in the preseason and may make his debut in the league.

Martin Odegaard's form may be crucial, and he handed in 6 goals and 12 assists last season, which is not satisfactory by the captain's standards. Havertz hopes to replicate his hot form at the beginning of last season, but he missed 18 games in the middle of the season due to a hamstring injury.

Bukayo Saka performed amazingly before missing the same game due to the same problem, and by December he had directly participated in 22 goals (goals + assists).

Which place will Arsenal finish in the 2025/26 season? A small sample of two home friendly matches shows that Arsenal's fate may depend less on their forwards and more on the quality of their supply.

appeared isolated in Yorke's 2-3 loss to Villarreal, but scored with Saka and Havertz in an encouraging victory over Athletic Bilbao.

Liverpool alone, strengthening its strong position is enough to make Arsenal second place again an achievement. But Arteta is more likely to see this as a sign of stagnation.

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