Arsenal put in all the work needed to rebuild and win a Premier League title without a sugar daddy – and they have some receipts to hand in.
This will be milked for quite a while.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
Taking the Mik
I’ve had a downer on Arsenal for a while (22 years) and I didn’t think Arteta had what it took to get the job done, especially after the January meltdown. I’ve never been happier to be wrong. Champions!
Matthew
Dear Editor,
Notwithstanding the two to three seasons where Arsenal should’ve won the league and just fell short, this title is a 22-year turnaround story in what it takes to build a club that wins the league.
We built a stadium, moved to that stadium, adjusted to new ground, rebuilt the operating and commercial models, paid down the stadium debt, moved out of the Wenger era against new vison, then ploughed resources into an Arterta-led team ready to compete at the highest level.
On top of this, built a club-wide mentality of winning in the face of bottler bollocks (looking at you too, Editor). This is a club wide transformation and Arsenal are a club primed for the future with a major trophy under their belts and about to enter a CL Final with a spring in their steps.
Without a sugar daddy, it takes 22 years to do this and win leagues.
Probably a hat-doffing moment to the Kroenke family, who have looked disinterested at times while in reality there was a sports-business transformation in front of our eyes.
What an effort. Gartner suggest 90% of transformations fail in their objectives. Arsenal have delivered emphatically.
Come on you gunners,
Alexander
READ MORE: Mourinho and Keane-angering pundit among those who believed in Arteta and Arsenal at their worst
What was the turning point?
I have only written twice here but have been an avid follower for over 15 years.With the joy of winning the league, I don’t know where to start from. May be I should ask some questions: If Arsenal had lost this league,
1. What would have gone through the minds of stars like Saka, Gabriel, Raya, Rice etc about remaining at the club?
2. How do you explain coming out 2nd in four consecutive seasons? Is it not better to just win one and go to 10th the following season?
3. What will happen to Arteta’ s career?
4. If we cannot win the league when Guardiola is around, won’t we be mocked if we later win it when he has left?
5. Have you imagined City pipping us to 2 trophies this season? Imagine the showboating of Cherki in the carabao final.
6. What would have happened to all the positive stats that we achieve during the season? Set piece, defense, Dowman, clean sheets etc
To me, I feel the turning point this season was the away win at Newcastle. We probably should have wrapped up the win earlier but maybe exhaustion and injuries affected us. At least Bournemouth atoned for beating us earlier. With the league won, I’m not even sure how I should celebrate. For now, I don’t care what happens on 30th May or even next season let me enjoy the moment.
Uruemuesiri Napoleon Okwadje from Nigeria (Maybe I can make my questions above into 16 conclusions)
Congratulations
I have to say I’ve never really liked Arsenal yet I’d like to congratulate them on winning this season. You deserve it and well played .
I was watching the City team day-dreaming who Jose’d like to poach and came up with at least Rodri , a Madrileño I believe , and Baldy Bernard who is a fellow Portuguese .
Mateo Kovačic possibly , he’s x madrid to boot . Anyway I reckon Mister Mourinho will do a decent job even if he’s a little past it .
Yet might he jettison Alexander-Arnold ?
I’d enjoy a clean sweep of euro trophies but even Arteta’s best IX having their best day don’t seem quite good enough to best Lucho’s PSG though, I suppose, stranger things have happened .
Good luck to Bolton Wanderers at Wembley . All the best .
Peter , Andalucia
Football. Bloody Hell.
Arsenal have gone from endless bottle job memes to champions of England and possibly champions of Europe in hyper quick time, even by modern football’s standards. Congratulations to them anyway. The best side wins the League, you can’t fluke it, there are no quarter finals against teams 65 places below you etc
They’ve every chance of beating PSG as well. Sure that silky French outfit remains terrific, but they lost to Chelsea in the World Club Cup final less than a year ago. They can lose this. What a massive anti bottling that would be.
In passing, I’m struggling to remember any other seasons that were declared *over* as often as in this one. Arsenal had definitely, yep 100 % won it, then City were no doubt about it, unquestionably champions and so on and so forth. It’s fun to predict the future but I think pretty much everyone was completely certain and yet utterly wrong at some point in the last 2 months.
Winning the League after so long without does feel extra special, as well us Liverpudlians know. Just try not to defend as embarrassingly sh*ttily as we have with our two recent titles.
That doesn’t feel so great strangely enough.
James, Liverpool P.S Just to add my voice to the deafening chorus, I really believe a word or two from Stewie would be in order now.
I remember reading this and laughing a few years ago.
Especially watching the Timber / Edu bit. As a neutral fan, and if Arteta is Marmite then I’m very much in the “hate it” side of the debate – not that Arsenal fans will care and fair enough.
As the premier league silhouette gets lit up, will there be revisionism about his methods? I hope not because that lightbulb stunt still kills me. But fair play his process won the league.
JC STFC
Well, they did it. It wasn’t pretty, but it won’t matter. The table rarely lies over 38 games. If you’re top at the end of it you deserve it.
Congrats to Arsenal!
JB (Now let’s never speak of this again)
Receipts
Now that Arsenal has done the unthinkable and shed the ‘bottlers’ tag with the monkey off their backs, there are a bunch of comedians, jokers, buccaneers out there who need to refund broadcasters hard earned money.
I am staring at Gary Nevile, Jamie Carragher, Rio Ferdinand, Obi Mikel, Paul scholes, among a host of doomsday prophets. You cannot collect money in the name of being pundits and all you do is pour vitriol at one club. Ho, Arteta this, Arteta that! Arsenal have no memory of being champions while Man City are used to the run-in! Nye nye nye nye nye.
These are the most clueless pundits out there. Even a chameleon shows greater consistency than them! The only genuine pundits were Rooney and Shearer who stuck to their guns and never wavered to the end. These alleged pundits secretly wish that the upcoming coaches would flop because they themselves never made the cut. Some even gave Liverpool the trophy before the season began, simply because Liverpool had spent half a billion dollars on new players! The same Liverpool is 23 points behind Arsenal yet after five matches, was 5 points ahead of Arsenal. That is a turn around of 28 points! If that is not being bottlers on the part of Liverpool, then I don’t know what does!
A big thank you to Everton and Bournemouth for your great contribution to Arsenal winning the Premier League.
Yiembe (Mombasa, Kenya).
Seeing a lot of ‘VARsenal’, and ‘Refs won the league’ comments in the mailbox. 2 things for you, brothers and sisters:
1. Keep ’em coming – It’s delicious
2. Maybe you should heed this advice given to us Arsenal fans by Matt from East Manchester in 2024:
“Just a thought but perhaps the refs are being harsh on because the players and fans are constantly whining, cheating little bitches. Just a thought”
Girish (been sitting on that one for a while), AFC, Chennai
“Arsenal play ugly football””They can’t even score without corners”
“The refs helped them this year”
“They have no bottle”
To you all, I say: There is only one thing that matters.
Look at the table, read the numbers, do the math.
Today, the Premier league is the toughest league in the world, and it is the toughest it has ever been IMO – Arsenal are champions of this league. If you don’t like it, your club should have played to Arsenal’s level this year….but nobody did.
Girish, AFC, Chennai (I haven’t lived there in 15+ years, which made me realize how long the league win has been coming)
Reading the mailbox, I just realized that the Celebration police never went away – they just evolved. Now that Arsenal have won the league, they can’t come out and say “don’t celebrate like you won anything”.
So instead they say “You aren’t as good as previous champions, and if it weren’t for XYZ, you wouldn’t have even won this”. Telling us Arsenal fans over and over again that we’re too big for our britches…
See, if you say that, you were not an Arsenal fan during the banter years. The years of 6-0 losses and 4th place memes (and ‘not even 4th place’ memes, after that). Ask yourself:
– Were you there for the “days since Arsenal last won a trophy” clock website?
– Were you there when we finally won a trophy and the clock reset, we were told the FA cup isn’t a real trophy?
– Were you there when Johnny Nic wrote on F365 and called Giroud “soft, with an effeminate gallop” when he played for Arsenal, and “functional, comparable to Dzeko” when he played for Chelsea? (I’m paraphrasing)
– Were you there to see us losing embarrassingly against a different big club every year? 8-2, 6-0, 5-1?
– Were you there when we’d get knocked out in the CL last 16 every single year? And always get knocked out because of that stupid away goals rule they used to have?
– Were you there when for some reason, we made questionable player purchases from Chelsea every year (actually, that might still be happening, but less bad now)
– Were you there for ‘Cohesion’? A summer window where we bought in Petr Cech and a prayer, only to finish 2nd behind Leicester?
– Were you there for Marouane Chamakh? Emmanuel Eboue? Gervinho? Our meme lord, Bendtner? How about Mustafi? David Luiz?
If you have not gone through these experiences, you would not and will never understand. And I do not expect you to understand. What I do want you to do is just watch us enjoy the delicious salt coming in from all directions.
As an Arsenal fan, I wish for Arsenal to be horribly nasty every game they play. To be Atletico, but with better attacking quality, and much better set-pieces. I wish they never stop being good at long throw-ins, and I hope one day Stoke make it back to the league, so we can play them and pound them into the Britannia dirt. When that happens, I want Tony Pulis to be temporarily appointed to their coaching staff, and then to be sent off, and then try to stand on top of the tunnel. I want Stewie to write in the mailbox the next day, and call Pulis “Dollar Store Arteta” (or whatever dumb name he comes up with).
I wish for Arsenal to be the bane of the league – I want every single team to groan when they see the fixture on the calendar, and try to come up with hilariously contradictory excuses as to why they should be able to tell Arsenal fans how to celebrate.
Keep these insults coming, but make the mails a little longer – I enjoy them a bit too much, and almost finished last time.
Girish (Also, Stewie’s probably going to send a long email that I am probably going to skip – but please know Stewie, that if you need a toaster for your bathtub tonight, I am happy to Fedex one to your doorstep), AFC, Chennai
Some wishful thinking
Dear Editor,
This might sound a bit conspiratorial but is Pep actually quitting City because he’s been told they are finally going to be punished for their 130 charges over the summer or next season? Can’t see him as the kind of guy who’d stick around for massive points deductions, financial punishments and even potential trophy erasure which means the club won’t be challengers for a few seasons (if ever again under their current ownership). He only ever rocked up at City for their “totally legit” spending power so has no real loyalty to the club anyway.
Cue all 4 City fans crying foul about how they din do nothin’ in the next mailbox.
William, Leicester
First of all Gunners, you’re welcome and did you receive my bouquet? My great grandfather was a seer but this was an easy call anyone with half a footballing brain could see the MV C115y heading towards an iceberg…
I for one am glad to see the back of Fraudiola who oversaw a highly dubious business enterprise that was involved in all manner of ills. I mean, how can you work for an employer who uses different accounts to top up your payslip? The accounting department at our noisy neighbors is so creative it’s true calling is in the arts and entertainment industry.
The bald one justified his continuous participation in this grand sporting heist by saying that his employers don’t lie to him and if he found out they lied he would walk away. But I know in his heart of hearts he knows that he was part of one of the biggest frauds in football.
And can we please stop debating who was the bestsst manager in the English game? Sir Alex Ferguson stands head and shoulders above Mr. Checkbook Manager.
It would be interesting to see where this charlatan goes next and so hilarious to see him trip over his laces when he doesn’t have Messi or money to help him overcome his limitations as a football manager…
Muthama Gitonga, Nyeri (Mount Kenya)
Where is Stewie?
Dear Stewie,
Fried, sauteed, boiled, poached, roasted….
Just some suggestions on how to cook your hat, or you could just eat it au naturel
Andrew Goonerabroad Brown
For the love of god my fellow Arsenal fans, stop talking about Stewie. He’s just a troll who writes in as multiple characters to this website to wind you all up and it’s worked. He’ll be reading all of these and loving it. You’re just contributing to him writing in again with one of his boring missives.
Let’s just enjoy the victory like normal people can we!
Andrew
Can someone check if he is still alive?
If so, please do ask him if he wants some cream with his humble pie.
Also, just checking we can celebrate now?
Oh yeah and CHAMPIONS!
Tom (you better believe I’m gonna be insufferable, London AFC)
Stewwwwwwwwwwwwie – ha – ha – how big is your hat bruv!
Statue – Arteta – Stewie – hat – eat – vid
LondonGooner (living in Oz – Goooooooooooooner)
Its all a bit quiet in here?!!!
Where is Stewie?
Abhi
Ask and you shall receive…
First things first: after 22 years of deflection, 4th place trophies, “CL qualification” and “playing the best football” virtual trophies, now you win an Actual PL trophy! Stewie can only offer a sincere congratulations to Arsenal and their legion of kool-aid drinking North London MAGA sycophants. This achievement will be up there with the discovery of penicillin, the internet and the ability to mute Taylor Swift music. It is beautiful to witness the TOTALLY BATSHIT SDS (Stewie Derangement Syndrome) – the very first thing on their minds, after 22 years of hilarious Losing, is to indulge in their SDS. Beautiful insecurity – I would have thought they would be spending time enthusing over endless replays of corner routines, or roaring wildly after the Viking Clogger won an 87th minute THROW-IN against relegated Burnley 😂😂 but… my dear Gooner MAGA friends, as is ever the case, a dose of reality is going to have to intrude upon our El Pulizon troupe.
Fact 1: It has taken Mikel Arteta 7 years and over 1.2 billion GBP to win a league title. For context, no other previous Premier League winner has ever spent close to that amount in order to win their first title. (See Slot, Mancini, Ranieri, etc). Having spent years calling Mourinho, Mancini, Ancelotti, Conte and Pep “chequebook managers”, what does that make Arteta?
Fact 2: Based on this title win, Arsenal (an alleged big club) can now brag about joining the pantheon of League 1 Leicester City, in winning a solitary PL title over a 22-year horizon.
Fact 3: There has not been a single past PL winner that has ever deployed the brand of terroristic, cynical, boko haram, ransomware football that we have witnessed this season. Try as they might, you will be hard pressed finding a team that relied more on set pieces, dodgy decisions and penalties to win a PL title. Again, Arsenal fans have spent 22 years telling us “I would hate to win that way” and that such soporific dross would “compromise their values”. In true MAGA fashion though, thoise ‘values’ are VERY flexible.
Fact 4: Arsenal fans have spent the past decade delegitimizing the title wins of their rivals – mainly Citeh, Liverpool (previously ManYoo) as a result of the PGMOL DEEP STATE conspiracy, we are all familiar with the refrain: the PL refs conspired to terminally defraud Arsenal of titles they would have otherwise easily won, were it not for those pesky refs going out of their way to give partisan decisions to the likes of Citeh and Liverpool. So let us examine the PGMOL DEEP STATE this victorious Arsenal season, because you cannot have it both ways, and deride your rivals’ successes “because of refs” and then overlook the scandalous decisions that have gone in Arsenal’s favour this season. I did say it is quite telling that North London MAGA has been dead silent about the PGMOL DEEP STATE (same way Trump supporters are strangely silent about presidential corruption these days hmmm)…,
Off the top of my head we have hadL: a PGMOL apology to Everton for the failure to award a last minute penalty for the foul by Saliba. Arsenal went on to win that match 1-0. There was yet another PGMOL apology, this time to Brighton, for the failure to award a clear and obvious penalty – in a match, you guessed it, Arsenal won 1-0. Gabriel butting Haaland, Haaland being a standup pro and not indulging in the Arteta arts…Gabriel would have seen red and missed the final PL matches. Then literally last night, the ashtray commits a horrendous “tackle” and is somehow let off. Tally the impact of those potential lost points, and then let us talk about the PGMOL DEEP STATE FAKE CORRUPTED PROCESS! Aaaaah wait – it’s not an issue when you’re the beneficiary!
Fact 5: it has taken Arsenal FC a spend of over 1.7 billion GBP to win a PL title, since they last won one in 2004. For a group of fans who have spent the past 22 years enthusing us with their Fake Adam Smith batshit foolosophising about “financial doping” and “chequebook managers” – again, you live by the sword…not one Arsenal fan can have the gumption to whine about teams “buying success” because from where I am standing, it has taken a gargantuan sum of lucre for Arsenal to match Leicester’s achievement
Fact 6: Arsenal fans spent years telling us that there was “more than winning” and “there are different ways to evaluate success”. They told us that the rest of us who insisted that the primary metric was Trophies, and the major ones, were a bunch of intellectual philistines, who failed to understand the intricacies of “the virtual morality trophy” Arsenal would persistently win. Now, suddenly, a whiff of success and it is a complete volte-face. Does that mean they willingly accept now (after 22 years of dissembling, bullshit, conspiracy theories, Pulizon-eroticism, insanity)….do they now admit – very much in the dishonesty of the Republican manner – that they were talking out of their arses that entire time? Or, will they bait and switch, and attempt to tell us to ignore the evidence of our eyes and ears? Again, the parallels are with Trump supporters thinking a Trump election win is “vindication” for their years of batshit Pizzagate conspiracy theories and Fake theories It really isn’t lads.
Again, it might not seem like the warmest congratulations, but sincerely though, well done. I will be consistent and concur that although El Pulizon ranks nowhere near the long list of managerial heavyweights, he won, and the game is about winning. Fair play to El Pulizon on that, no argument there.
Enjoy the success. Arsenal fans insist they care not a jot what the rest of the world thinks, but never have I witnessed a bunch of “winners” in any sport, go to such painful, laborious ends, to explain away their success. I am just surprised some of youse lot don’;t scream out “STEWIE” in the middle of intimacy at this rate?! 😂😂😂
Stewie Griffin (It is the billionaire who has spent 1 billion GBP trying to lose his virginity, showing off about finally achieving it. Ok. I mean, the dude flipping chicken at the local KFC managed it with a bargain bucket and just 2 quid in his pocket but yeah, cool achievement bro)
