Arsenal's 2025–26 Season: Champions at Last
Twenty-two years. Three straight second-place finishes. More "next year" conversations than I can count. And then, on 19 May 2026, Man City drew 1–1 at Bournemouth and it was over: Arsenal are champions of England, with a game to spare. It's our 14th league title and the first since the Invincibles.
I've rewritten the opening line of this post in my head for years. Here's the season that finally let me write it.
🏆 Premier League: Champions at Last
We finished seven points clear of Manchester City, with the meanest defence in the division again.
Final Record:
- Position: 1st
- Points: 85
- Wins: 26
- Draws: 7
- Losses: 5
- Goals Scored: 71
- Goals Conceded: 27 (fewest in the league)
- Goal Difference: +44
City finished on 78. This wasn't always pretty. We won eight league games 1–0. But a title won on clean sheets counts exactly the same.
🛒 The Summer That Changed Everything
Last year I wrote that we needed a striker and that we had to be "the best in the market". For once, the club listened:
| Signing | From |
|---|---|
| Viktor Gyökeres | Sporting CP |
| Martín Zubimendi | Real Sociedad |
| Eberechi Eze | Crystal Palace |
| Noni Madueke | Chelsea |
| Piero Hincapié (loan) | Bayer Leverkusen |
| Cristhian Mosquera | Valencia |
| Christian Nørgaard | Brentford |
| Kepa Arrizabalaga | Chelsea |
Gyökeres finished as top scorer with 21 goals in all competitions (14 in the league). Zubimendi made the midfield calm. Eze took a big-game role straight away. The whole summer felt like the squad finally matched the manager's ambition.
🔑 Key Matches & Turning Points
- Man United 0–1 Arsenal (Aug): Calafiori's header at Old Trafford set the tone.
- Arsenal 5–0 Leeds (Aug): Two each for Timber and Gyökeres. We meant business.
- Arsenal 4–1 Tottenham (Nov): An Eberechi Eze hat-trick in the North London Derby. Pure joy.
- Arsenal 2–3 Man United (Jan): Our first home league defeat, and a reminder that nothing would be handed to us.
- Tottenham 1–4 Arsenal (Feb): Back-to-back 4–1 derby wins. Eze and Gyökeres both scored twice at their place.
- West Ham 0–1 Arsenal (May): Trossard's late winner, then a stoppage-time Callum Wilson "equaliser" ruled out by VAR for a foul on Raya. My heart is still recovering.
- Arsenal 1–0 Burnley (May 18): Havertz headed in a Saka corner, which was Saka's 50th Premier League assist. City needed to win at Bournemouth the next night. They didn't.
😰 The April Wobble
I won't pretend I was calm. In less than a month we lost the Carabao Cup final, went out of the FA Cup, lost 2–1 at home to Bournemouth and then lost 2–1 at the Etihad. A big lead shrank to three points, and City had a game in hand. All the old ghosts came back.
This team didn't fold. We won all five remaining league games: Newcastle, Fulham, West Ham, Burnley and Crystal Palace. Previous Arsenal sides would have cracked. This one didn't.
🌍 Champions League: Heartbreak in Budapest
Our European campaign was almost perfect:
- League phase: Won all eight games, the first team ever to do that in the new format. Highlights included a 4–0 against Atlético and a 3–1 against Bayern.
- Round of 16: Leverkusen 1–1 Arsenal, Arsenal 2–0 Leverkusen (3–1 agg)
- Quarter-final: Sporting 0–1 Arsenal, Arsenal 0–0 Sporting (1–0 agg), with a stoppage-time Havertz winner in Lisbon
- Semi-final: Atlético 1–1 Arsenal, Arsenal 1–0 Atlético (2–1 agg), with Saka scoring the winner at the Emirates
- Final (30 May, Budapest): PSG 1–1 Arsenal after extra time. PSG won 4–3 on penalties.
Havertz scored inside six minutes and I genuinely believed. Dembélé equalised from the spot, and after Eze and Gabriel missed in the shootout, PSG retained the trophy. We didn't lose a single match in 120 minutes all campaign and still came home without the cup. It hurts. Reaching the final is still a huge step for this club.
🏆 Domestic Cups: A Wembley Day to Forget
- Carabao Cup: We beat Port Vale and Brighton, got past Palace on penalties, and beat Chelsea 4–2 on aggregate in the semi-final, thanks to a 97th-minute Havertz winner in the second leg. In the final on 22 March, Nico O'Reilly scored twice and Man City won 2–0.
- FA Cup: Wins over Portsmouth (4–1, a Martinelli hat-trick), Wigan and Mansfield, then a 2–1 quarter-final defeat at Championship side Southampton. That one stung.
City went on to win the FA Cup as well. They took both domestic cups, and we took the one that mattered most.
🌟 Standout Players
- David Raya: His third straight Golden Glove, with 19 league clean sheets.
- Gabriel & William Saliba: The foundation of the league's best defence. Gabriel weighed in with four goals too.
- Viktor Gyökeres: 21 goals and 24 goal involvements, the most in the squad. He was exactly the focal point we'd been missing.
- Eberechi Eze: Two derby performances I'll remember for the rest of my life.
- Declan Rice: The engine, again, and dangerous from set pieces.
- Max Dowman: He became the Premier League's youngest ever scorer at 16, and its youngest ever title winner.
Set pieces were a weapon all season. Arsenal scored 36 non-penalty set-piece goals in all competitions, 27 of them from corners, more than any other side in Europe's top five leagues.
🎉 Final Day at Selhurst Park
On 24 May we won 2–1 at Crystal Palace, with goals from Gabriel Jesus and Madueke. Then Ødegaard lifted the Premier League trophy. Confetti, champagne, "North London Forever" from the Arsenal fans, and the players throwing Arteta into the air. Eze even got a warm reception from his old fans when he came on.
I watched it more times than I'd like to admit.
🏁 Conclusion: The Wait Is Over
For years I wrote that the window was narrowing. This season, Arteta's team went through it. We had the best defence in the land, a striker who scored, and the character to survive an April that would have broken past Arsenal sides.
Budapest will sting for a while. But we are champions of England, and nothing can take that away.
Come on you Gunners.