Arsenal Is the Only English Club With a Real Case to Win This Season's Champions League

The league phase draw is behind us, and with it comes another Champions League season carrying the same old question: just how far can the Premier League's financial muscle take it? Over the last decade, the answer on the field has been clear. At least one English club reached 6 of the last 9 finals, including two all English showdowns: Liverpool against Tottenham in 2019 and Manchester City against Chelsea in 2021. The only ones who managed to slow that wave were other continental giants with comparable spending power, like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and, more recently, PSG.

This year, though, the English picture looks different. The transfer market once again produced numbers that dwarf the rest of Europe, yet nearly every qualified club is in the middle of a transition that makes it hard to take their title chances seriously. Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Liverpool will represent England, and in three of those five cases, there's a new name in the dugout compared to last season.

City, United and Liverpool: New Faces, Old Uncertainty

The most striking case is, without question, Manchester City. Pep Guardiola departed after ten years of unprecedented success, and the man taking over is Enzo Maresca, his former assistant during the 2023 treble season. He arrives after a turbulent stint at Chelsea, where he won the Conference League and the Club World Cup but also clashed publicly with the club's hierarchy. The challenge isn't limited to the bench: the midfield lost Tijjani Reijnders, Nico Gonzalez and, above all, Rodri, while John Stones, Omar Marmoush and Savinho also departed. In exchange, City brought in Elliot Anderson and Ayyoub Bouaddi, with hopes of adding Enzo Fernandez, though repeating past European feats looks like a tall order, especially given the struggles Guardiola himself had already begun facing in his final campaigns.

Manchester United isn't escaping the uncertainty either. Michael Carrick was confirmed after a solid half season as interim boss, but he now faces four competitions at once with no prior experience at the elite level, and the league start didn't help matters: a 2-0 loss to newly promoted Hull City. Liverpool finds itself in a similar spot with the arrival of Andoni Iraola, who takes over from Arne Slot after three years of steady growth at Bournemouth. The Basque coach is highly regarded inside the club, but the Reds had a nearly frozen transfer window, adding only youngsters Jeremy Jacquet and Victor Munoz, plus the loan signing of Ronald Araujo. The lack of fresh depth could become a real issue once the fixture list piles up.

Aston Villa, for its part, has worries that extend well beyond Europe. Unai Emery kept his job after winning the last Europa League, but lost key pieces like Emiliano Martinez, Ezri Konsa, Youri Tielemans and Ollie Watkins. The 4-0 thrashing suffered against Brighton on the league opener set off serious alarm bells: if the new signings don't click quickly, the problem might not just be the Champions League, but staying in the league altogether.

Arsenal, the Contender Looking to Heal an Old Wound

Against that backdrop, the only English club arriving with genuine arguments to fight for the title is, fittingly, last year's runner-up: Arsenal. Mikel Arteta's side fell one penalty short, the one Gabriel Magalhaes sent over the crossbar, of denying PSG the title defense, in a season that had already delivered the joy of ending a 22 year wait for an English league title.

They pulled that off even though the attack never quite clicked: only Viktor Gyokeres cleared 10 league goals, while figures like Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz cycled through injuries and dips in form. That turned plenty of matches into tense, narrow affairs, won by the smallest margin and with physical and mental fatigue pushed to the limit.

This year the club worked to fix those shortcomings, both in the transfer market, with the arrivals of Bruno Guimaraes and Christos Tzolis, and in physical conditioning: Odegaard and Saka look as fresh as they did in Arteta's early years. With a settled project, a reinforced squad and the drive to finally settle the one piece of unfinished business in its recent history, Arsenal stands ahead of the rest of the English contenders among the top candidates for this Champions League.