Arsenal are having a dominant start to the 2026/27 Premier League season and are among the favourites to win the Champions League, and yet Mikel Arteta’s Gunners are unfairly criticised for their style of play.

Rival fans and pundits have taken every opportunity that has fallen into their laps this season to hit Arsenal for playing what they perceive to be ‘boring’ football. Some onlookers have even gone as far as to suggest that the north London squad are ‘unwatchable’, despite the success that Arteta is now overseeing.

No Premier League team has conceded fewer goals than Arsenal with five, and the Gunners have also lost the fewest games this season with one. Additionally, only Arsenal’s 2-2 draw away to Bayern Munich stops them from being level on points with PSG and Real Madrid atop the Champions League league phase table.

Like in the Premier League, Arteta has also overseen the sternest defence in the Champions League, with the Gunners conceding just three goals in four games. But a lack of output at the other end of the pitch is fuelling the criticism directed at the club, with Arsenal only scoring eight goals in Europe and 15 at home.

The question, however, is whether it should really matter that Arteta and Arsenal are prioritising results (which they are achieving) over producing a more entertaining display?

Neutral and rival football fans would have you believe that the quality of the display is more valuable than the results, despite the opposite argument previously being the stick they would use to beat Arsenal with.

In the years that Arsene Wenger stood at the Emirates Stadium helm and oversaw a series of title bids that fell apart, pundits would slam the Gunners for being ‘soft’, for being ‘pushovers’ and even for being ‘flops’. And while the product on the pitch could excite, Arsenal were often accused of ‘trying to walk the ball in’.

Those terms are seldom thrown around when it comes to Arsenal today, instead Arteta’s men are accused of being boring to watch. Even when that may not actually be true, pundits like Troy Deeney were torn on Arsenal’s display at Bayern Munich as Arteta modifying their style away to a European giant caused issues.

“I thought Arsenal could have been a lot better,” Deeney told CBS Sports. “When I watch Arsenal at their best, people call it boring, but they suffocate you just with their pressure.

“They let you have the ball, say, ‘Right, come on then. We’re going to break you down, and we’re going to hit you on the counter-attack.’ Today, I thought they were kind of like what they did with Brighton, which was like, ‘We’re going to go man to man, open up.’

“When they get there, they look a bit confused. It was just a performance that left me confused with Arsenal. I thought that was a game Arsenal should win, and that’s a credit to Arsenal really, that I feel that they should have won the game.”

Not all pundits want to beat Arteta and Arsenal for getting a result no matter the means, as Stuart Pearce believes the ‘unwatchable’ term is plainly wrong.

Pearce told talkSPORT recently: “I can’t believe they take the criticism they do. Last year, they did extremely well. All of a sudden, everyone’s saying they’re a set-play team. This season, they’re unwatchable. I don’t see it. Yes, you want to win games four-, five-nil all the time, but you can’t do that. And teams have a different kind of respect for you now [that] you’re champions.”

Clearly, Arteta has found a way to make Arsenal almost unbeatable in pursuit of his key aim; winning titles. Rival fans and pundits may not like it, but the table is what matters at the end of the season, not how many times you turn a struggling team over with an exciting, free-flowing style of football that others may enjoy for one day. Football may be an entertainment sport, but it is a business – a business of winning – above all.

Sure, fans deserve to be entertained – especially when it costs Arsenal fans as much as £78.00-145.50 for a single Category A match ticket and £31.80-59.00 for a Category C match. The price to buy a ticket to watch a top-tier game at Emirates Stadium therefore merits at least a small degree of entitlement from fans to be entertained.

Arsenal have also always prided themselves on having an entertaining style of football, particularly in the Wenger era as his attacking methods set the club apart. But Arteta’s job is not to entertain the average fan; it is to get the best result possible for Arsenal, regardless of the means, when the occasion calls for it.

Ask Jose Mourinho whether he cared that his successful Chelsea sides were often hard to watch, or Diego Simeone about his Atletico Madrid teams, and the answer would be that results pay the bills. They both embraced defensive ideas because they believed it was the best route for the players at their disposal, and their reputations were built as defensive-minded managers rather than on their ability to win over neutrals.

Supporters, at the end of the day, will remember the silverware in the cabinet. Arteta’s methods finally added another Premier League trophy in 2025/26, and Arsenal also came agonisingly close to winning their first Champions League trophy last season.

That does not mean every match needs to be hard-fought instead of an end-to-end spectacular, and nor is that the case at the Emirates. Arteta is simply doing what he believes is best for Arsenal fans – who, despite the criticisms that the club regularly receives, are afforded an exciting product to watch when the opposition opens up enough to let the Gunners play to their attacking strengths and not just defensively.