How England boss Thomas Tuchel once gave Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta an unwanted Premier League record

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Arsenal will have a keen eye on Thomas Tuchel’s first game as England manager as two of their stars are set to feature in the match.

Tuchel’s first England squad since being appointed manager back in 2024 features the Arsenal duo of Declan Rice and Myles Lewis-Skelly.

Lewis-Skelly revealed his England call-up mistake when he thought a phone call was from his new boss Tuchel but instead turned out to be a food delivery for his Mum.

Mikel Arteta will be watching the game with intrigue to see how his stars cope in the pressure situation but the new England boss once turned up the heat on the Spaniard himself.

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Thomas Tuchel contributed to unwanted Mikel Arteta record

Having lost their opening game of the 2021-22 campaign at Brentford, Arsenal were already under serious pressure heading into the first game of the season at the Emirates Stadium.

Tuchel brought his Chelsea side to North London and having purchased striker Romelu Lukaku that summer, they were simply too strong for a makeshift Gunners defence that included Rob Holding and Cedric Soares.

The defeat was the first time in 117 years of the club’s existence at the time that they had started a campaign with two straight defeats and zero goals to their name.

It got worse for Arteta as the following match his side were demolished 5-0 by Manchester City with Granit Xhaka seeing red. It was Arsenal’s worst ever start to a Premier League season.

Arteta received calls to be sacked after Chelsea defeat in 2021

Speaking on Amazon Prime Video’s ‘All or Nothing: Arsenal’ documentary series, Arteta revealed how he had to pick the players up from a low moment following that defeat and there were some calls for him to be sacked.

Speaking on episode one of the series, Arteta stated: “You have to go through different moments, some are very difficult. You have to stand up and fight for yourselves and believe in what you do.

“We were under a lot of pressure and criticism but as a club we needed to stand up and show the true togetherness that we have here and go again.”

The Gunners did show that ‘togetherness’ and went on to recover by winning their next three Premier League matches, including a stunning 3-1 victory over Spurs in the North London Derby.

Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe both scored in that win and then went on to really make their mark in the 2021-22 season to start the Arsenal improvement under Arteta.