It’s official – Arsenal are no longer the Premier League’s bottlers.
On Tuesday night, the Gunners got over the line without kicking a ball, sparking one hell of a party on the streets of north London as their 22-year wait for a league title came to an end.
Arsenal fans were spared final day anxiety at Crystal Palace with Manchester City handing them the title at Bournemouth. Erling Haaland’s fine equaliser in injury time was too little, too late with Pep Guardiola’s side unable to step up when it truly mattered. It sums up their season.
There is little shame in not beating the Cherries these days. Victory for Andoni Iraola’s side leaves them firmly in the frame for Champions League qualification, unthinkable for a club that was on the brink of extinction just 18 years ago.
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They have lost just one game since the turn of the year, against the newly-crowned champions back in January.
Bournemouth even landed the blow that at one stage looked destined to destabilise Arsenal’s title hopes when they won 2-1 at the Emirates at the start of April. No one has been safe from the south coast outfit.
But Arsenal are finally the bride after years of being the bridesmaid. Three consecutive second-place finishes, which included some devastating capitulations, saw them again labelled the league’s bottle jobs, a label they have worn on too many occasions over the last two decades.
Whey they lost the Carabao Cup final and crashed out of the FA Cup in the space of a couple of weeks, those same old fears resurfaced and peaked when they lost to City at the Etihad in a titanic Premier League showdown last month.
One City fan in particular went viral with his homemade Arsenal bottle that day, revelling in the misery. He might just be the most mocked man in the country today.
The perennial fear for Arsenal was that City could go on a relentless winning run, the sort of which has driven them towards glory in previous seasons. Only it never happened, and there was very little evidence to suggest they ever had it in their locker. In the end, Arsenal held their nerve – something City have repeatedly failed to do this term.
New Year’s hangover
The gap at the top was just two points at the turn of the year but three consecutive draws for City allowed Arsenal to set the pace again. A stalemate at Sunderland was followed by a 1-1 draw with Chelsea who had parted ways with head coach Enzo Maresca just days earlier. Three days later, there were more dropped points, this time at home to Brighton.
After FA Cup and League Cup duties, there was a trip to Old Trafford for Michael Carrick’s first game in charge as Manchester United boss. City were blown away on derby day and were lucky to get out with just a 2-0 defeat. At the start of February, City meekly surrendered a 2-0 lead at Tottenham on a surreal day in north London. The gap soon stood at nine points again.
Dropped points against sides at the bottom
On one Wednesday night in March, City and Arsenal kicked off at the same time with City hosting Nottingham Forest and Arsenal away to Brighton. Despite the far easier night’s work on paper against a side deep in the relegation mire, it was City who stumbled in a 2-2 draw while the Gunners claimed a big win on the road against the Seagulls.
The following week, City travelled to West Ham, stranded in the relegation zone with little reason for optimism. The visitors couldn’t produce a winner in a 1-1 draw. In a game that finished just before kick-off in east London, Max Dowman inspired Arsenal to another huge win against Everton.
It was in City’s hands
Arsenal did throw them another lifeline. After beating Mikel Arteta’s in the Carabao Cup final, momentum shifted as the league resumed as City thrashed Chelsea while Arteta’s side lost to Bournemouth.
It set that up that final showdown between the two in the Premier League on 21 April. The 2-1 win moved City to within three points of their rivals with a game in hand with their celebrations at full-time suggesting it was a pivotal moment in the race.
They never capitalised. Going back to the 2011-12 season, perhaps the most engrossing chapter in City’s modern history, they beat Manchester United to the title on the final day. But it was a manic 4-4 draw with Everton three weeks before that really set alarm bells ringing for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side.
The same opposition landed a devastating blow to City in similarly chaotic fashion with a 3-3 draw at the Hill Dickson Stadium at the beginning of May. It meant Arsenal’s destiny was back in their own hands and they would make that final reprieve count.
City might argue the furore over Guardiola’s future this week will have been an unwanted distraction, but that topic is one that has raged all season. In January, they went out and purchased the league’s in-form winger and arguably England’s best centre-half in Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi for a combined fee of £85million.
It is a City squad missing the ruthless winning spirit embodied by past heroes in Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan. But like Arsenal, they have had ample opportunity to restock and rebuild, specifically to the tune of almost £240m over the last 12 months, just shy of the £250m Arsenal spent.
City’s heaving trophy room is a testament to their unerring quality and mentality and Carabao Cup and FA Cup success does represent a respectable haul this season. But the days of being able to rely on Arsenal losing their nerve are over. It is now down to them to rediscover theirs.