It was the summer I turned fourteen. I remember staying up late on most nights, only to tune into ESPN-Star on cable TV to watch a team of footballers do something no team in the modern era had done before—play an entire Premier League season without losing a single game.
Thierry Henry, with that low, gliding run. Dennis Bergkamp, inventing touches that had no right to exist. Patrick Vieira, reminding everyone on the ground who was in charge. Manager Arsène Wenger, in god mode. Truly, the Invincibles.
That Arsenal team of 2003-04 did not just win the league. The Gunners made you believe football could be beautiful and brutal at the same time. I became an Arsenal fan in the lead-up to that summer, in a city 8,700 kilometres from North London, over low-res cable TV and lost sleep as a teenager.
Little did I know that over the next two decades, the Premier League trophy would elude the Gunners despite many near misses. Twenty-two years later, the wait is finally over.
Arsenal are Premier League champions again
Mikel Arteta’s side once again dominated the Premier League after second-placed Manchester City failed to be more of a contender, thanks to a 1-1 draw by Bournemouth on the south coast on late Tuesday night (early Wednesday morning in India).
Arsenal had beaten Burnley 1-0 the previous day, meaning City needed to win to keep the title race alive until the final weekend. They could not. Eli Junior Kroupi's curling first-half goal put Bournemouth ahead, and though Erling Haaland equalised deep in stoppage time, it was too late. The draw left Arsenal four points clear with only one game remaining, a mathematical impossibility for City to overcome.
For those of us who fell in love with the club through that 2003-04 Invincibles side, the emotions of Tuesday night are almost too large to describe.
Arsenal have finished runners-up three consecutive seasons, twice to Manchester City in 2022-23 and 2023-24, and once to Liverpool in 2024-25, before finally netting it.
The near-misses had started to feel like a cruel pattern. The title kept slipping. Arteta, who was Pep Guardiola's assistant at City before taking the Arsenal job in December 2019, had spent six years watching his former mentor pip him to the title. Not anymore. In fact, this was something much sweeter to former Arsenal midfielder, seeing his side through it all, to glory.
This is Arsenal's 14th English title, placing them third in all-time champions behind only Manchester United and Liverpool, who share the record with 20 each.
It is also their first major trophy since the 2020 FA Cup, which was also won under Arteta in his debut season.
Arteta, at 44, is the youngest Arsenal manager to win the English top-flight title, and the second-youngest coach after Jose Mourinho to win the Premier League.
The celebrations erupted at the Emirates Stadium, where Arsenal fans poured in from across North London, many clutching red flares, long before the final whistle in Bournemouth. The squad had gathered at the club's training ground to watch the City match together; videos of the moment the final whistle confirmed the title flooded social media within seconds.
Even 10 Downing Street joined in, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a lifelong Arsenal supporter, posted on X: "22 long years for Arsenal. But finally we're back where we belong."
The title triumph was built on the best defence in the Premier League this season, fierce pressing intensity, and a remarkable ability to score from set-pieces, a far cry from the flowing, elegant football that defined Arsène Wenger's Invincibles but equally effective and, in its own way, compelling.
For the current squad, it is a validation of years of work. For the boy watching cable TV in Kerala in 2004, it is something else entirely. The most defining moment this season for me was when Max Dowman, just 16 years and 73 days old, became the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history on March 14, 2026. The Gunner achieved the record after netting the ball in stoppage time during a 2-0 victory against Everton. Pure goosebumps.
And this Arsenal side is not done. The Gunners are just getting ready.
On May 30, they face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final in Budapest, a chance to win the one trophy that has always eluded the club in its 140-year history. Win that, and Arteta’s team joins the Invincibles not just as champions, but as legends. COYG.
But for now, the Premier League trophy will come to Emirates Stadium after the team lifts it officially on Sunday night, after it faces Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park Stadium. Twenty-two years. It was worth the wait.
