Arsenal’s final frontier is the league title — to reach it they must win today

There comes a time when every club must seize the day and for the Gunners that time has come

The last two decades have not been kind to Arsenal, one of the Premier League’s big two at the turn of the century, peaking with a title 20 years ago, and then subject more than any other to the convulsions in the football economy created by the world’s super-rich.
First the strategy behind the Emirates Stadium move was upended by the Roman Abramovich revolution. Five years later came the Abu Dhabi takeover at Manchester City and a new ownership who recognised that chipping choice parts off the Arsenal squad was as good a way as any to establish themselves and weaken a rival. The financial basket case that is Barcelona now were aggressive in signing Arsenal players — and accumulating the debts that now threaten to bury them.
What next? It is a question worth asking at Arsenal after 20 years in which everything has changed. They arrived in the 21st century, and two more league titles in the 2000s, with a remarkable record of success in multiple eras – they had won the league in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It was a tradition built on the ruthlessly pragmatic decision to move them north of the river to Highbury in 1913. They face Manchester City today with, to the cursory glance, a sunnier outlook than for many years.
City are in their death-match with the Premier League over charges in excess of 100, the most serious case in scale ever brought by English football authorities against a club in the game’s history. Chelsea, without Abramovich, are much less of a certainty — and they have the prospect of charges themselves. Manchester United are still owned by the Glazer family. Arsenal, like Liverpool, have found a new way to survive, and that comeback viewed from the vantage point of recent lows, 2018 in particular, looks promising.
The final frontier is a league title, and to do that then surely Arsenal must win at the Etihad Stadium. The caveat is that City have not lost at the Etihad for 47 games in any competition in 90 minutes or extra-time. Even the last defeat on Nov 12, 2022, against Brentford, was an anomaly. Real Madrid won there in May 2022 with three goals after the 89th-minute had elapsed. Liverpool had won 3-2 there in the FA Cup in April. Harry Kane scored in the 95th minute for Tottenham in a 3-2 win in February. They were all skin-of-the-teeth plunders. There is no roadmap for this kind of result.
Perhaps Arsenal never will. Instead, maybe the Premier League’s outgunned legal team will do Arsenal’s work for them — by pulling off the equivalent of an Etihad away win and triumphing in their case against City, the inevitable appeal, and all else that comes their way. Given City have already beaten Uefa and the Premier League lost to Leicester City last time out, that feels a long shot. Maybe Arsenal can count on enough points being dropped by City elsewhere.
Yet in the Arsenal title-winning seasons culminating in 1998 and 2002, Arsene Wenger’s teams went to the home of the dominant club of the era — Old Trafford — and won. Both were seminal games. Marc Overmars’ goal in March 1998. Then Sylvain Wiltord’s winner four years later.
If City avoid defeat today they will go one better than the Wenger Arsenal side’s record 32-game home unbeaten streak in 2004. Of course, winning at the Etihad would not necessarily guarantee Arsenal the title — but it would certainly help.
The 0-0 draw between the sides last season, which followed eight straight years of defeat for Arsenal in the league at City, was a game in which this Arsenal team were widely regarded to have come of age. It was the first clean sheet for an away team at the Etihad in 882 days. But Arsenal did not finish the season as champions. “These guys, they don’t want to beat us,” Guardiola reflected on that game at the end of the season, “they just want to draw.”
Maybe he had a point — for Arsenal last season, a draw at the Etihad felt like a win. But it cannot always be like that. They are not just a richly talented collection of players capable of playing very good football — they are in their peak years. Mikel Arteta has introduced that crucial cynicism when it comes to the art of game management. They will break up momentum with treatment. David Raya hits long routinely, his kick-off routine is a case in point. The ball goes back to Raya 15 yards out of his area, the centre-halves block any press and then Arsenal go direct, seeking to pin an opponent in.
The consistency of their set-pieces, under the new specialist coach, Nicolas Jover, are excellent. Arsenal’s first choice full-backs, Ben White and Justin Timber, are converted centre-backs — an approach Guardiola has adopted too. Even without Martin Odegaard in Manchester they are, in terms of confidence and development, as likely as any other.
These big moments creep up on clubs. A break in the clouds for Arsenal as the game settles down in the current era to one governed more to its advantage. An excellent coach, with a rich and varied playing career, who wants to do anything to win. That is a point worth making about Arteta — he is no Guardiola clone, despite the long City apprenticeship. There are obvious similarities but many divergences too. Every manager and every club has to seize their moment. Because when the game changes again — governance, wealth, power — you never know how long it might be before you are truly competitive again.