Emmanuel Petit fears Arsenal will not have it all their own way when they open their Premier League title defence against Coventry City. The Gunners begin their campaign on Friday night at the Emirates Stadium against Frank Lampard's newly promoted side.
Mikel Arteta's team looked in strong form last weekend, sweeping aside Manchester City with a 3-0 win in the Community Shield. Arsenal are overwhelming favourites to secure three points, but their former double-winning midfielder believes the Sky Blues, playing their first top-flight game in 25 years, will offer more resistance than many anticipate.
Petit's warning on opening game challenges
“Playing the opening game against a promoted team is never easy because you might not have your rhythm yet and they will be so determined to have a positive start,” Petit told Grosvenor Sport. “Having said that, the spine of this Arsenal team has been the same for years and they understand each other very well.”
Petit added: “We all know the reality for promoted teams. It is quite difficult to survive that first year, and so many promoted clubs have been yo-yoing between divisions for years. It would be a gamble for Frank Lampard and Coventry. Playing against the champions is a huge challenge, if they have the chance to make a good impression, that will build confidence within the team. That is something very important. If they are thrashed by Arsenal by, say, four goals and fail to show up on the pitch, then their confidence will be very difficult to recover.”
Lampard looks to Sunderland and Leeds for inspiration
Lampard wants his Coventry side to take inspiration from Sunderland and Leeds as they prepare for their first Premier League campaign in 25 years. Sunderland and Leeds both avoided relegation comfortably last season, becoming the first newly-promoted teams to survive in the top flight since the 2022-23 campaign.
Coventry are odds-on with many bookmakers to be relegated straight back to the Championship, along with fellow promoted teams Hull and Ipswich. But Lampard is taking encouragement from how Regis Le Bris and Daniel Farke led their teams to safety last season.
Lampard said: “They've changed that rhetoric a little bit. Those stories are important for us to analyse and we've looked a lot at those two specific teams. To see how they played gives us inspiration, but it will be us that manages to make that story for ourselves – but, of course we've looked at those stories. We want to be confident in what we do, it's our job to set out the strategy for the boys game by game – and they deserve to be here.”
