Arsenal’s Premier League championship charge suffered yet another wobble on Saturday, leaving many Gunners fans to wonder: “Is it really happening again?”
A 2-1 home defeat to Bournemouth was a major lifeline for chasers Manchester City in the 2025-26 title race. Mikel Arteta’s side fell flat at the Emirates in a lifeless display, only for Pep Guardiola’s side to storm to a 3-0 win over Chelsea 24 hours later.
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Having topped the table since September, Arsenal have looked shaky at a pivotal moment in their season. First, they lost the Carabao Cup final to City before being stunned in the FA Cup quarterfinals against Championship side Southampton.
By Sunday evening, Arsenal’s lead at the top of the Premier League had been cut to six points, with City (who have a game in hand) breathing down their necks.
If Arsenal fans are grimacing at the idea of facing City at the Etihad Stadium next weekend, it will be partly due to their recent history of stumbling in the final stages of the season.
City have mustered much stronger finishes than Arsenal during the closing stages of the past four seasons — regardless of their position in the table relative to the Gunners. Arsenal will need to buck that trend if they are to prevent their agonizing wait for another Premier League title from rolling on into a 23rd year.
2021-22
Arsenal were the youngest squad in the Premier League with an average age of just 24 years and 308 days. They were also never really in the title race, instead jostling for European qualification. Despite being chased hard by Liverpool, City spent the entire second half of the season at the top of the table and eventually won the league by a single point.
By way of comparison, Pep Guardiola’s champions claimed 30 points from their remaining 12 games of the season, while Arsenal could only muster 18 in the same time frame, earning them a fifth-place finish and UEFA Europa League qualification.
2022-23
Three years ago, Arsenal were perched top of the table with 27 matches played, five points clear of defending champions City in second, having both played the same number of games.
The Gunners remained top until gameweek 33, when they were unceremoniously thrashed 4-1 by City at the Etihad and bumped from top spot in the process. City held firm, going on to win the title by five points, having taken 31 points in their final 12 games, as opposed to Arsenal’s comparatively meagre 21-point haul. That was the first part of City’s Treble triumph, as they also won the FA Cup and UEFA Champions League that season.
2023-24
Arsenal found themselves competing with Manchester City and Liverpool for the title for the majority of the 2023-24 campaign. Indeed, the three teams were often separated by just a point or two throughout the second half of the season in what proved to be one of the more enthralling title races in recent years.
The Gunners went the distance, and even topped the table on several occasions in May. Ultimately, it wasn’t enough to prevent City from coming up on the rails and steamrolling their way to a fourth consecutive title win. Guardiola’s side earned just one more point than Arsenal over the course of their respective final 12 games, but it was enough for them to wrap things up with victory over West Ham United on the final day.
2024-25
With Manchester City suffering from burnout and well off the pace in the title race, Liverpool and Arsenal were left to duke it out at the top of the Premier League. Arteta’s team had been in second place since December, but a run of dropped points during the last few weeks of the season (notably a galling 2-1 home defeat against Bournemouth in early May) allowed Liverpool to pull away at the top to finish 10 points clear.
Despite dropping as low as seventh just before Christmas, City did at least manage to improve their results after the turn of the year. They even put more points on the board than Arsenal (27 points to 21) from their final 12 games of the campaign to end up in third place, just three points behind the exhausted Gunners
