Arsenal have been in this very same position in two of the last three years and it has ended the same way: no Premier League title and everyone talking about a late-season collapse.
Deja vu is swirling.
But now is when Arsenal get to show the world whether or not they’ve learned from those painful reoccurrences or not. There is nowhere to hide, especially with a trip to north London foes and relegation-haunted Tottenham Hotspur coming up this Sunday.
This is where you separate those three-straight second place finishes from your mind and try to create a new narrative. For most of this Premier League season it’s looked like that was the case.
It was becoming a title procession for Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal. They were seven points clear at the top in mid-January (with 16 games to go) and seemingly uncatchable as they would surely saunter to the league title with minimum fuss, fueled by defensive swarming, a new-found resilience and set-piece dominance.
But the results have turned, just like the last few years, when the pivotal moment arrived. Deja vu.
Remember: pressure of the title race aside, this season Arsenal are also legitimately on track for the quadruple. They should be full of confidence.
Arsenal have won just two of their last seven Premier League games to blow the title race wide-open. Nerves are setting in with their home fans and spreading onto the pitch. It’s even happening away as they coughed up a 2-0 lead at last-place Wolves on Wednesday to inexplicably draw 2-2. That came after they were lucky to hold on to a 1-1 draw at Brentford last week.
Those results mean Arsenal could be just two points ahead of second-place Manchester City before they kick off at Spurs this Sunday. And if Arsenal lose or draw at Spurs, which is plausible given their current form, City would have a game in-hand and could overhaul them atop the table with 10 games to go. They then meet at Man City in mid-April. This is all feeling eerily similar to previous years.
Starting this weekend Arsenal need to show us it won’t happen again. That it can’t happen again.
Not winning the title after the way they played in 2023-24 was bad, but the way the 2022-23 season ended was the most painful in Arsenal’s recent near misses with the title. And nobody can deny it is starting to feel very similar given the comparable lead they built up this season.
They won just three of their final nine games as they spent 30 of the 38 weeks of the season top of the table but had nothing to show for it. In that season they had an eight-point lead over Man City (who had a game in-hand) with 10 games to go. This is eerily similar.
There are lots of new players and stars to help them this time. They are a better, deeper team. David Raya, Declan Rice, Martin Zubimendi and Jurrien Timber to name a few. There are ruthless new tactics which have been implemented to make them so hard to stop from set pieces and more focused and solid defensively. But that has impacted the balance this season as they’re less fluid and creative in attack compared to the 2022-23 campaign in particular.
Three years on from that painful title collapse, a lot of this Arsenal squad are still key to their title hopes this time around and have grown up massively: Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel, William Saliba, Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Jesus, Ben White and Gabriel Martinelli are all still at the heart of this.
At one point or another most of them have spoken in detail about how Arsenal have to learn from their second-place finishes and be ready to jump over that final hurdle and deliver a first league title in over 20 years.
This is on Arteta too. He has to show he’s learned from his mistakes. He definitely didn’t rotate enough in previous years and now he has the luxury of a deeper squad to rotate more, he has to do it. Could Raya be rested as he’s clearly struggling? Will the likes of Norgaard, Lewis-Skelly, Eze and Jesus be used more from the start?
Now is the time for all of them, Arteta, his staff and the Arsenal players, to show what they’ve learned from previous wobbles which have cost them the title and steady the ship, starting at Spurs this Sunday.
There is no better place for Arsenal to show everyone just how much they’ve grown and how this season will be different. Their charge towards the title has to start this Sunday. If not, feelings of deja vu will only continue to grow.
