The inside story behind Arsenal’s first Premier League title in 22 years and the people behind this historic success
Arsenal are Premier League champions and the temptation is to look immediately at Mikel Arteta and the work the Spaniard has done to secure the Gunners their first top-flight success in 22 years. And you would be right, because the bulk of the transformation of the club is directly tied to the 44-year-old’s strategy, philosophy and decision-making.
But the inside story of this success goes back further, and it would be remiss to begin any later than with the last manager to lift the same trophy, Arsene Wenger. The move to the Emirates Stadium in 2006 came with promises.
“We had to do it,” Wenger said during his final briefing as Arsenal manger in May 2018. “There is no club that can turn people who wanted to attend the game down. At the time I thought we were a bit too ambitious with 60,000 but at the end of the day it worked.”
To make it happen, sacrifices had to be made. Arsenal began to fall behind the mega-rich clubs like Manchester United but more so Manchester City and Chelsea, backed by foreign millions.
Until 2018, Arsenal’s ownership was split into shareholders with Stan Kroenke the majority holder until he bought out Alisher Usmanov triggering a buyout of the remaining shares to take full control as sole owner.
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Despite showing willingness to invest under a self-sustaining model from 2013 when the club broke its transfer record for Mesut Ozil, and then a year later with Alexis Sanchez, their rivals were still spending at a far higher level. The full takeover in 2018 has ended up being the catalyst for the changes which have eventually led to this point.
Many fans at the time had serious reservations, and even after deals for the likes of Nicolas Pepe in 2018 for £72million, the Super League fiasco in 2021 only damaged that relationship.
By this time, Arteta had been appointed, and progress was far from immediate despite lifting the FA Cup in 2020. Arteta lifted the lid in his press conference ahead of the clash with Burnley that what he experienced while a coach at Manchester City of Arsenal’s culture and fan environment affected him.
“It was the first thing because a few days before I was appointed here, I was on the other bench with Man City and that image, that feeling of the stadium, the crowd…” he explained. “50% of the stadium was empty.
“It really got into me. I said, with this, there is no project, there is anything that we’re not going to do. This is not going to work.
“Unfortunately it got worse very quickly because then COVID hit and then instead of 50% we have zero. So you make the job even harder.
“So after that we had to rebuild everything. But when it’s harder at the beginning, then it’s better. So to see that transformation and that joy on the people, it’s something that is beautiful to watch.”
But what Josh Kroenke, who is credited with having a stronger hand on the Arsenal tiller than his father Stan Kroenke from an executive level standpoint, has done is backed his manager. Serious investment just shy of £1billion has been spent on players.
Arsenal had spent before, but not to this level, nor with this effectiveness. Former technical director and then sporting director Edu Gaspar helped Arteta build a side capable of competing.
It was not a perfect process, and mistakes were made, but the net gains outweighed the losses considerably, and that became apparent to the sport none more so than in 2022/23.
It followed a season embroiled in publicised chaos and embarrassment. The Amazon All or Nothing documentary exposed the drama of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s departure, along with the growing division amongst supporters and their views toward the manager.
Worse still, Tottenham Hotspur had pipped them to qualification for the UEFA Champions League, having beaten them in damaging circumstances under Antonio Conte, before Arteta watched an injured Arsenal backline be cut apart at Newcastle United as control over fourth spot was relinquished.
The following summer, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko arrived. Two Premier League winners with Man City, which had been outgrown in the northeast with the arrivals of Erling Haaland and the emergence of Joao Cancelo.
Despite all the focus on finishing in the top four, Arsenal would blow apart all expectations and instead challenge for the league title. They would fall short, but this campaign began the shift in belief for many of those who were doubting Arteta.
football.london understands that even within the club, many were shocked by just how rapidly Arteta was managing to extract title-challenging quality from the group. And it was not only internally, because externally players like Declan Rice and Kai Havertz, who would make switches from fellow London clubs, recognised the potential to win the biggest of trophies in the north of the capital.
Recruitment has been at the heart of the success which has been witnessed this season. Arteta has bought players who, when compared to the sides of the 2010s, besides a small handful of exceptions, are simply on another planet in terms of quality.
Arteta has shaped Bukayo Saka into one of the world’s best wingers. He had to be humble in welcoming back William Saliba into the team in 2022, despite initial friction and doubt on both sides that a future at Arsenal would materialise as it has.
Every year, progress continued to be made either domestically or on the continent. Reaching the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League for the first time in 14 years, then a semi-final the following season, whilst putting five goals past the European champions Real Madrid, even despite both centre-forwards being absent and Mikel Merino taking the reins.
But 2025/26 has been a truly remarkable season filled with criticism, noise and nerves. The summer spending, which came close to £300million in value, added even more pressure.
But the three successive runners-up placements had fans hungry and expectant. There is little doubt that Arteta has wrestled with this.
At one press conference, he jokingly asked why there had been no questions surrounding his side’s qualification for next season’s Champions League. A feat which previously was effectively the club’s main aim.
He would clash with supporters in the stands behind the dugouts, calling for calm when instead the baying crowd wanted his side to be aggressive, more urgent. Arteta had raised the standards of the club; he had raised the expectations and had equally made his position far more vulnerable to judgment.
Make no mistake, this Premier League title is an incredible achievement which cements Arteta’s place as one of the club’s greatest coaches. But, the alternative, no matter how difficult, challenging, and taxing it is to be an established contender for the world’s toughest league, anything other than this would have sparked fierce scrutiny.
But that’s where Arteta’s side have thrived. All the talk of nerves, and noise, this Arsenal team offers opponents so little.
Harry Maguire, in a recent sit-down with Ian Wright, praised the Gunners and highlighted that despite being on one of the very few winning sides this season that Arsenal have faced, to do so required incredible strikes from distance to achieve it alongside an out-of-character error from Martin Zubimendi.
“They give you nothing… so solid defensively,” he said. “We beat them at the Emirates but scored two worldies.”
Arsenal of the 2010s had become the butt of the joke for many supporters of rival clubs. It was easy to laugh at the sleeping giant that never competed and sat in this purgatorial state unable to beat Barcelona or Bayern Munich in the last-16 in the Champions League.
Not anymore. Arsenal are feared, so much so that this season the scrutiny externally went to new heights.
Questions around the club’s success with set-pieces culminated in the biggest VAR call of Premier League history at West Ham. A decision was taken correctly to rule out Callum Wilson’s late equaliser for a foul on David Raya.
Days later, the Key Match Incidents panel found that Everton had been mistakenly not awarded a penalty when Bernardo Silva clashed with Merlin Rohl. But the level of coverage of the decision, which was among the most influential in this season’s title race, has evaporated almost as quickly as it started.
Siege mentality was something initially shunned, but Arteta has embraced that this season, admitting as much in a press conference. Eberechi Eze was asked about the noise this season with a simple response: “I don’t care.”
And Arsenal haven’t. They’ve shut out the talk, railed against the agendas and overcome the challenge.
Arsenal are Premier League champions and Mikel Arteta’s team of warriors are set to do battle one more time in Budapest. To become double winners, to become heroes in their fans’ eyes, to become the Unforgettables.
