LOS ANGELES — It’s 3 p.m. at the Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village, and Leandro Trossard is beating me in the pool.
Tasked with meeting several journalists ahead of the club’s tour of the United States in July, the Arsenal forward ran around the table, expertly sinking the ball into a corner pocket or smashing it into the side pocket after a peculiar angled bounce.
He only thinks about winning.
“To win the Premier League you need to be consistent throughout the season,” Trossard told NBC News. “There are 38 games and every game is going to be tough because every team is developing and building their squad to be competitive.”
Arsenal have finished runners-up to powerhouse Manchester City in the Premier League for the past two years and something needs to change immediately. Trossard has been one of Arsenal’s leading goalscorers since joining from Brighton in January 2023 and was a force to be reckoned with in pool play.
But as he said after sinking the final eight-ball, individual performances don’t mean all that much.
“It’s up to us,” Trossard said. “We need to improve on what we didn’t do last season, take the good things in mind and get it right from the start.”
That starts at home to Wolves on Saturday, a fixture that is clearly winnable on paper but one that Mikel Arteta cannot afford to overlook – after all, his team were near-perfect last season but still fell two points short of the title.
Arsenal finished the season with 28 wins, 5 losses and 5 draws, setting a club record for league wins, and losing just one game between 12 January and 24 May. The team was second in the league with 91 points, while conceding just 29, five goals more than any other team.
But even adding up all these astonishing numbers still only comes in second.
“The achievement of this football club is to win major trophies and we are in the process of achieving that. We are very close,” Arteta said at the Los Angeles Rams’ training facility. “The level we are showing is very high, but it just wasn’t enough to win it.”
Arteta said his squad “need to improve everything we do” to get through this difficult time, just days after the club signed Italian defender Riccardo Calafiori from Bologna.
Calafiori is a big, fast and physically gifted left-back who was a standout performer at Euro 2024 this summer. For Arsenal, Calafiori’s arrival was almost a mega-money signing. Remember, they played an astounding 18 games for the Gunners and didn’t concede a single goal.
He will join arguably the best defensive line in the Premier League alongside Gabriel, William Saliba and Ben White, and the Gunners have great depth in the position, with Takehiro Tomiyasu, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jakub Kivior and Julian Timber all potential substitutes throughout the season.
The last player may be the most intriguing on this team. Timber, who joined from Dutch club Ajax in July 2023, shone in his brief time but injured his cruciate ligament in the opening game and missed almost the entire season.
Arteta was amazed at Timber’s improvement and noted his versatility after Arsenal’s 2-1 friendly win over Manchester United at SoFi Stadium on July 27.
“I’m really happy,” said the manager. “You can see him, his presence, his leadership, his composure are all great. He’s like a new player for us. He’s a great addition to the squad.”
But a bigger question arises.
They have a strong midfield led by all-league players Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice, as well as young superstar Bukayo Saka on the right wing, but they failed to produce a player to score 20 or more goals last season and have failed to score for a Premier League champions team just three times in the past 15 seasons.
Trossard could be that player, given enough time on the pitch, as could Kai Havertz or Gabriel Martinelli, but both were inconsistent in 2024. Gabriel Jesus is the one to watch.
The Brazilian looked like the perfect addition when he joined from Manchester City in 2022, but repeated injuries have kept him off the field for the majority of the past two seasons, and when the 27-year-old returned, those same performances did not follow him.
Jesus scored just four goals in 27 games last year.
In a recent match against Manchester United, Jesus finished off a pass from Ethan Nwaneri to tie the score at 1-1, reminding fans why he was such a big signing.
That simple moment also brought a smile to Arteta’s face.
“You look at him, his rhythm, the way he moves and his eyes and you can see he’s fired up because he now has something to prove, so that’s good,” Arteta said of Jesus. “He arrived in top condition and with that baseline you can build everything else on, but without that foundation you don’t have a player. He has to be in that condition to get the best performance out of him. He understands that and I’m really happy for him.”
Arsenal are known as one of the most historic clubs in the world of football, having won the Premier League three times and having gone the longest unbeaten season of any team, but they have not won the league since the 2003-2004 season, missing out on the title for two consecutive years.
Will it end this season? Will they finally be good enough to overtake the likes of Pep Guardiola, Erling Haaland and Manchester City?
Perhaps no one knows that better than Zinchenko, who won four Premier League titles with rivals Arsenal, and when asked what Arsenal could do to become more like City, he was quick to dismiss the idea.
“I don’t think you need to copy teams like City,” Zinchenko said in Los Angeles. “You always have to look at the best teams and try not to be like them and try to be above them.”
“Mikel and his staff are doing a fantastic job here… You can see the development, the progress within the club. I know it can be seen by people outside the club as well as those within. Arsenal are on the right path.”
“We are definitely going in the right direction, we are transforming not only football-wise but as a club and we are moving forward very quickly. What is missing now is to bring home a big trophy,” added Arteta, who served as Guardiola’s assistant for three years.
