ARSENAL are confirmed Premier League champions for the first time since 2004 as Manchester City fail to win at Bournemouth.
City needed to win their final two games, and hope Arsenal failed to win their final match, but were held to a 1-1 draw on Tuesday.
The result put an to end Pep Guardiola’s title challenge with one round of the season go as the draw left Arsenal with an unassailable four-point lead at the top, ending its 22-year wait for the title.
Arsenal fans celebrated wildly outside its Emirates Stadium as news of the score line came through.
City threatened another twist when Erling Haaland scored in stoppage time to equalize Junior Kroupi’s first-half strike, but it was too late to find a winner.
Mikel Arteta’s players can now stand alongside club icons Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright, who previously led the club to the summit of English soccer. And Arsenal’s current class could yet break new ground by winning the Champions League for the first time in its history later this month.
Thoughts of this month’s final against defending champion Paris Saint-Germain can be put on the backburner for now.
Now is at time for celebration and relief for Arteta after finishing runner-up in the league three years running.
In back-to-back seasons in 2023 and ’24, he watched as Guardiola’s City chased down Arsenal’s lead to be crowned champion. And another chance was missed last year when coming second to Liverpool.
Once again Arsenal has led the way for most of this campaign and despite seeing its points advantage ebb away during a gripping run-in, it has finally managed to get over the line after a decades-long wait.
Arsenal’s last champion was the so-called “Invincibles” team of 2004, which went an entire campaign without losing in the league.
