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2024/25 English Premier League
Matchday 1
Arsenal v Wolverhampton Wanderers
Emirates Stadium
London, England
Saturday, 17 August 2024
Kick-off is at 16h00
Arsenal will begin a renewed assault on the
Premier League title when they welcome Wolves to the Emirates Stadium on the opening weekend of the 2024-25 season on Saturday, August 17.
The Gunners pushed Manchester City all the way last term and finished just two points behind the champions in second place as they set to new club record for most wins in a top-flight season (28).
Mikel Arteta's side are seen as City's main rivals once more after coming so close to ending their lengthy title drought in each of the last two campaigns.
The North Londoners have bolstered their defensive options with the acquisition of Riccardo Calafiori from Bologna, while they made David Raya's loan move from Brentford permanent.
Emile Smith Rowe decided to join cross-town rivals Fulham earlier this month after failing to establish himself as a first-team regular under Arteta.
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Wolves will be hoping to improve after limping to a 14th-placed finish in 2023-24 which saw them win just one of their last 10 matches.
Gary O'Neil's side picked up surprise wins against City, Chelsea (home and away) and Tottenham (home and away) last season, but finished poorly to miss out on the top 10.
Wanderers have since lost two key players in Pedro Neto and Max Kilman, who were sold to Chelsea and West Ham respectively, although Tommy Doyle, Rodrigo Gomes and Pedro Lima were added to the squad in the current transfer window.
Arsenal wrapped up their pre-season with a 2-0 victory over Lyon at the Emirates Stadium on August 11 and Arteta believes they are in good shape for the season-opener against Wolves.
"We had four or five different groups, so it's been quite challenging, in terms of the schedule for everybody and playing everybody," the Spaniard said.
"But the staff have put some unbelievable work [in], I think the club has as well in the way that they have organised all the games and the tour.
"Thank you everybody for the contribution and I think overall it's a really positive pre-season for us. Absolutely, we've done all this work now to be in the best possible position to start the season in a really strong way, and we start here."
O'Neil is relishing the challenges ahead in the coming months after getting his first pre-season as head coach at Molineux.
"Next week is a big one for me to make sure the lads are ready for the Premier League and next week is a big one for us in the transfer market," he said.
"The early business that we did was great because it showed everyone that we mean business and we are able to do stuff, Rodrigo, Pedro, Jorgen, it's fantastic of the club to get them done so early.
"We are all really aligned with what we want to do here, and we understand there are still challenging situations which we're trying to manage.
"We've made another £100 million this summer, we made £100m last summer, and that does provide its challenges to keep the team staying competitive and keep the team as strong as it once was four or five years ago when they were competing for Europe and there was fantastic times here.
"We're trying to get it back to that, but with a very different make-up behind the scenes that we're working to. But I enjoy those challenges a lot."
Head-to-Head (Last Five Premier League Meetings)
Matches - 5
Arsenal wins - 5
Wolves wins - 0
Draws - 0
Premier League Matchday 1 fixtures:
Friday, August 16
21h00: Manchester United v Fulham
Saturday, August 17
13h30: Ipswich Town v Liverpool
16h00: Arsenal v Wolverhampton Wanderers
16h00: Everton v Brighton & Hove Albion
16h00: Newcastle United v Southampton
16h00: Nottingham Forest v Bournemouth
18h30: West Ham United v Aston Villa
Sunday, August 18
15h00: Brentford v Crystal Palace
17h30: Chelsea v Manchester City
Monday, August 19
21h00: Leicester City v Tottenham Hotspur
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