Welcome to the fifth season of my Football Manager 2022 series with Arsenal. We finished the last campaign by winning the FA Cup at Wembley… but by the end of the 2025/2026 season, I want us to be lifting an even bigger trophy.
My challenge of rebuilding Arsenal into a title-winning team with a strong core of academy players is almost complete. We showed last season that we can seriously ruffle the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City, but we need to find more consistency.
And as I explained in the last chapter, I have to make some very difficult decisions to help turn us from contenders to champions – without sacrificing my commitment to developing homegrown players.
In today’s post, we will say goodbye to a couple of big names and look ahead to the new Premier League campaign. You’ll also find out whether we can successfully defend the Community Shield, as we once again do battle with our title nemeses Liverpool.
TRANSFERS OUT
This summer’s top transfer story is that Reiss Nelson has flown the nest.
Barcelona offered us £60million for the 25-year-old inside-forward, who scored 37 goals in the last three seasons but had recently gone off the boil a little. Ultimately, their offer was too good to turn down, seeing as Nelson had probably hit his ceiling – and his departure would free up a first-team spot for the emerging Marcelo Flores.
I wish Reiss all the best at Camp Nou, though to be honest, I’m not sure if he’ll make that much impact with players like Ansu Fati ahead of him. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong… or maybe Barça will discard him after a year and we’ll bring him back on the cheap next summer. Who knows what the future holds?
We also made another £55million worth of sales. The first of those saw the versatile Belgian international midfielder Albert Sambi Lokonga join a team of Swiss kids… for £13million.
Look, I’m not happy about the deal either. It’s less than half of Sambi’s estimated value, but he was desperate for first-team football – and with his contract expiring next summer, there wasn’t much point in being picky. Anyway, I guess you can’t complain about being short-changed when you’ve already got over £400million in the bank.
To put the Sambi sale in perspective, Pachuca gave us only £1million less for Nikolaj Möller, who’s an above-average Championship striker at best. I don’t have the Liga MX loaded, but Mexican clubs are always active in the transfer market and love to fill their squads with Premier League cast-offs. (Cruz Azul even took Billy Gilmour on loan from Chelsea – TWICE!)
Likewise, the top Greek teams seem to have plenty of cash to throw around, compared to many bigger clubs in active leagues. Mika Biereth‘s season-long loan at Panathinaikos didn’t deter their arch-rivals Olympiacos from paying £6.5million to sign our 23-year-old reserve forward permanently. I wonder if Arsenal legend Paul Merson is managing them…
We sold off a few more reserves who weren’t going to make the grade, including playmaker Miguel Azeez, who’s ended up at Huddersfield in League One. A more significant departure saw backup left-back Tyrick Mitchell return to the Championship in a £19million transfer to Sheffield United. This really upset our fans for some reason…
I’m sorry, but what “good form in front of goal” are they talking about?
For one thing, Mitchell scored ONE goal in 61 matches for Arsenal. For another, HE’S A BLOODY LEFT-BACK!
[Sigh] Adding that to my list of bugs in FM22…
With Martin Ødegaard‘s £125million price tag putting off even his wealthiest admirers, Gavi‘s chances of returning to Arsenal as a first-team regular didn’t look great. The Spanish playmaker was offered out on loan again… and he was picked up by Serie A champions Internazionale! If Gavi’s spell at the San Siro goes to plan, heaven knows how good he could turn out!
Teenage midfielders Victor Quintyne and Alan Wilding both stepped up to the Championship, starting season-long loans at Reading and Swansea respectively. The last duckling I sent off to the Liberty Stadium turned into a beautiful Swan, so I allowed the Welsh side to borrow Harvey Elliott as well. Maybe Harvey will grow into a semi-decent winger…
Brooke Norton-Cuffy must be a really big fan of rugby league or The Lathums, because the right-back has returned to Wigan for a THIRD loan spell! It’s now or never for Brooke, who’s just turned 21 and still needs to improve mentally if he’s ever going to play regularly for us. Other loanees include French right-back Jeremie Labuthie, winger Omari Hutchinson and England Under-21s keeper Gavin Moth, who all joined Millwall following their relegation to League One.
TRANSFERS IN
Once again, Stan Kroenke gave me a larger transfer budget than I really needed. And once again, I decided to sign just ONE senior player, along with a trio of 18-year-old Latin American prospects.
Firstly, we brought back a former Hale End boy. Three years after his acrimonious transfer to Lyon (and then winning the World Cup with England), Ainsley Maitland-Niles has put our differences aside and come home.
Let’s be honest – Ainsley isn’t here to be a first-team regular. My self-imposed homegrown criteria means that I will start at least five academy graduates in every game, and the versatile 27-year-old can help massively with that. Though most natural as a right-back, he can also provide cover at left-back or even do a job in defensive midfield.
Yes, I know £20million is a lot of money to spend on a backup, especially as it’s double what we sold him to Lyon for. But when you’re as stupefyingly rich as we are, that’s just a drop in the ocean.
I then thought longer-term and signed a couple of talents from Mexico to join our Under-23s. The first of them was Atlas’ Juan Chávez – a pacey and resolute left-back with plenty of potential. I can certainly see Chávez challenging for regular first-team football in a few years, particularly when the time comes for Kieran Tierney to move on.
24 hours later, one of his compatriots arrived from Tigres. Diego Rizo is a tidy finisher with impressive technique whose light-hearted personality suggests he’s cool under pressure. Rizo will be our third-choice striker this season, and is so highly-rated in Mexico that he’s already been called up to their senior national team.
But, just like Gerard Piqué and a typical Football Manager Redditor, I also have a taste for Colombians. The brave and athletic covering centre-back Rubén Tapiero was signed from Envigado for just £900,000. That 9 Strength isn’t great, though he’s young enough that he can still bulk up quite a bit.
Meanwhile, the board allowed me to hire some more coaches, so I brought former Arsenal stopper Kolo Touré back to the Emirates to work with our defenders. I thought about bringing in Kolo’s little brother as well, but I didn’t want my players to spend all day chanting their names like drunken darts fans. (Also, Yaya’s coaching attributes are rubbish.)
Our Under-18s staff got a massive overhaul too. After the debacle of last season’s Unambitious youth intake, I sacked ALL the staff members with bad personalities, and replaced them with people who might actually have a positive influence on our emerging talents. The Under-18s also have another new manager, with Crewe’s former youth chief Aidan Callan taking over the reins…
…after Damien Duff buggered off to manage Atalanta. No, not Atalanta Under-19s – he is now literally coaching one of the top teams in Serie A! It’s a bizarre move, especially as Duff’s only previous experience of managing a senior team was with Shelbourne in the League of Ireland! [Says the guy who rode into the Arsenal job without ANY experience. -Ed]
SQUAD REPORT
We now have 23 players in the first-team, of which 10 started their careers in the Arsenal academy. Seven of last year’s Hale End heroes have been joined by the returning Maitland-Niles, a rejuvenated Flores – and a 19-year-old left-back who seems destined for a long, prosperous career at the Emirates.
It’s been a little while since we last checked on Sean Fallon‘s attributes, but boy has he grown! The 2022 youth graduate had a very productive season on loan at Swansea, then played for England at the Under-21s Championship… and he’s now come back as a ‘Model Citizen’!
Sean obviously doesn’t need any mentoring, but this apprentice is not quite ready to usurp the master. Tierney will still be our starting left-back for this season at least, with Fallon mainly playing in the ‘easier’ games and occasionally coming on as a late sub. I don’t want to ruin our hottest prospect by throwing him in straight at the deep end while he’s still developing.
Sean and Ainsley add a couple more homegrown options to a defence that once again includes the tough-tackling centre-back Daniel Ballard. It’s a big season in midfield for Charlie Patino, who needs to start showing that he can eventually replace Ødegaard as our playmaker-in-chief. Yunus Musah will return to his attacking midfield duties once his broken leg has fully healed, with 19-year-old Croatian starlet Anton Plećaš providing backup.
Flores fills a Nelson-shaped hole on the left wing, though the flamboyant 21-year-old will have to go some to topple Emile Smith Rowe, who made 27 goal contributions last season. It’s been a memorable summer for both men, as Flores won his first senior cap for Mexico, and ESR finally made his England debut – four years later than in real life!
With the World Cup just a year away, Bukayo Saka needs to deliver more assists more consistently from the right-wing to regain his England place. Eddie Nketiah‘s spot looks secure, especially if our superstar striker gets close to his incredible 42-goal haul from two seasons ago. Folarin Balogun may have to settle for backup duties once again, unless the American can kick on.
OBJECTIVES
Now the pressure is on. After back-to-back Champions League qualifications, the board are now demanding another top-four finish, so there can be no excuses if I manage to balls it up as badly as in 2022/2023.
I honestly believe we have what it takes to challenge Liverpool and Manchester City for the title. Liverpool have signed Belgium superstar Aster Vranckx to strengthen their midfield, while City head into their first full season with Karim Adeyemi leading the line, but we’re not scared of the ‘Big Two’ anymore. Not that scared, anyway.
Chelsea start the fifth season of this save with a fifth different manager, as ex-Juventus coach Roberto De Zerbi takes over the reins. Manchester United’s Erling Haaland will probably continue scoring goals for fun, despite falling out with Maurizio Sarri, but West Ham may struggle to achieve another 5th-place finish after selling Benjamin Šeško to Bayern München.
The board want another deep run in the FA Cup after last season’s success, though they couldn’t care less about the EFL Cup anymore. In terms of the Champions League, the goal is to go a step further than last year and reach the Quarter Finals.
Looking at our group, you might think we should should reach the knockout stages pretty comfortably. Primeira Liga champions Porto provide our toughest tests, as they begin life under their new manager – some guy called, er, Pep Guardiola. Even more curiously, they have a 35-year-old Wojciech Szczęsny in goal!
Our other two opponents also won their domestic leagues last season. Turkish champions Galatasaray appear to pose a little more of an attacking threat than Ukrainian giants Dynamo Kyiv, though I’m sure we have too much quality for both of them.
2025 COMMUNITY SHIELD
But before the serious stuff kicks off, we begin with the season-opening Community Shield against Liverpool. Could we lift the Shield for a second year in a row, or would Liverpool avenge their defeat to us 12 months ago?
After 15 minutes, it was looking more like ‘revenge’ than ‘repeat’. Liverpool hit the front foot quickly, and when the evergreen Virgil van Dijk headed home from Andrew Robertson’s corner, we were already 1-0 down.
But hey, we managed to come back from 1-0 down last time. Surely we had it in us to do it again?
Nope. We basically offered nothing. We didn’t even get a shot on target until the 89th minute, when Eddie sent a header straight into the keeper’s hands.
This contest was so one-sided that it was frankly a miracle Liverpool only beat us by one goal. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come, or we could be in for a long, frustrating season…
Well, that’s not the positive note I wanted to end this chapter on, but who really cares about the Community Shield anyway? Can we hold our nerve when it really matters, and get our latest title challenge off to a strong start? Come back on Friday to find out!
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