The more than one decade since then has yielded little success for the London club. Apart from a distant second-place finish in the league in 2015-16 as well as four FA Cup victories, Arsenal have clearly lagged behind England's leading clubs. Their absolute nadir came in 2020-21 when they finished eighth in the league and failed to qualify for European competition for the first time in 26 years.
However, Arsenal have completely flipped the script this season. They notched yet another impressive victory in a campaign full of them; a 1-0 win over Chelsea in a London derby. Gabriel Magalhães scored the only goal of the match; the result ensured that Arsenal would retain their two-point lead over Manchester City at the top of the Premier League.
If Arsenal were to, as expected, beat Wolverhampton Wanderers in their next league match, they will enter the World Cup break in first place in the league. Not even the most ardent Arsenal fans could have fathomed such a scenario at the beginning of the season.
During the most recent off-season, Arsenal saw Alexandre Lacazette, Bernd Leno, Lucas Torreira, and Héctor Bellerín leave the Emirates Stadium. In most of these cases, it was "addition by subtraction" as it had become clear that none of those four players really fit the plan that head coach Mikel Arteta had installed. As far as arrivals were concerned, Arsenal only made one major signing - but it has proven to have been an excellent pick. Manchester City's signing of Erling Haaland caused Gabriel Jesus to become surplus to requirements at the Etihad Stadium. Arsenal seized their opportunity and signed the Brazilian centre-forward for £45 million; it soon became apparent that they'd stolen a march on other top clubs by signing him when no other club had even been making inquiries.
Several Arsenal players have also shown significant year-to-year improvement when comparing their performances of this season to those of last. Notably, Martin Ødegaard, Magalhães, and Gabriel Martinelli are all in the midst of breakout seasons. Arsenal's decision to bring William Saliba back to the club following loan stints during each of the last three seasons has also been a masterstroke; those three years on loan have obviously turned him into a solid player who is clearly good enough to start for just about any top-tier club.
From a tactical standpoint, Arsenal have shown much progression. A great deal of credit here has to go to Arteta; in just one year, the Spaniard has gone from being likely to face the axe to one of the best coaches in the league. Arteta's new emphases on progressive passing and increased pressing intensity on defense have clearly done a great deal to benefit this team. Both of these elements were largely missing from their repertoire last season, however, this is clearly not the case anymore.
What makes things even more exciting for Arsenal is the relatively young age of their squad. The vast majority of Arsenal's key players are aged 25 or younger. If they are able to keep most of this core group together for the next two to three years, they might not only contend for Premier League titles; if everything goes just right, they may even end up having an outside shot at a Champions League title as well.
As if that weren't enough, this is an incredibly balanced squad. Despite being top of the league, no Arsenal players has been named man of the match more than twice this season. After just 13 matches, a total of nine Arsenal players have already claimed the accolade at least once. This statistic clearly testifies to the fact that Arsenal embody "next man up" mentality - it really could be anyone who steps forward and delivers a top performance.
There really is a lot to like about this Arsenal team. Could they really win the Premier League for the first time in 19 years? It's starting to look like a distinct possibility.
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