When Mikel Arteta arrived at Arsenal, he presented a five-step plan to go from crisis club to glory. Welcome to step five: create a dynasty.

Up until this year, steps one to four were about getting Arsenal back to the Arsene Wenger days of winning major honours again.

With his Arsenal team reigning Premier League champions again, Arteta is now striving to do something the great Wenger never could.

No Arsenal team has successfully defended a top-flight title since the Gunners won three leagues in a row ending in 1935. Not even Wenger's double-winning or 'Invincibles' teams backed up their historic achievement with an immediate title win the following year.

In his pre-match messages, Arteta often turns to creating history as a huge motivation for his team and there will be no doubt he will push the 'back-to-back' narrative to his Arsenal squad over the next nine months.

But dynasty and history are not the only goals Arsenal are aiming for this season. Despite being champions of England - and many analysts' pick to go and win again - there is still improvement needed from the last campaign.

Arsenal have enjoyed a memorable last year but more efficiency in attack could have made last term a superb campaign.

The euphoric scenes of last season - which included countless parties outside the Emirates Stadium and across the world - masked over the Champions League final defeat, where Arsenal failed to get a shot on target for the 114 minutes after they took the lead against Paris Saint-Germain.

It was a missed opportunity for Arteta's side to write themselves into more history - and showed that for all their defensive excellence, there was still a sense of predictability about them going forwards, with question marks over how much they could create and score from open play.

It was not just in the Champions League final where Arsenal struggled in this department. It was the story of their season. While Arsenal were outstanding in the defence and set-pieces category, their open-play numbers left much to be desired.

For all of Arsenal's success last term, they were not in the top three teams in the Premier League for key attacking metrics from open play. The numbers weren't bad, but it is a clear area of improvement.

The question is whether they can rectify that - and become more unpredictable - this season. The 3-0 win over Manchester City in the Community Shield, where Arsenal dominated the game, scored three times from open play, and did not create a single set-piece chance, was an early sign of progress.

Yet the summer transfer window has raised some doubts about whether that attacking efficiency will come and where it will come from, especially regarding the forward line.

Morgan Rogers was deemed the No 1 attacking target before Chelsea stumped up £117m to bring him from Aston Villa. Then came the Vinicius Junior pursuit, an exciting saga at first - but his re-commitment to Real Madrid ended that dream and sent Arsenal back to the drawing board.

Christos Tzolis arrived early in the window as the first outfield signing but was brought in as a direct - and younger - replacement for Leandro Trossard. Other than that, Arsenal go into the season with the same attacking players who ended last season.

Arsenal still have time to rectify this in the window - and last season's late pursuit of Eberechi Eze showed players can arrive late and produce big title-winning moments in the season.

But with Aston Villa and Chelsea waiting in a tricky opening three games this time around, Arsenal will be put under the microscope early on.

Why Arsenal's solution could come away from transfers

This summer, Arteta has pointed out that transfers are not the only solution to the issues Arsenal still need to address.

"We will go from strength to strength," he said during pre-season. "Whether it's the players we have, to take them to a different level, or with the market that is still open to recruit as well. We're optimistic about it."

Arsenal have room to grow this season - but the players who were there last term can contribute more, just as much as new signings could. Last summer's midfield and attacking signings - Martin Zubimendi, Noni Madueke, Viktor Gyokeres and Eze - all had good seasons, but not great ones.

So much so that none of the above quartet started Arsenal's Champions League final in Budapest, as Arteta went for the more familiar options who he had known for longer. If any of those forward players improve on last season's campaigns, then Arsenal are capable of finding another level in attack.

It is not just a goalscoring conundrum, but a chance creation one too. Chief creator Martin Odegaard limited to just 14 league starts. He still averaged the third-highest chance creation record per 90 in the Premier League last season.

Had the Arsenal captain played more minutes, their attacking output would have increased. Odegaard was Arsenal's best player in the statement Community Shield win over City, so if the Norwegian is able to build on a solid World Cup and start the season strongly, it's almost as helpful as a new signing.

"I'm sure this year if we can maintain him fit, available with the players around him, we're going to see a very different Martin," said Arteta after the win over City.

"And I sense from the first day that he joined that he has something else in the belly that he wants to prove and show it, because the team needs it as well."

Another creativity boost for Arsenal is Bruno Guimaraes - who arrives from Newcastle as the club's second-most expensive signing.

The Brazilian is a defensive boost given his tough-tackling nature, but last season Guimaraes was in the top 10 players for breaking the opposition back line through passing the ball.

Note how former No 1 target Rogers also ranked highly in this discipline - highlighting a certain profile Arteta was looking for in the transfer window.

"He's a player which obviously has tremendous timing and intuition to win the ball back and progress play very fast," Arteta said about Guimaraes after he joined.

"He's a player that is very comfortable putting people through, moving between the lines, moving in behind.

"And then he's a goal threat. He's got a smell and a really good timing to get in the box. And he has the capacity to finish the actions."

Arsenal were not able to produce a player who could produce these moments to open up defences as regularly as Guimaraes last season. But if the Brazilian plays regularly alongside Odegaard this season, then Arsenal may have a better attack than most people think.

And this week, there was a a hint from Arteta that he wants to see a different type of Arsenal this season. When asked about him being a "defending" Premier League champion, he corrected that statement by saying he and his team are "attacking" another Premier League title.

Are we set to see a more expansive Arsenal this season - led by the likes of a resurgent Odegaard and new signings such as Guimaraes and Tzolis? They may actually have to be more adventurous going forward if they are to retain their crown.

Amid all the transfer talk, one factor that has gone slightly under the radar is William Saliba's extended absence with a back injury. A key cog from Arsenal's irresistible defence is missing for the early part of the season.

Saliba is so often branded a 'Rolls Royce' - or a 'cheat code' - of a defender, mainly due to his pace to stop counter-attacks and transitions. No other member of the Arsenal team has delivered that skill so consistently at the highest level.

Arsenal still have Gabriel, one of the league's outstanding defensive players. But with Jurrien Timber also playing fitness catch-up and Ben White's injury record, Arsenal enter the season with a less experienced defence than usual. Even with the imminent arrival of Ezri Konsa from Aston Villa, they may not be able to rely so heavily on their defensive superiority at the start of this season.

For all those concerns, Arsenal would do well to remember they come into the new campaign as the reigning champions of England. On top of that, they did not lose a single match in 90 minutes during the Champions League last season.

They were already a very good football team before the summer and have added some quality to it, albeit not as much as they would have liked so far.

Arsenal are also the sole member of the so-called 'Big Six' who are not going through a managerial or squad-building rebuild - and are attacking this season from a higher platform of success.

As a result, the message from Arteta and Arsenal this summer has surrounded evolution, rather than revolution. And this Arsenal team now takes on a different climate.

The past few years have been about this team getting over the line, but what will we see from champions Arsenal this season?