Arsenal are Premier League champions. The 2025/26 title is theirs, and it took Manchester City drawing 1-1 at Bournemouth on Tuesday night for north London to finally exhale. The Gunners didn’t even need to play. They watched. They waited. And when the final whistle blew at the Vitality Stadium, 22 years of near misses, heartbreak, and “nearly men” taunts dissolved in an instant.
It is Arsenal’s 14th English top-flight title and their first since Arsène Wenger’s Invincibles went the entire 2003/04 season unbeaten. Since then, the club has changed managers, spent hundreds of millions on players, and finished second three times in a row. This time, they finally got it done.
How the Title Was Won
The maths is simple. After 37 games, Arsenal sit on 82 points. City are on 78. With one round left, even a City win on the final day cannot close a four-point gap. The Premier League trophy is heading to the Emirates.
Arsenal won 25 of their 37 league matches, drew seven, and lost five. Those numbers would have been good enough in most seasons. What made the difference in 2025/26 was the defence. David Raya claimed the Golden Glove for the third successive season, and the Gunners conceded only 26 goals all campaign, the fewest in the league by a considerable distance. Nineteen clean sheets across 37 games is not a fluke; it is a system that works.
The season was not without drama, though. In April, Arsenal squandered a nine-point lead in the space of 11 days. A 2-1 defeat at the Etihad felt like the moment the title would slip away again. The “chokers” narrative resurfaced instantly. Pundits wrote them off. Some fans braced for another season of agonising second place.
Then Arsenal won four games in a row without conceding a single goal. City dropped points against Everton, then drew at Bournemouth. It was enough.
The Night It Happened
Mikel Arteta’s squad beat Burnley 1-0 the previous evening to set up a situation where a City slip would confirm the title. When City could only draw at Bournemouth, Arsenal were champions before kicking another ball.
Declan Rice had taken some stick after Arsenal’s painful Etihad defeat. He said publicly it was “not done”, a statement that aged badly in the short term but proved prophetic in the end. The moment City drew, Rice posted on Instagram alongside teammates Kai Havertz, Eberechi Eze, William Saliba, Myles Lewis-Skelly, and Bukayo Saka. The caption: “I told you all.. it’s done.”
The club’s celebratory post on social media featured a video with Arsène Wenger speaking directly to the current squad: “You did it. Champions go on when others stop. This is your time. Now go on, and enjoy the moment.” The Frenchman then raised a glass of red wine to camera, a nod to the man he once signed as a player, Arteta, who has now matched his mentor’s greatest achievement.
Mikel Arteta: From Player to Champion Manager
When Arteta took charge in December 2019, Arsenal were mid-table and directionless. Less than two years later, they lost 5-0 at City and dropped to the bottom of the league with three straight losses to open the 2021/22 season. By his own admission, he was questioning himself.
What followed was one of the most patient rebuilding jobs in Premier League history. Arteta gradually turned youth products into starters, brought in the right characters, and slowly shifted the culture at the club. By the 2022/23 season, Arsenal were title contenders again for the first time in years. They came close. Then they came close again. Then again.
Three consecutive runners-up finishes had become something of a punchline. Arsenal had never finished second three seasons in a row before, and somehow, they went and did it twice in English top-flight history, the first club to achieve that dubious distinction.
But those near-misses were not wasted. Arteta later said the experience built up the resolve his players needed to actually win the thing. It turns out he was right.
He also becomes the first former Premier League player to win the trophy as a manager, having played for Arsenal between 2011 and 2016. There is something fitting about that.
The Players Who Made It Happen
This title was not built on one star. It was a collective effort, built over years of recruitment and development.
David Raya was the foundation. Three straight Golden Gloves tells you everything about how secure Arsenal’s goalkeeping has been under Arteta. His distribution, his composure, and his shot-stopping gave the defenders in front of him the confidence to push high and press aggressively.
William Saliba has grown into one of the best centre-backs in Europe. At 24, he reads the game with unusual maturity. Gabriel Magalhães alongside him is dominant, aggressive, and occasionally pops up with crucial contributions, his cushioned touch to set up Viktor Gyökeres against Burnley was a highlight of the run-in.
Declan Rice arrived from West Ham in the summer of 2023 for a reported £105 million, a British-record fee at the time. He was written off by some as too expensive for a holding midfielder. He has been worth every penny, running games from deep and chipping in with goals at crucial moments.
Viktor Gyökeres and Eberechi Eze arrived last summer for a combined fee of around $160 million, and they gave Arsenal the attacking quality they had been missing. Gyökeres, in particular, provided the physical presence and finishing instinct the squad needed after years of relying on players who scored in single figures. Eze brought creativity and directness from wide positions.
Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard remained the heartbeat of everything, two players who have grown alongside this project from the beginning.
Max Dowman, a teenager, made history as the youngest player ever to win the Premier League title. That detail alone tells you something about the club Arteta has built, one that has room for both record signings and academy teenagers.
The Bigger Picture: What This Title Means
Arsenal’s 14 top-flight championships put them third in the all-time rankings, behind only Liverpool and Manchester United on 20 each. They now have four Premier League titles, one clear of Liverpool and one behind Chelsea in the competition’s own era. This win also means three different clubs have won the title in three successive seasons, following Liverpool in 2024/25 and City in 2023/24. Only the fifth time that has happened in Premier League history.
The 2025/26 title ends a six-year trophy drought for the club. It is Arteta’s second major honour as Arsenal manager. But the way it arrived, grinding through setbacks, losing the lead, winning it back, and holding on, might make it the sweetest one.
Former Gunners striker Alan Smith, who won two titles at Highbury, said it perfectly: “Arsenal have had the best defence, they haven’t had the best attack, but as an overall unit Mikel Arteta has done incredibly well.”
What Comes Next: The Champions League Final
The celebration has barely started, but there is one more game that matters. Arsenal travel to Budapest on May 30 to face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final, their second-ever European Cup final and their first real shot at the trophy they have never won.
The Gunners finished their Champions League group phase unbeaten, then eliminated Bayer Leverkusen, Sporting CP, and Atlético Madrid (2-1 on aggregate) in the knockout rounds. They come into Budapest on the back of winning the Premier League and with nothing to lose. Or, as former Sky Sports commentator Alan Smith put it: “It almost feels that the Champions League final is a free hit now.”
PSG hold the trophy. Arsenal will fancy their chances.
Final Standings: Premier League 2025/26 (After 37 Games)
| Position | Club | Points | GD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 82 | +43 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 78 | +48 |
| 3 | Manchester United | 68 | +16 |
| 4 | Aston Villa | 62 | +6 |
| 5 | Liverpool | 59 | +10 |
| 6 | Bournemouth | 56 | +4 |
Arsenal’s final league game against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Sunday is a formality. The trophy lift is scheduled for Selhurst Park after the match. Patrick Vieira was the last Arsenal captain to lift the Premier League trophy, in 2004. Twenty-two years later, Martin Ødegaard gets his turn.
The Wait Is Over
There will be people who were not born when Arsenal last won the league. There are supporters who spent their entire adult lives watching this club come agonisingly close. Some will have watched Thierry Henry celebrate in 2004 on an old VHS tape, or grainy YouTube footage, wondering what it felt like.
Now they know.
The Premier League winner for 2025/26 is Arsenal. The north London wait of 22 years is finally over. And with a Champions League final still to come, the greatest season in Arsenal’s 140-year history is not finished yet.
