{"id":1516,"date":"2026-05-24T17:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T17:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2026-05-24T17:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T17:50:24","slug":"michael-owen-names-only-two-teams-who-will-challenge-gunners-for-pl-title-next-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/?p=1516","title":{"rendered":"Michael Owen names &#8216;only&#8217; two teams who will challenge Gunners for PL title next season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div><!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p>Pundit Michael Owen has explained why he thinks \u201conly\u201d two teams will challenge Arsenal for the Premier League title next season.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, <strong>Arsenal<\/strong> were officially crowned Premier League champions, thus ending their 22-year wait for the title.<\/p>\n<p>After finishing second for three consecutive seasons before this campaign, the Gunners invested heavily in the transfer market last summer to arguably complete their squad, while they have also benefited from Liverpool and Man City failing to reach the levels of previous seasons.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mikel Arteta<\/strong>\u2018s side have had their fair share of bumps this season, but they have deservedly fended off competition from Man City to win the Premier League and they will inevitably be the favourites to win the title again next season.<\/p>\n<p>But Owen suspects Arsenal will face heavy competition, firstly from this season\u2019s runners-up, Man City. He feels Man City \u201cwill be\u201d strong even without Pep Guardiola and will contest the Gunners once again.<\/p>\n<p>Also, Owen has backed <strong>Man Utd<\/strong> to be a \u201ctitle contender\u201d under Michael Carrick next season, though he has ruled out Liverpool.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think a challenge next season is only going to come from Manchester,\u201d Owen told Metro.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ: Mikel Arteta transfer decisions that made angry Arsenal fans look stupid: Xhaka, Saliba, Havertz<br \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Man City will be strong, even if Pep leaves, they ran Arsenal very close this season and have a good group of young players who have shown will be in a title race next season and with two domestic cups, they will come back stronger.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd it\u2019s been a while but Manchester United can be a title contender under Michael Carrick. You look at their form since he arrived and it\u2019s definitely one of a title contender.<\/p>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"598d587f82f0613dc60f89d2daf94a61\" image-id=\"brfcWf4pfM9w\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cLiverpool will hope to challenge, but they need to get everything right to do so and I\u2019m not sure they are there just yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE: The 10 greatest Premier League final days includes Man Utd, Liverpool and Spurs bottlings<br \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Man Utd \u201ccan be dark horses\u201d\u2026<\/h2>\n<p>Owen has expanded on his backing for Man Utd, suggesting they could be \u201cdark horses\u201d for the Premier League title next season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven how long it\u2019s been since Manchester United challenged for the title, Manchester United can be dark horses,\u201d Owen added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom finishing bottom half under Amorim last year, Michael Carrick has come in and down an excellent job for Man Utd to finish 3rd, so there is scope for them to improve further and mount a serious title challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ NEXT: Brentford relegation and more kneejerk reactions from opening Premier League weekend revisited<br \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!-- Article End --><\/div>\n<p><script>\n        !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n        {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n        n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n        if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n        n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n        t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);\n        s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n        'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n        fbq('init', '1399787394855675');\n        fbq('track', 'PageView');\n    <\/script><script>\n        !function(e,n,t){var o=e.getElementsByTagName(n)(0);e.getElementById\n    <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pundit Michael Owen has explained why he thinks \u201conly\u201d two teams will challenge Arsenal for the Premier League title next season. Earlier this week, Arsenal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}