How will Arsenal of 2026 be remembered?

Illustration: Demetrius Robinson/The Athletic; Photos: Justin Setterfield, Alex Pantling / Getty Images, Larry Ellis / Daily Express / Hulton Archive / Getty Images, Peter Robinson / EMPICS via Getty Images

“I mean it when I say we don’t just want to win this cup. We want to win it playing good football, to make neutrals glad we’ve done it, glad to remember how we did it.”

On the morning of May 25, 1967, shortly before Celtic became the first British club, and first from northern Europe, to win the European Cup — today’s Champions League — their legendary manager, Jock Stein, said these words to the great Scottish reporter Hugh McIlvanney.

Stein and McIlvanney shared a distaste for Celtic’s opponents that day in Lisbon, Inter, under their notorious Argentine coach, Helenio Herrera. Neither Scot could deny Herrera’s Inter success — this was their third European Cup final in four seasons, and they had won the previous two. But McIlvanney referred to their “neurotic caution” in the 1965 edition against Benfica and wrote in The Observer of how Herrera “was still held in awe by people who felt the statistics of his record justified the sterility of his methods”.

Celtic won, 2-1, and Portuguese sports daily Mundo Desportivo rejoiced. It deplored Inter’s “refusal to play entertaining football”.

And so Stein had two trophies: the European Cup and the smiles of neutrals.

Which brings us to Arsenal 2026.

More than half a century after Stein spoke of the significance of how you win, Mikel Arteta has at times appeared indifferent that few beyond the Arsenal fanbase are glad they have been crowned Premier League champions for the first time since 2004.

Neutrals have found Arsenal 2025-26 resistible. Scepticism has been long and broad: in March, Brighton head coach Fabian Hurzeler said “that’s not football, what Arsenal did there” following their 1-0 win on the south coast. Pundit and former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel has been a consistent critic, calling them “ugly”. Even former Arsenal Premier League winner Emmanuel Petit said “I get bored sometimes” watching this season’s version of his old team.

Arteta hears it all and says things like: “What. A. Surprise.”

The idea that he is oblivious, even antagonistic, to external sentiment could be a hard interpretation of his mindset, though. Perhaps, just to get Arsenal across the line first again after 22 years, Arteta has been prepared to tolerate short-term national unease.

“It’s about playing the best possible football you can, (amid) the game’s demands,” he said before the 2-0 win against Everton later in March — when the goals came in minutes 89 and 97. “That’s it.”

Such statements say Arteta is uninterested in wider recognition. He is resigned that in the future, when Arsenal 2025-26 are remembered, it will be for their ends, not their means. Adjectives like functional, mechanical and pragmatic will come. Hurzeler’s “not football” will be mentioned. So, too, ‘Set Piece FC’.

That’s it. Or is it?

Arteta is capable of evocative language. Speaking to Spanish newspaper Marca three years ago about how he viewed a club he’d captained from outside prior to his 2019 return as head coach, he said: “I saw the soul of the club had been lost.”

Along the way since, he has in fact frequently been described as too emotional. Maybe Arteta took it in when Jose Mourinho said: “Poets, they don’t win many titles.”

From Arteta’s perspective, how this Arsenal side enter the history books is secondary to them actually doing so. His team finished second last season on 74 points, second the season before on 89 and second the season before that on 84. To have been second again would have been crushing. “Second again, ole, ole.” It stings.

Second is not nowhere, despite what some say — we will come onto that. But in professional sport, coming second is a habit to break.

Winning the title will be seen internally at Arsenal — and by some outside observers — as the culmination of six-and-a-half years’ work, not one season’s corner kicks. But that Arsenal effectively clinched it on Monday night with a header from a corner against already-relegated Burnley feels emblematic. It is only 12 days since neutrals raged over their 1-0 victory at West Ham due to the disallowing of a late equaliser at a corner.

Will Arteta care Arsenal have not made neutrals glad? Probably not.

Will he and Arsenal evolve from here? Probably.

It could be argued their evolution has already begun.

In the spring run-in, that Everton match delivered the exuberant scene of Max Dowman, 16, running down the pitch to score the second goal into an empty net, the stadium reacting in real time like a Tour de France crowd hollering home the yellow jersey at the top of Mont Ventoux.

Then came Eberechi Eze’s spectacular volley against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League — so good it overshadowed Declan Rice’s magnificent second. Eze, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Leandro Trossard, Myles Lewis-Skelley and Dowman: these are natural footballers, not athletes. They should give Arsenal a different profile, but a joyless performance, such as in the Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester City in late March, counters appreciation.

‘Quadruple’ talk vanished that afternoon, but not the cliche of boring, boring Arsenal. It is too ingrained, and ‘Corner-kick champions’ will follow their team of 2025-26.

That is not just a neutrals’ debate. The Athletic’s Arsenal podcast, Handbrake Off, has dwelled repeatedly on style, a season-long gnaw.

After the drab Champions League quarter-final first leg at Leverkusen, the discussion touched on the “special moments” created by the likes of Fede Valverde at Real Madrid and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia at Paris Saint-Germain. Amy Lawrence pointed out that, while Arsenal possess that type of player, there is a level of inhibition.

“The click we’ve been waiting for all season shows no real sign of being imminent,” she said, before adding prophetically that maybe “Max Dowman could come on and change the temperature”.

Forty-eight hours later, Dowman did just that versus Everton, providing one of the images of the season. “One of the best moments that we lived together at the Emirates,” said Arteta.

The stadium felt different then, roused by a new connection. Long-time Arsenal watchers may have seen a comparison with Tony Adams’ famous volley — also against Everton — in the sun-dappled last home game of the 1997-98 season. Arsenal then had not been champions for seven years. It was Arsene Wenger’s first title.

The infectious jubilation of Tuesday night’s scenes outside the stadium was reminiscent of then, but in the long run will it eat into the perception established over the course of the season, as caught by the UK’s Daily Telegraph in early April after an edgy Arsenal wrestled their way past Sporting CP to the Champions League semi-final? Its headline began ‘Unimaginative Arsenal scrape into…’

Maybe the handbrake will come off. Some neutrals may be glad for the simple fact Arsenal are a third different Premier League winner in three seasons. Variety matters.

Reputations, deserved or otherwise, endure and can taint memory. Unlikely as it may sound, rather than Wenger’s Arsenal of 1998 or 2004, Don Revie’s 1960s Leeds United offer an echo for Arteta’s new champions.

When Revie became player/manager of Leeds in March 1961, they were about to finish 14th in the old Second Division. The club had never won a major trophy. As a sporting town, Leeds was known for rugby league.

Under Revie, over the course of the next 13 seasons, Leeds won promotion, were champions of England twice, won the League Cup, the FA Cup and twice lifted the Fairs Cup (the forerunner of the UEFA Cup, now the Europa League).

Between 1965 and 1972, Leeds finished second in the league on five occasions. Five. They lost three FA Cup finals and two European finals, too. Revie’s Leeds were close to being one of the greatest teams in the history of English football. Yet when his teams are recalled today, it is usually via a two-word phrase recognising none of this: ‘Dirty Leeds.’

It is their ‘Boring Arsenal’, and it’s an unfair and incorrect reduction. But as with Arsenal 2026, Revie and Leeds played a part in it. They made neutrals glad when they lost.

One of the formative occasions in the growth of this perception was the 1968 League Cup final — Leeds vs Arsenal. Leeds already had a name for physicality and cynicism — Revie’s players were some of the first to take the ball to the corner flag to waste time. As the brilliant, but fierce, Johnny Giles noted, they also pioneered putting a big defender on top of the opposition goalkeeper at corner kicks.

That March day at Wembley, lanky, aggressive centre-half Jack Charlton was positioned next to Arsenal ’keeper Jim Furnell. At an 18th-minute corner, Charlton and No 9 Paul Madeley can be seen squeezing Furnell’s space and potential movement. In the subsequent melee, Terry Cooper volleys home and Arsenal’s players race to the referee to complain. It sounds familiar.

For the next 72 minutes, Leeds defend, killing the spectacle, and win 1-0. Nationally, a torrent of critical comment followed, but Leeds United at last had a first major trophy and, as far as Revie was concerned, that was that.

With their three consecutive second-place Premier League finishes, 2026 Arsenal know Leeds’s 1968 situation and what breakthrough silverware means.

Here is what Revie told reporters afterwards: “Only a person who understands the frustration and disappointment we have suffered in recent seasons can understand why our players were so intent on keeping that lead, rather than give 100,000 fans a soccer treat.”

Over the decades these details, which help explain Revie’s approach, were trampled on by the phrase ‘Dirty Leeds’. Brian Clough, Revie’s professional and personal rival, was loud in his condemnation of Leeds’s attitudes, which was tricky when Clough surprisingly succeeded Revie at Elland Road in 1974.

In his 1994 autobiography, Clough said of Revie’s teams: “I despised what they stood for.” Not much room for nuance there.

In part, Clough’s words formed English football’s collective memory of Revie’s Leeds. But they cannot and did not tell the whole story. Future Arsenal manager George Graham was on the pitch playing in a red shirt that day at Wembley in 1968, for example; and after Leeds’ League Cup success, their penultimate game of the following season took them to Anfield. Leeds were top, Liverpool were second: only these two clubs could be champions. Leeds had still not won their first league title.

On this Monday night, a point would be enough to get Leeds their history, so they set out to draw the game. It ended 0-0. Leeds were champions.

Anfield did not turn its back in disdain, however, as Clough would have. The stadium was packed and remained so at the final whistle. Then, at Revie’s instruction, the Leeds players walked towards the Kop.

“We were horrified at the thought, but the gaffer insisted,” Leeds defender Norman Hunter later wrote. “There was a deathly silence,” he added, as the Leeds players got ever closer, only for the Kop to burst into a chant of: “Champions! Champions!”

In his book, A Football Man, Giles remembered: “It was a fabulous moment, a fabulous feeling.” He also recalled Liverpool’s legendary manager Bill Shankly coming into the away dressing room. Once again, an uncertain silence fell. Shankly broke it when he said: “The best team drew.” Giles said Shankly’s words, his humour and grace, “make the memory of that wonderful night just a bit warmer”.

It paints a different picture of Revie’s Leeds. Many, of course, shared Clough’s view and enjoyed them finishing second in each of the next three seasons and then losing the 1973 FA Cup final to Second Division opponents Sunderland.

ITV’s pundits at Wembley that day were Jack Charlton, back again, and, remarkably, Johan Cruyff. Cruyff, Pep Guardiola’s uber-mentor, discussed the movement of Leeds’ full-backs (too much) and of striker Allan Clarke dropping into midfield (not enough).

Cruyff was a year away from his Netherlands side losing the World Cup final to host nation West Germany. In doing so, the Dutch became arguably the most cherished second-placed team of all time. Four years later in Argentina, a Cruyff-less Netherlands lost another World Cup final, again to the hosts.

But when the Dutch team of the 1970s are spoken about today, it is with a mixture of awe and affection. There is the phrase ‘second is nowhere’ and there is the quotation from NFL coaching great Vince Lombardi: “If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?”.

But, as Stein said, how you win — and how you lose — matters, sometimes more than the scoreboard. The Netherlands lost playing ‘Total Football’, football that was not just about the result, about them, but about the game itself.

Some may dismiss this as gushing folk memory, but it is a reflection of how people felt and feel. In his eloquent book on Dutch football, Brilliant Orange, David Winner writes of Cruyff still being asked about 1974 at the 1998 World Cup. Cruyff said the Dutch “had achieved a victory of a kind by playing football the world still talks about”.

Winner also quotes Cruyff saying: “I don’t go through life cursing the fact that I didn’t win a World Cup. I played in a fantastic team that gave millions of people watching a great time. That’s what football is about.”

Four years further on, the 1982 World Cup was won by Italy, but it is the Zico-Socrates-Falcao Brazil team from those finals who neutrals remember just as often; plus France’s Michel Platini-led side. France then won the 1984 European Championship playing urgent, creative football and thrilling all. The memory is of their dynamism as much as their victories.

As Cruyff said: “There is no medal better than being acclaimed for your style.”

The comment was a reference to the 1990s Barcelona team Cruyff coached, which included Guardiola. The fondness even non-Barcelona fans share for that team is replicated by how they remember Guardiola’s Andres Iniesta-Xavi-Lionel Messi Barca. They won everything, but the collective memory is of how they won.

In 21st century England, Chelsea’s Premier League dominance, then Manchester City’s, will be remembered for great players and managers — Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Mourinho; Yaya Toure, Kevin De Bruyne, Guardiola — but even as they won, people raised asterisks against the ownerships of Roman Abramovich and Abu Dhabi. By comparison, Leicester City’s 2015-16 title made so many beyond their own club happy.

There is, as Cruyff said, “no medal better than being acclaimed for your style” — think Kevin Keegan’s 1990s Newcastle United — and Giles’ recollection of Shankly in the Anfield away dressing room is another illustration of the intangibles beyond silverware. Leeds had been paid the ultimate compliment — appreciated by opposition fans.

Brazil’s Ronaldo knows that sensation. In 2003, he scored a hat-trick for Real Madrid at Manchester United in the Champions League and was given an ovation by Old Trafford when he was substituted. Ronaldo was a player with a trophy cabinet the size of a six-yard box, but it was this moment he called “unique”.

Does our online world allow such gestures? Its predictable and tiresome tribalism means that if Arsenal 2025-26 blossom from caterpillar into butterfly, there will still be some wanting to pin them down as formula football. They would rather Arsenal were another ‘Neverkusen’, the mocking name thrust upon Leverkusen 25 years ago after a series of near-misses.

There is no room for appreciation of the young Michael Ballack, who was part of that Leverkusen side, in a single word, just as there will be sneers at Arsenal’s past four Premier League results: 1-0, 3-0, 1-0, 1-0. Rival supporters will mock that sequence — Boring Arsenal — yet would celebrate it were their own team to produce it.

Crystal Palace delighted many neutrals last May when they defeated City at Wembley to lift the FA Cup, and at Selhurst Park on Sunday, Arsenal will run out to Palace’s terrace anthem Glad All Over. It is an exaggeration to say this is how English football feels about Arsenal at the end of a season which will be largely recalled for long throws, corners and VAR.

Arsenal share responsibility for that. They have pleased themselves. But then, in an increasingly partisan football environment, making neutrals glad is harder than ever.

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