Eighty-nine points. Twenty-eight wins. Ninety-one goals scored — the most in a single Premier League campaign in the club’s history. The best defensive record in the division. Second place. Runner-up. Again.
There is a particular cruelty to finishing second in the Premier League when you have done virtually everything right. It is not the cruelty of failure — Arsenal have not failed — but the cruelty of excellence that happens to coincide with someone else’s excellence. In any normal season, eighty-nine points wins you the league. In any normal season, a squad that has improved in almost every measurable dimension from the previous campaign walks away with the trophy. But this is not a normal season, because Manchester City exist, and Pep Guardiola exists, and the machine keeps churning out points with the mechanical efficiency of a factory that never shuts down.
The case for the defence
Let me start with what may prove to be the defining characteristic of this Arsenal side: the defence. Twenty-nine goals conceded in thirty-eight matches. The best record in the Premier League by some distance. William Saliba and Gabriel, the centre-back partnership that has become the foundation upon which everything else is built, have been nothing short of magnificent.
Saliba, in his second full season, has confirmed himself as one of the finest defenders in European football. The speed, the reading of the game, the extraordinary composure under pressure — he plays with the serenity of a man who has already seen the future and knows precisely how it ends. Gabriel, alongside him, provides the aggression, the aerial dominance, and the goals from set pieces that have become such a vital part of Arsenal’s attacking arsenal. Eight goals from a centre-back. Eight. The man is a weapon.
Behind them, David Raya — who displaced Aaron Ramsdale as the number one in a decision that generated more debate than it probably deserved — has been superb. His distribution, his command of the box, and his shot-stopping in the big moments have vindicated Arteta’s choice. In front of them, Declan Rice has provided the midfield shield that Arsenal lacked for so long. The defensive structure is robust, intelligent, and adaptable. It is the platform from which everything else flows. Declan Rice’s arrival transformed the midfield.
Rice’s impact
It is worth pausing to consider quite how transformative Rice has been. In his first season, he has made Arsenal measurably better in virtually every defensive metric. Fewer goals conceded, fewer chances created by opponents, more control in the midfield areas where last season’s Arsenal occasionally looked vulnerable. His positioning is immaculate, his tackling clean, his passing under pressure composed and progressive.
But Rice has offered more than defensive security. He has added goals — crucial goals, including that extraordinary last-minute strike against Luton that somehow found the net through a forest of bodies. He has added energy, drive, and a competitive edge that lifts the players around him. In the biggest matches — against Liverpool, against Tottenham, against City — he has been outstanding. One hundred and five million pounds is beginning to look like shrewd business.
Saka’s genius
If Rice has been the most important signing, Bukayo Saka has been the most important player. Sixteen league goals. Nine assists. Countless moments of individual brilliance that turned tight matches in Arsenal’s favour. The boy from Hale End has become a man in North London, and the man is genuinely world class.
What sets Saka apart is the completeness of his game. He can beat a full-back on the outside or cut inside onto his left foot. He can deliver a cross of surgical precision or finish with the composure of a veteran striker. He tracks back, he works tirelessly, and he does it all with a smile that suggests he is having the time of his life. In a squad full of excellent players, Saka is the one who makes the difference. He is the one who makes you believe.
Twenty-two years old, sixteen Premier League goals, and a season that would have won the Golden Boot in many previous campaigns. Bukayo Saka is not becoming a great player. He is one.
The away form
One of the most encouraging aspects of this season has been Arsenal’s transformation on the road. The away form has been remarkable — the victories at Tottenham, at Burnley, at Sheffield United, at Crystal Palace, at Newcastle, at Brighton, all delivered with the kind of ruthless efficiency that used to be the exclusive preserve of title-winning sides.
The north London derby at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was perhaps the purest distillation of what this team has become. I was there, squeezed into the away end with three thousand other Gooners who had spent the morning pretending to be calm. Arsenal went there, dominated the match from first whistle to last, and won with a performance of such controlled authority that Spurs looked like they were playing a different sport. This is not the Arsenal of the late Wenger years, the one that could produce moments of brilliance but wilted under physical pressure. This is a team that can fight, that can scrap, that can dig in and win ugly when the situation demands it. The soul that I once worried was missing has been comprehensively rediscovered.
The pain of second
And yet. And yet here we are, writing about another season of near-misses. Last year it was eighty-four points and second. This year it is eighty-nine and second. The improvement is obvious, undeniable, and somehow insufficient. Manchester City finished on ninety-one points — their fourth title in a row, a feat of sustained dominance that is almost unprecedented in English football.
Where did we lose it? The draws. The agonising, gut-wrenching draws that turned three points into one at precisely the moments when three were essential. The goalless draw at home to City in October — a match Arsenal probably deserved to win. The draw at West Ham. The defeats to Villa and Fulham that arrived like daggers. In a title race decided by two points, every dropped point is a wound that festers.
I watched the final home match of the season from my usual seat in the upper tier, and there was a moment — after the last goal went in, with the stadium on its feet — when I looked around and saw something I hadn’t seen in years: genuine, unironic belief on every face. Not hope. Belief.
The Champions League exit to Bayern Munich added another layer of pain. Losing on penalties in the quarter-final, having fought back from 2-1 down on aggregate to level the tie, was the kind of experience that either breaks a squad or forges it. The manner of the first leg — Saka’s brilliant goal, then the concession of a debatable penalty — felt emblematic of a season in which fine margins consistently fell against us. Kimmich’s header in the second leg in Munich, the solitary goal that ended our European dream, will linger in the memory like a persistent headache. The return to European nights gave the season an extra dimension.
The Arteta project versus Pep’s machine
The comparison is inevitable and probably unfair. Arteta is in the fourth full season of a rebuilding project. Guardiola is in the eighth year of a dynasty, working with a squad whose collective experience of winning titles is unmatched in English football. City know how to win leagues because they have been winning them for years. Arsenal are learning. The tuition is expensive, and the lessons are painful, but the learning curve is unmistakable.
Consider where Arsenal were three years ago: eighth in the table, out of Europe entirely, the squad gutted of deadwood but not yet replenished with the quality needed to compete. Consider where they are now: eighty-nine points, the best defence in England, a squad with an average age that suggests the best years are still ahead. The trajectory is clear. The destination, one hopes, is inevitable.
I wrote about the Invincibles once — about that extraordinary 2003/04 season when Arsenal won the league without losing a match. The comparison with today’s side is instructive. That team had experienced the pain of near-misses — the 1999 semi-final defeat, the 2001 FA Cup loss to Liverpool, the 2003 title surrender — before finally getting over the line. The best teams are often built on the foundations of failure. Perhaps this season’s pain is the necessary price of next season’s glory.
Not “if” but “when”
I return, as I often do, to the broader narrative. We have been reviewing Arsenal seasons on this blog for over a decade now — from the title challenges that weren’t to the swan songs of forgettable campaigns. This one is different. Not because the outcome is different — second place is second place, however you dress it up — but because the feeling is different. There is no sense of decline. No sense of making do. No sense that this is as good as it gets.
This Arsenal squad is young, talented, well-managed, and improving. Saka is twenty-two. Saliba is twenty-three. Rice is twenty-five. Ødegaard is twenty-five. The spine of this team will be together for years, and they will get better. The question is no longer whether Arsenal can challenge for the title. The question is whether they can deliver it. And the answer, I believe with increasing conviction, is yes.
Not this year. This year belongs to Manchester City, again, and the congratulations are grudging but sincere. But Arsenal’s time is coming. You can feel it in the squad’s response to setbacks, in the refusal to accept moral victories, in the hunger that burns in the eyes of players who know they are close. So close. So cruelly close.
Eighty-nine points. It was not enough. Next time, it will be.