LONDON — Arsenal can finally press the reset button and set the clock to zero. After 8,060 days, the Gunners are Premier League champions again, and Mikel Arteta’s side has well and truly earned the right to hoist the trophy as the best team in the country.
Were they the most exciting to watch? Maybe not. The most pleasing on the eye? Only if you’re an Arsenal supporter. But the Premier League title race has never been a beauty contest.
Pep Guardiola did his best to make it that with six titles in 10 seasons at Manchester City when his team produced some of the best play the league has ever seen, but you don’t get an extra medal for winning with flair. All champions are measured by the same metric — points — and Arteta’s Arsenal have finally topped the pile after three successive second-place finishes to earn the club’s first league title since Arsene Wenger’s “Invincibles” clinched their 13th English league championship with a win at Tottenham Hotspur in April 2004.
Wenger’s team was one of the best the Premier League has ever seen — a side of pace, flair, aggression and power — but they were dethroned by Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, who were the polar opposite of the Invincibles. Mourinho’s side played to their strengths of physical power and defensive fortitude, which means Arteta is not the first coach to take a pragmatic route to the title.
After Arsenal’s hat trick of runner-up spots, Arteta was under increasing pressure to turn the team into a winner and prove he was capable of shedding the club’s “nearly men” tag. So he made Arsenal hard to beat, focusing on mastering the crucial elements of defending and exploiting set pieces. If you defend well and score from corners and free kicks, you will have a rock-solid foundation for any team, and Arteta’s Arsenal have done those things.
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The handbrake has stayed on at times — they are a totally different outfit from Paris Saint-Germain, their Champions League final opponents May 30 — but the Guardiola era at City has led to a trend of praising teams only for their attacking qualities and flair. Being hard to beat and well-organized is also an art form, and Arsenal are now champions under Arteta because they have been dedicated to that discipline.
The numbers speak for themselves. Arsenal have conceded the fewest goals in the league this season (26), have had the most clean sheets (19) and the most 1-0 wins (eight), and their success has them atop the charts for goals from set pieces (24) and corners (18). Only Mourinho’s Real Madrid (38 in 2012-13) and Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid (37 in 2014-15) have scored more goals from set pieces since 2011-12 than the 35 that Arsenal have registered this season across all competitions.
With two games left to play in the 2025-26 campaign — at Crystal Palace in the Premier League and the Champions League final against PSG — Arsenal could yet eclipse Real and Atleti in that table, and if they do, it will be something to shout about rather than hide from.
The sport is a cyclical one. There are periods when flair teams dominate and others when defensive organization is the ruling philosophy. Guardiola, Wenger and Jurgen Klopp have built teams of great flair; Mourinho, Antonio Conte (Chelsea, 2016-17) and now Arteta have done it the other way. Sir Alex Ferguson had a foot in both camps with Manchester United over the years, but he was primarily known for getting the job done first and letting the fireworks follow.
That will be the challenge facing Arteta now. Having endured the longest wait in the club’s history between titles, Arteta simply had to get the job done and end Arsenal’s 22-year wait to be champions again.
Moving forward, the Gunners have too much quality for Arteta not to develop a more expansive game in the years to come. The question will be: How much? With the weight lifted off everybody’s shoulders at the Emirates, Arteta must now turn Arsenal into entertainers, showcasing the creative talent of Martin Odegaard, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz.
Arsenal supporters raised on Wenger’s great teams will expect their side to be more dominant, to cut loose and blend steel with flair. But as great as Wenger’s teams were, they were never able to successfully defend a title; that is another challenge for this Gunners generation, and all their rivals are in enough flux to make this title the start of a dynasty rather than just the end of a good season.
With Guardiola set to leave City at the end of the season, the changing landscape at the Etihad will drag City back into the pack, while Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United are in various states of transition. Arteta, 44, took almost six years to win his first title, but he could also capture Arsenal’s first Champions League this season, too.
Now that the league is theirs, the Arteta era has officially begun.
