Frank Leboeuf names clear favourites to win Premier League title

Former Chelsea and France defender Frank Leboeuf has backed Arsenal to repeat their success of last season to win a second Premier League title under Mikel Arteta.

Arsenal held off Manchester City to bring their painful 22-year title drought to an end last term, ending the season seven points better off than Erling Haaland and Co after three successive runners-up finishes.

The Gunners had hoped to cap off what had already been a magnificent campaign by finishing as kings of Europe, with a historic double and a first-ever Champions League title within their grasp.

But PSG the triumphed over Arteta’s men to defend their crown, though, bouncing back from Kai Havertz’s early strike to prevail on penalties in Budapest.

Intent on further strengthening their squad in preparation for the new season, Arsenal’s hierarchy have turned to the transfer market for reinforcements – bringing in Bruno Guimaraes, Christos Tzolis and free agent Illan Meslier in recent weeks.

The north Londoners are still looking to add some firepower to their frontline, though, with Juventus’ Kenan Yildiz emerging as a target after Vinicius Junior turned down a move to sign a new contract at Real Madrid.

But for Leboeuf, Arsenal should be deemed the overwhelming favourites heading into the 2026/27 campaign, irrespective of whether they manage to land another attacker before the transfer deadline.

‘The reason is clearly because the others, they don’t know where they go,’ the 1998 World Cup winner told ESPN.

‘Arsenal have some assurances and they know that with the team they have right now they can be better anybody else.

‘We don’t know what Bruno Guimaraes can bring, whether he will play alongside Declan Rice or not or what is going to be Mikel Arteta’s decision.

‘The biggest question is for William Saliba. It’s a good thing that Piero Hincapie signed a contract and Cristhian Mosquera can play in that position, but nobody can replace Saliba.

‘When you have Gabriel Magalhaes and Saliba you are strong, you know that you are stronger than anybody else and that’s what it is.

‘If I was an Arsenal fan then I wouldn’t be worried. Can they now double up and win the Premier League? Yes, they are the favourites for me, but they will have to show it.’

Earlier this week, another former Chelsea player, John Obi Mikel, made similar remarks about Arsenal’s title hopes, begrudgingly picking out the reigning champions as the ‘team to beat’ in the English top flight.

‘Wow, the team to beat? There are so many teams,’ the ex-Chelsea and Nigeria midfielder said on The Obi One Podcast 

‘The good thing that you can say about this season is it is absolutely wide open, absolutely f***ing wide open, apart from Arsenal.

‘Apart from Arsenal… you can say [with Arsenal] that this is the team right now.

‘They’re settled, they have a manager who has been there for so many years, he’s built a team and a squad that has gone on to win the Premier League.

‘It doesn’t matter how they won it, they finally crossed the line. That’s what a lot of the Arsenal fans were saying: it doesn’t matter how we win it, let’s just cross the line and then we can talk about next season and how we want to play.’

According to Obi Mikel, Arsenal have far away and the most ‘settled’ squad of all the big teams.

He added: ‘I want to see now how they play, how they approach this season, how they defend their title because okay, it doesn’t matter how you played last season, you played ugly or however you wanted to win and you’ve done that.

‘It wasn’t pretty to watch but they’ve done it. Now I want to see how Mikel Arteta and this Arsenal squad play this season because they have to defend that title.

‘If you look at all the top five, top six teams, they [Arsenal] are the most settled squad. They still have the best squad in the Premier League and he’s still strengthening the squad.

‘He’s still bringing in players, players that he wants, so they are the ones, if you have to say the ones to beat, but again, it comes down to how this Arsenal team plays this season.

‘Are they going to play pretty football? Are we going to see the same shenanigans that we saw last season? Set-pieces, corner kicks, throw-ins and all of that.’

For more stories like this, check our sport page.

Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.