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After three years of second-place finishes in the Premier League, there’s a real sense of optimism that this year could finally be the one Arsenal end their title drought.

The Gunners have now gone a remarkable two decades without a top-flight triumph, with Mikel Arteta the closest manager post Arsène Wenger to ending such a drought.

However, they have often fallen at the final hurdle, on two occasions to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, whilst doing so to Liverpool in the 2024/25 campaign.

At present, Arteta’s men currently sit two points clear of the former as the season approaches the midway point, with their destiny certainly in their own hands.

The Spaniard would certainly write himself in the club’s history should he achieve such a feat, but he certainly has many people to thank for the recent revival in North London.

How Arsenal have become title favourites in 2025/26

The two previous Premier League seasons have presented glaring areas of improvement for Arsenal – squad depth in various areas and a focal point to lead the frontline.

During the summer window, Sporting Director Andrea Berta worked tirelessly to try and solve both issues, seemingly doing so to great effect at present.

The hierarchy landed the defensive additions of Cristhian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie, subsequently offering needed centre-back cover for William Saliba and Gabriel.

Arteta’s midfield department also received hefty back, as seen with the arrivals of Martin Zubimendi, Eberechi Eze and Christian Norgaard – subsequently allowing Mikel Merino to operate as a number nine.

The Spaniard has continued his fine goalscoring form into the current season, already scoring five times across all competitions – including two in the Champions League.

However, he’s often acted as a backup to Viktor Gyokeres, with the Swedish international taking the iconic number 14 shirt after his £65m switch from Sporting CP.

Whilst he’s only netted six goals to date, he’s shown glimpses of being the talisman the Gunners have been lacking, as seen with his double against Atletico Madrid.

The Arsenal star who must now be axed by Arteta

Such investment was desperately needed if Arsenal were to mount a serious push for the Premier League title this season, with Arteta being handed all the tools he needs to achieve such success.

The fans now have a squad they can be proud of in their attempts to end such a drought, whilst also having the depth many teams would crave to help them cross the line.

However, the backing from the hierarchy has certainly made competition for places even harder – something which certainly isn’t a bad problem for a manager to have.

In essence, it should hand the players the extra motivation to nail down their places in the starting eleven, which should make the side an even bigger force to be reckoned with.

However, it appears to have had the opposite effect on winger Gabriel Martinelli, with the Brazilian currently enduring a season to forget under Arteta at the Emirates.

He arrived in England as an unknown quantity to many supporters, with the hierarchy forking out a reported £6m for his signature from Brazilian side Ituano.

Despite originally being signed to join the youth team, the attacker fought his way into the manager’s plans, even becoming a first-team regular and scoring ten goals in his debut year.

As a result, former Liverpool boss Jürgen Klopp even dubbed the attacker as the “talent of the century”, but it’s safe to say he’s failed to hit the heights many expected.

In 2025, he’s now racked up just shy of 250 appearances for the Gunners, scoring on 43 occasions, but he’s often come under fire for his inconsistency in attacking areas.

Arteta has preferred the likes of Leandro Trossard ahead of him in the pecking order this campaign, as seen by the Brazilian’s measly tally of just five league starts.

His underlying stats in the Premier League this season highlight his lack of positive impact, with the manager desperately needing to axe him from his long-term plans.

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The 24-year-old has completed just 72% of the passes he’s attempted, which currently ranks him within the bottom 10% of all other attackers in England’s top-flight.

Gabriel Martinelli – PL stats (2025/26)

Statistics (per 90)

Tally

Games played

12

Games started

5

Goals & assists

1

Pass accuracy

72%

Dribbles completed

33%

Chances created

0.6

Times dispossessed

1.4

Successful crosses

0.4

Stats via FotMob

He’s also completed just 33% of the dribbles he’s attempted, whilst also registering just 0.6 chances created per 90 – further highlighting his lack of creativity in attacking areas.

Martinelli’s struggles are summed up in his tally of times dispossessed by the opposition per 90, currently losing the ball 1.4 times per game, the second highest of any player in the squad.

There’s no doubt the Brazilian is a player who massively relies on confidence to succeed, but unfortunately, his impressive performances are too far and between at the Emirates.

He’s been unable to deliver on a consistent basis over the last couple of months, which no doubt has led to the attacker struggling to nail down a regular starting role.

As a result, Arteta must look to axe the 24-year-old from his first-team plans, with a new left side forward needed to help bolster the club’s title credentials.

Related Bad news for Nwaneri: Arsenal have already agreed to sign their next Dowman

Nwaneri could have some serious competition for game time at Arsenal in the future.

Posts ByJack Salveson Holmes

	Graeme Smith became the third-youngest Test captain when he skippered South Africa during their tour of Bangladesh in 2003 © Peter J Heeger

2002-03 in South Africa
There was scant encouragement for Bangladesh who wereemphatically beaten in both Tests and one-dayers, never offering SouthAfrica a convincing challenge. Makhaya Ntini warmed up with 10 wicketsat 10.14 in the one-day series – too fast, too hostile for theBangladeshis – before obliterating them in the two Tests with 12wickets at 15. Only Hannan Sarkar and Al Sahariar notched fiftieswhile South Africa posted five hundreds – including two from GaryKirsten who became the first batsman to score hundreds against allnine Test-playing nations. Graeme Smith’s 200 set-up a huge innings win in the first Test in East London, while in the second at Potchefstroom Jacques Kallis tore through with 5 for 21. As Wisden reported, the sentiment that Bangladesh benefited from competing against such strong opposition wore rather thin.
Tests: South Africa 2 Bangladesh 0
ODIs: South Africa 3 Bangladesh 0
2003 in Bangladesh
Chastened from their disastrous World Cup campaign, South Africaembarked on a tour of Bangladesh with a new-look squad.Graeme Smith was appointed captain – the third-youngest at 22 years 82days – while Allan Donald and Jonty Rhodes both retired. Bangladesh werealso rebuilding, with the captain Khaled Masud making way for KhaledMahmud, but South Africa’s youthful façade was still far too strong. In thefirst Test at Chittagong, Jacques Rudolph cracked 222 on debut to begin achequered international career. And in the second, South Africa’sbowlers probed away to crush Bangladesh for 102 and 210, sweeping theseries 2-0.
Tests: Bangladesh 0 South Africa 2

	Neil McKenzie and Graeme Smith celebrate their record-breaking day in Mirpur © AFP

2007-08 in Bangladesh
South Africa were given the hurry-up in 2008, squeezing home by five wickets in the first Test at Mirpur, on a juicy surface which offered plenty to seamers. Bangladesh even squeaked a first-innings lead of 22 after Shahadat Hossain picked up career-best figures of 6 for 27. The hosts’ stranglehold couldn’t last, however, and they were rolled for 182 in their second innings, leaving South Africa chasing 205 to win – a target, though tricky, was far from insurmountable. Normal order was resumed at Chittagong where Neil McKenzie and Graeme Smith put on 415 for the opening wicket. 405 of those came on the first day – the most runs scored in a day without a wicket falling. Robin Peterson picked up 5 for 33 while Dale Steyn grabbed seven in the match as Bangladesh were walloped by an innings-and-205-runs. The ODIs went to script, too, with Smith notching 199 runs in the three comprehensive wins for South Africa.
Tests: Bangladesh 0 South Africa 2
ODIs: Bangladesh 0 South Africa 3

Claire Taylor’s century against Australia has been a rare bright spot for England © GNNphoto

England women’s head coach, Richard Bates, is upbeat despite his side’s position at the bottom of the table in the quadrangular series in Chennai after losing three out of three. England have been beaten by Australia, India and New Zealand during the opening week of the event, leaving them struggling to make the final.”We’re obviously very disappointed with the results so far especially considering we were in a winning position in the first two games,” said Bates. “In terms of our bowling, we have struggled to contain the opposition as much as we would like. We are certainly missing our two main strike bowlers, Katherine Brunt and Nicky Shaw who are both injured.”Coupled with the fact that Laura Marsh is currently suffering with a thigh strain, we have been lacking the fire-power needed at the start of the innings and again at the death. We have therefore struggled to pick up wickets at key times, which is essential against these sides.”England lost the first match against India by 18 runs short after being set a total of 232 and their second against New Zealand who hit a massive 291. “We batted pretty well in the first two games,” Bates continued “But the reality is that we let India get 230 rather than 200 and New Zealand 290 rather than 250. We chased well in both games and managed to put ourselves into winning positions but then faltered in the later stages, which is frustrating.”England have three games remaining, which they must win if they have any chance of making the final at Mac A stadium on March 5. “We have a young and talented squad, which is continually improving and it is tournaments like this that accelerates their development,” said Bates. “We have an opportunity in the next three games to come out fighting and to battle to reverse the three results so far. As you can imagine the squad is a bit low on confidence at this point, but good teams bounce back and that is what we must do.”Bates believes that this experience will help the side as part of the planning for the 2009 World Cup. “I’m confident we can go out there and win our remaining three games and I have every faith in this young group of players. It’s a great opportunity for us to prove ourselves and it’s a good time to see where we stand in relation to the other countries.”England will train on Tuesday and then go into back-to-back ODIs against India and Australia.

Owais Shah joins England’s growing squad in India © Cricinfo Ltd

England have confirmed that Owais Shah has been called into the squad in India as additional cover ahead of the first Test at Nagpur on Wednesday. Marcus Trescothick flew home for personal reasons on Saturday and Michael Vaughan is still struggling with his knee injury.Alastair Cook had already left the A tour in West Indies to join the senior squad – along with James Anderson as fast bowling cover – and now Shah brings cover for the middle order after Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood suffered back strains in the last week.Shah was the favourite to get the nod, despite still recovering from a knee injury of his own, and has been pushing for a recall after a prolific domestic season in 2005. He has 15 ODIs under his belt and was preferred to Vikram Solanki and Ed Joyce who are also in West Indies.Earlier David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, confirmed to Sky Sports that further reinforcements were needed, but that the replacement would be unlikely to play at Nagpur. “We need an extra body out there, but he wouldn’t arrive there the night before the Test match so it would have to be extremely extreme circumstances for a man to travel half way round the world and then play for England.”He also admitted the current situation is making a tough tour even tougher. “Also allied to the cricketing injuries, there’s gastric influenza spreading through the team. It’s been a difficult time but everyone has to rally round. India was going to be a test, even with a fully fit squad. But everyone will rally round.”Graveney confirmed that if Vaughan fails to make the Test, Andrew Flintoff will lead England for the first time. “Let’s hope Michael’s fit because in these circumstances he’s a key man. If that isn’t the case, Flintoff will captain. The issue regarding [Paul] Collingwood and [Kevin] Pietersen seems to be better every day, as it does with Simon Jones.”

Arran Brindle may miss England’s World Cup match against India on Monday after suffering from an undisclosed illness. Brindle, 23, received medical attention and England will have to wait to see if she is ready for the top-of-the-table clash.She and captain Clare Connor lifted England to success against Ireland with a 128-run partnership after they had been in some trouble. England now lead the table after three rounds: they and India are both undefeated and they each have 15 points, but England have the superior run rate.Mithali Raj believes the key to India’s success would be taking early wickets.”Our bowlers will target the England openers," India’s captain Raj told BBC Sport, "as we’ve seen they give them a good start.”The main aim is to get early wickets and put pressure on their batting order. Our pace bowlers are getting us early breakthroughs, but the spinners are definitely our trump card.”

Soggy underfoot: Hannan Sarker and Mushfiqur Rahman inspect the outfield at Bulawayo

ScorecardThe second day of the second Test at Bulawayo went the same way as the first – a complete washout.Despite the best efforts of the Queens Sports Club groundstaff, Wednesday night’s downpour was still not cleared by the close yesterday. And more heavy rain overnight just compounded the problem – to the naked eye the outfield looked worse that it did 12 hours earlier – and made the chances of any play today almost nil from the off. The Bangladesh squad didn’t even travel to the ground until well into the afternoon, opting to remain at their hotel. When the did arrive they had barely begun to tiptoe across the sodden outfield when the heavens opened again.Whatever it has done to this match, the rain has come as a blessing to much of Zimbabwe after months of drought. There have been grumblings that the scheduling of this match in what is usually a rainy period is to blame. That has some validity, although the precipitation in the last few days has been uncharacteristically heavy.The forecast for the next few days is much of the same, and the ground is already so wet that tomorrow’s play is in doubt whatever happens overnight. There is the distinct possibility that this match might become the eighth in Test history to be abandoned without a ball being bowled because of the weather.Click here for the weather forecast for BulawayoZimbabwe (probable) 1 Dion Ebrahim, 2 Trevor Gripper, 3 Grant Flower, 4 Stuart Matsikenyeri, 5 Tatenda Taibu (wk), 6 Sean Ervine, 7 Gavin Ewing, 8 Heath Streak (capt), 9 Raymond Price, 10 Douglas Hondo, 11 Blessing Mahwire.Bangladesh 1 Hannan Sarker, 2 Shahriar Hossain, 3 Habibul Bashar (capt), 4 Rajin Saleh, 5 Mohammad Ashraful, 6 Mushfiqur Rahman, 7 Manjarul Islam Rana, 8 Khaled Mashud (wk), 9 Mohammad Rafique, 10 Tapash Baisya, 11 Alamgir Kabir.

New Zealand’s application for the relocating of its World Cup match against Kenya will be heard by the International Cricket Council’s executive board tonight (NZ time).The reason the executive board, and not the World Cup technical committee, is hearing the application is because it was raised by New Zealand before the event technical committee was formed just before the Cup started.The game is scheduled to be played tomorrow in Nairobi, and the New Zealanders are already practising in Durban for their next match which is against Bangladesh in Kimberley next Wednesday.An announcement is expected at the end of the meeting.No comment is expected from New Zealand Cricket until tomorrow.

• It was the 1725th ODI in cricket history.
• It was the 200th match on English soil. England became third countryafter Australia (385) and India (219) to host 200 or more matches.
• Neil Mallender and George Sharp were officiating in their second and23rd match respectively.
• The two wickets in this match has taken Shane Warne’s wicket tally to28 in 17 matches on English soil – most by an Australian. Warnesurpassed Dennis Lillee’s tally of 27 wickets from 17 matches.
• Damien Martyn’s figures of 5-0-45-1 (RpO 9.00) are the worst by anAustralian in a five over spell against Pakistan. The previous recordwas held by Terry Alderman who conceded 39 runs in five overs whilecapturing one wicket at Brisbane on 11-02-1990.
• Waqar Younis (6-59) was capturing six wickets for the second time insuccession. He had returned the figures of seven for 36 againstEngland at Leeds just two days back. Waqar became first bowler in ODIhistory to capture six wickets in two successive matches. Waqar hasnow taken six wickets in a match on five occasions. No other bowlerhas performed this feat more than once.
• Waqar’s aggregate of 13 wickets in two successive matches is a new ODIrecord. The previous record was of 11 wickets which was held by threebowlers – by Waqar himself (in 1990) ,Australia’s Garry Gilmour (in1975) and Pakistan’s Azhar Mahmood (in 2000).
• The catch of Matthew Hayden was 100th for Rashid Latif as wicketkeeperin his 101st match. He became second Pakistani after Moin Khan (191)and 13th keeper in all to reach this landmark.
• Adam Gilchrist’s 29 ball fifty was the fifth fastest for Australia inODIs. This was the second occasion Gilchrist was racing to his fiftyoff less than 30 balls. The other occasion being against India atMargao on 06-04-2001. The following table lists the fastest fiftiesfor Australia :

Balls    Batsman (Score)    Opposition  Venue             Date18       SP O’Donnell (74)  v SL        Sharjah           02-05-199026       WB Philips (53)    v NZ        Wellington        26-03-198628       TM Moody (56*)     v BD        Chester-le-Street 23-05-199928       AC Gilchrist (76)  v Ind       Margao            06-04-200129       AC Gilchrist (70)  v Pak       Nottingham        19-06-2001

• Steve Waugh now has aggregated 812 runs (ave. 54.13) in 23 matches onEnglish soil – most by an Australian. He surpassed brother Mark’s runaggregate of 782 (ave. 43.44) from 19 matches.
• The tenth wicket partnership of 31 runs between Damien Fleming andJason Gillespie was Australia’s best for this wicket against Pakistan.This obliterated the previous highest of 13 between Simon O’Donnelland Terry Alderman at Melbourne on 1984-85.
• Wasim Akram by conceding 68 runs in his 10 overs recorded his secondworst figures in his career spanning 16 years and 318 matches. Akram’sworst performance also came against Australia when he conceded 70 runsoff his 8.5 overs at Brisbane on 08-01-1989.
• Waqar Younis won his 15th Man of the Match award – second insuccessive matches.

As per TUTTOmercatoWEB, there has been an update on Tottenham Hotspur’s pursuit of Inter Milan defender Stefan de Vrij for this summer.

The Lowdown: Spurs target ex-Conte star…

The Lilywhites have been repeatedly linked with a move for de Vrij this summer as manager Antonio Conte reportedly earmarks the signing of a defender as a real Spurs transfer priority.

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Tottenham chief Fabio Paratici has been on the look-out for a central defensive option with the likes of Sven Botman and Alessandro Bastoni linked post-January, according to The Telegraph.

Since before the winter window though, Spurs have had de Vrij on their radar, with Football Insider claiming he is a ‘leading target’ for Conte.

The outlet claimed he was valued at around £40 million, but according to TMW, there has been a fresh update on de Vrij as his price now drops by over 50%.

The Latest: Tottenham want to back Conte…

According to their information, Tottenham want to back Conte with the signing of Inter’s colossal defender, as the Lilywhites ‘would like him in the squad for next season’.

They also claim the Nerazzurri will sell for around €20 million (£17m), less than half the price of his previously mooted £40m figure.

The Verdict: Get it done…

For just £17m, the signing of an accomplished Netherlands international and experienced figurehead of Conte’s 2020/2021 title-winning Inter side is surely a no-brainer.

His age (30) indicates he won’t be a long-term solution, but going by his quality, he could add some much-needed strength in depth alongside the likes of Cristian Romero and Eric Dier in Conte’s back-three.

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De Vrij was a mainstay for Inter’s Scudetto winners last season, playing the sixth-most Serie A minutes out of their entire squad whilst also averaging the highest number of clearances per 90 in that time (2.9, WhoScored).

Journalist Dean Jones, speaking to GiveMeSport, believes de Vrij would be an ‘unbelievable signing’ for Spurs and news they want to back Conte with his addition should come as much to the ears of Spurs supporters.

In other news: Conte now eyeing £25.2m-rated ‘game-changer’ who Spurs once agreed personal terms for…find out more here.

ScorecardKumar Sangakkara’s 117-ball 109 was instrumental in leading Kandurata to a well-fought five-wicket win over Basnahira South in the Inter-Provincial Limited-Over Tournament at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club.Sangakkara strung together useful partnerships with Thilan Samaraweera (44) and Chinthaka Jayasinghe, who made an unbeaten 64 off 60, to enable his team chase the target of 272 with ten balls to spare.Sangakkara, the Kandurata captain, had earlier opted to field, and the decision paid off right away, with Akalanka Ganegama removing Ian Daniel and Prasanna Jayawardene for ducks. Tillakaratne Dilshan, who recently earned a recall to the Sri Lankan Test side after impressive performances in the domestic circuit, sparkled with four fours and a six in his 25, before falling to Jayasinghe.Chamara Silva, the Sri Lankan middle-order batsman, then led a revival, with his undefeated 127-ball 98 ensuring Banahira South reached a challenging total. Nuwan Zoysa’s brisk 48 towards the end saw the team post 271.However, that score was not enough, as Sangakkara anchored the chase. When he was out stumped by Jayawardene off Dilshan, Kandurata needed another 40 runs from 5.1 overs, which Jayasinghe, in the company of the remaining batsman, managed with ease.