Leeds United will not shy away from the reality of last season's trip to the Emirates as preparations ramp up for Saturday's return.
Much of Daniel Farke's squad spent the international break playing football with their respective national teams, while the rest enjoyed a little downtime before reporting to Thorp Arch to resume training. Farke welcomed the last of his international travellers back to the training ground in midweek, with the Premier League back on everyone's agenda.
Prior to the extended hiatus Leeds went unbeaten and showed that the hard-to-beat status earned last season has crossed over into the current campaign. Wins over Nottingham Forest and Newcastle United, along with draws against Brentford, Brighton and Hove Albion and Crystal Palace, have Leeds fifth in the table, three points behind the second-placed Gunners.
The value of the two victories speaks for itself but even at an early stage those draws with Brighton and Brentford, in third and fourth place respectively, look like good results. What's more, the Whites have the joint-meanest defensive record in the division having conceded just three goals.
Last season however, the two meetings with Arsenal flew in the face of the record Leeds have built for themselves since returning to the top flight - particularly a visit to London that ended in a 5-0 defeat. Only Manchester City outscored the Premier League champions last season, so they proved problematic for most defences. But even so, James Justin and his team-mates want to prove they are a different prospect to the one the Gunners welcomed to the Emirates in the second outing of the 2025/26 season.
"I feel like we've come on a lot from last season, and last season's games against them were not good by any stretch of the imagination," he said. "We're not shying away from that fact. This year we'll come with some different ideas to face what is one of the best sides, if not the best side in the league this season. We'll be hoping to stamp our authority on the Premier League and keep our unbeaten streak going."
Lukas Nmecha also makes no attempt to sugarcoat what transpired the last time Leeds went to the Emirates.
"The first game was it was like a little bit of a shock to the system," he said. "I think it was our second game of the season. We had just come off beating Everton at Elland Road, and we hadn't actually made all our signings yet so we didn't have everyone that we had for the major part of that season in the team. We got battered to be honest. We were just a little bit naive in terms of how good they were going to be. We pressed constantly and they just picked us apart."
Nmecha, who scored six times as Leeds went on to finish 14th, thinks similarly to Justin. He believes Arsenal will meet another version of Leeds this weekend.
"I definitely think that as last season went on, we did really well against the other big teams and I think we're a different team now than we were then," he said. "They are still a very good team but we'll have a better chance. I think we'd be stupid to say if we went there now and could just take a point that we won't take that, but we obviously go into into every game trying to win and we're on a good run. So why not?"
