Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and the loyal Emirates Stadium faithful had only one aim for the domestic 2025/26 Premier League campaign this season – finally lift and get our hands on that all important and much wanted top flight title.
As fans now know, we did just that, and whilst it obviously did not go all our way and there were certainly some choppy periods during the season with our Arsenal live scores, we pushed passed the mental block of a lack of consistency right at the business end of the campaign, and we truly showed that we had learned to dig in deeper when it counted and mattered – and reacted perfectly to seeing our initial advantage wiped away, by building up a newer one as the games ran out.
This season there was also the European Champions League campaign to consider and our particular hump when it came to those trophy hopes, and in fairness, we simply could not have pushed it closer. The history books will record that French giants Paris Saint-Germain registered back to back Champions League final trophies, but had we got that second goal during the opening 45 minutes, had we got a slice of luck on the penalty shouts – had Lady Luck been with us during the penalty shoot out – well, the result would have been different and quite frankly only the most myopic would have begrudged our double success for the year.
The proverbial Premier League title monkey is now off our back and seeing through a successful title defence campaign is going to be even tougher, but there is no reason as to why we should not believe that we are capable of doing that whilst also making another serious attempt to get the Champions League monkey off our back at the same time.
Our Spanish gaffer had called on his first team charges to use the disappointment of previous years to ensure that we finally got ourselves over the domestic line, and now the 44 year old former professional midfielder knows that we just have to do the same when it comes to our approach to lifting the top European prize on offer in the ‘beautiful game’.
One of the first words out of Arteta’s mouth after the penalty defeat in Budapest to PSG was ‘pain’ and that is a word that will not be lightly forgotten as players now let the PL relief wash over them, and enjoy our title winning parade as well as the summer.
But again that ‘pain’ and the associated disappointment just has to be used as a driving motivation for the year ahead. There are plenty of reasons to be proud of our sustained growth and improvement this year, and losing to PSG should in no way change that and what we have achieved. If anything it now provides a real foundation to build on as we look to the future as the players have now shown that they can get themselves over the line in the league, so the next battle is in both replicating that domestic success and then getting ourselves over the European line.
It is unlikely to be next season that this happens, but next season could be key in pointing to when it will.
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