Arsenal End 22-Year Wait for Premier League Title: 'Second Place Has No Story'
Arteta secured the crown with 85 points across 38 matches, pushing Tottenham and Manchester City into second and third, the Gunners' first league title since the 'Invincibles' generation of 2004.
In the Emirates tunnel at 7.30 p.m. on Sunday, Mikel Arteta sat down on a folding chair just outside the dressing room and did not move for twenty minutes. Two hours later he explained to reporters:
I stayed there to make sure I would not start crying in front of the players.
Captain Martin Odegaard brought a shirt out of the dressing room and laid it on his shoulder without a word. After 22 years, Arsenal are English champions again.
The numbers that matter
With 85 points from 38 matches, Arsenal mathematically lifted the Premier League on Sunday afternoon, 24 May. Manchester City dropped two points at Bournemouth in a 1-1 draw, and that was it.
The gap to second place? Seven points. The Gunners produced a campaign of:
- 26 wins
- seven draws
- five defeats
That is the maths of a clear favourite, not a chaser. In his first three seasons, Arteta never sat on that kind of cushion from the runner-up slot.
What Arteta changed over the last year
Two summer 2025 moves looked risky at the time. First, the £78 million arrival of Ben White from Brighton, a right-back who often inverts into midfield, frustrated the boardroom hawks.
The second was switching Bukayo Saka to centre-forward in October, after Kai Havertz picked up a long-term knee injury. Saka moved from the right wing to the No. 9 role inside a 4-3-3. He delivered 22 league goals, a career best.
For the record books, this is Arsenal’s fifth English title and their first since the ‘Invincibles’ of 2003 and 2004. Back then Arsene Wenger was on the touchline, Thierry Henry led the line, and the side went unbeaten.
This side lost five times. But it conceded an average of 0.8 goals per match, the lowest in the Premier League since the 2004/05 season.
Manager of the Season and Edu’s verdict
Arteta was named Manager of the Season for the first time. After three runner-up finishes in a row, the title felt inevitable to anyone watching the club’s transfer business.
Sporting director Edu Gaspar told a press conference in February:
Our philosophy has not changed. We have just been patient enough to let Mikel deliver an end result that he is genuinely happy with for the first time.
Edu said that when Arsenal were six points clear. The gap stretched to seven, and that was enough.
What next, the Champions League final
On Saturday at the Puskas Arena in Budapest, Arsenal face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final. The club has never done this before, winning the Premier League and reaching the European final in the same season.
The manager told reporters:
Saturday is for our city, for Gunnersaurus, but it is also for our generation, the one that started in 2019 when we were seventh in the Premier League.
Personally, I give Arsenal 45 percent to lift both trophies on Saturday. PSG have Ousmane Dembele in the form of his career and Vitinha as the engine. But Arsenal carry something PSG have never had in their Champions League history: a settled back line built around Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes.
If Arsenal win in Budapest, Arteta becomes only the second Premier League manager after Pep Guardiola to retain a title and reach a European final in back-to-back seasons.
The celebrations in north London roll on through Saturday. Tufnell Park has already been closed off for parade routes. The club’s chief operating officer confirmed there will be an open-top bus parade on Monday, 1 June, from Holloway Road to Highbury. That route has not been used since 2004.
