Morning all.
I feel like there’s too much stuff today. I can’t really keep up. I’m flitting from one thing to to the next to the next and it’s all just a lot. Maybe I need to break it down into separate bits. I suppose we should start with the game.
Crystal Palace 1-2 Arsenal
This was certainly a team selection with more than one eye on Budapest. A start for Christian Norgaard, Martin Zubimendi at right-back, Max Dowman in midfield, and Gabriel Jesus getting the nod up front told you plenty about what was at stake in this one. To be fair though, I thought we played well.
Kepa had to make a good save at one point, but otherwise the chances were all ours. To be more precise, they were all for Jesus. He hit the post, didn’t make the most of a one on one after being sent through by Noni Madueke, and headed wide at the back post. Gabriel Martinelli also had a decent sight of goal but was defended well.
Then a Dowman flick sent the Brazilian winger through, he dinked it into the path of Jesus who finished at the near post for 1-0. Early in the second half, Madueke made it 2-0 when he fired home after substitute Kai Havertz nodded a corner down into his path. After which Palace’s performance was very obviously informed by their European final on Wednesday. Not a lot happened.
Then, right at the death, Jean Philippe-Mateta scored with a nice header to make it 2-1, and a couple of minutes later it was 2-2 until that goal – which did feel a bit party-pooper-ish despite the fact it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things – was ruled out for offside. Viktor Gyokeres and Eberechi Eze had chances to add to our tally but couldn’t quite apply the requisite finishes. The full-time whistle blew and results elsewhere meant the gap at the top in the final standings was 7 points.
Then we got …
Television purgatory
There was little drama on the final day but, with West Ham winning, a Sp*rs defeat would provide some of that. They were 1-0 up on Everton, and didn’t look like conceding really, so while Palace rightly had their own final day celebrations, we were subjected to West Ham sadness, Sp*rs happiness, and about 37 ad breaks which lasted around 3 hours each.
It was interminable. I realise they were subject to what was going on at Selhurst Park, and that the focus would on us soon enough, but it was kinda painful. I watched some of the coverage via arsenal.com until such time as the podium was constructed and we were ready to. Ready for …
The trophy lift
This is where it feels like too much. After I finish this blog, I’m going to go back and watch it all again because I’m sure I’ve missed so much. The staff came out, the manager appeared wearing a home shirt. 10 years since he last pulled it on as an Arsenal player when he said goodbye on May 15th 2016, he had it on once more with CHAMPIONS 2026 on the back.
One by one the players got their medals and made their way to the podium. Finally, captain Martin Odegaard took the trophy we’ve waited for for so long, did the now customary shuffle and raised it high above his head as his teammates erupted in celebration behind him. They took turns having a go. Ben White pretended to pull down Piero Hincapie’s shorts. I love Ben White.
Arteta had a go, twirling, twirling, always twirling. A man who has lived and breathed this journey with a kind of intensity and drive that must be exhausting in its relentless pursuit of success, now liberated. Free. Happy. Relieved. Joyous. One of his kids tried to hand him what looked like a Man City branded water bottle. He just laughed. The players gave him the bumps, at one point throwing him so high I hoped it was David Raya doing the catching and not Kepa.
The Arsenal fans inside Selhurst Park were in full voice, the entire repertoire of songs rang out for players present and past, for the club and the team. William Saliba, a man who loves a celebration, always knew where the camera was and made sure everyone knew he knew.
Gyokeres did the Gyokeres celebration with the fans doing the Gyokeres celebration behind him. David Raya wore the outfield shirt but also his gloves! The Hale End boys were there. Myles and Max and most of all Bukayo Saka who has done so much on this journey. He took a moment to replicate that sad picture from some years ago where he sat disconsolate on the pitch insisting that Arsenal fans deserved better, but this time with the Premier League trophy in front of him. He said it, he helped deliver it. This was definitely better.
Some of them came over to have a word with Sky Sports, with Ian Wright at the centre of their coverage. How lovely. A man who arrived at Arsenal via Palace all those years ago, and who has been on this journey as a fan in the same way all of us have been, was there on that pitch to soak it all up. Who else could it have been?!
Mikel Arteta admitted he harboured doubts along the way:
To sometimes think, I’ve been able to take them all the way here, but maybe somebody else has to come IN and do the final job. But thank God we’ve done it, and I feel a lot of joy and honestly a little bit of relief.
Martin Odegaard praised the character of the team through tough times, particularly the poor results against Bournemouth and Wolves:
There were moments in the season when we felt really down and really angry, really frustrated. I think after those games, we spoke as a team. Everyone spoke up, you know, we said what we felt.
Everyone was speaking, you know, it was a really honest conversation, and I think the way we reacted to every setback this season has been absolutely amazing.
Declan Rice on the ‘It’s not done’ at Man City, and whether that was what he believed or if it was for his teammates:
I believed it 100% because I took a lot from that game. But it was also to comfort my teammates as well, and calm everyone down because there were still five games to go. It wasn’t like it was the last game of the season.
That was a moment that could have gone down in the folklore of failure. Similar to Steve McMahon’s ‘1 minute’ gesture in 1989, or Steven Gerrard’s ‘We do not less this slip’ and his subsequent slip which went some way to cost Liverpool the title that season. It would have been something that haunted Declan Rice forever, regardless of what he ever won afterwards, and now it’s the stuff of legend.
Bukayo Saka on Arsenal being the butt of online criticism down the years:
It’s done. No more jokes, man. It’s our time.
Arsenal co-chair Josh Kroenke, responding to a question about what it means to him and his family as owners of the club:
You can see it, feel it, hear it behind me. I think the entire fan base, the global fan base, all supporters, are overcome with emotion after 22 years. And if anybody deserves it, it’s this group, for sure.
There’s so much more. I mean, I haven’t even mentioned the fact that …
North London is red …
It is, but hang on. Correction …
Everywhere is red …
Like you I saw the queues for the Arsenal pubs start early in the morning on a beautiful day in London. I saw the streets packed with people in red and white and every other kind of Arsenal shirt. I saw people congregate around the stadium and surrounding areas as they did on Tuesday night. To have been in North London yesterday must have been very, very special. Memories that will live forever, I’m sure. Even late last night here in Dublin someone was letting off fireworks. It might have been random but from my back garden, as I sipped a final nightcap, I’m sure it was an Arsenal fan firing rockets into the sky (from around the Rathmines area if you’re reading!).
But those celebrations were replicated all over the world. Supporters clubs and bars in every corner of the world coming together to share the happiness and the joy of winning the title after so long. Today will be a day to try and consume as much of that as possible.
Arsenal is 100% a London club, specifically a North London club, whose place within the community is part of the DNA of the area in so many ways. But Arsenal is more than that. We are a global phenomenon. A club that touches the heart and soul of people whose cultures and languages are distinct, who are separated by thousands of miles from the epicentre of N5, people of every shape and size and creed and colour, but who share one very simple thing – love of Arsenal Football Club.
Everyone, whether at Selhurst Park or back in Islington or India or Africa or America or Down Under or wherever they watched last night, were united in something pure. Something that feels simple – winning more football matches than anyone else – but which is extraordinarily difficult to achieve as we well know. We’ve all been on a 22 year journey, and the destination is our happy place. I hope wherever you celebrated last night, you had the best time with family and friends and, perhaps more importantly, complete strangers whose only connection to you is a shirt and a badge. What a shirt and badge though. The best one.
I know I’ve said this before, and I wrote a lot last week after we knew we’d won it about what it all means, but this is a journey I feel very privileged to have been on with so many of you. The other day I sat down and replied to emails for about 3 hours, and I’ve barely made a dent in my inbox. If you sent something, I’m not ignoring you, I’m just inundated and slightly overwhelmed, but I’ll get there in the end. Please be patient.
I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what happened yesterday. Everyone will have their own favourite moment from the trophy lift and what happened afterwards. As I said, I’m going to go back and watch it all once more, to soak it up and feel those feelings again. I like those feelings a lot.
But the bottom line is this: Arsenal are Premier League Champions 2025-26. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s here now, the trophy is ours, and there’s nothing anyone can say or do to diminish this. Enjoy every delicious morsel.
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Right, I’m gonna leave it there for now, but you can join myself and James a bit later for what promises to be a fun Arsecast Extra. We’ll put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com in while, so when that happens fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.
We’ll have the pod out for you around lunchtime, so stand-by. In the meantime, I think there’s plenty out there to keep you occupied!