“We’re gonna make it happen.”
That was the message Mikel Arteta delivered on the Emirates Stadium pitch at the end of the 2024–25 season, with emotion cracking his voice and the sense of another missed opportunity hanging heavy in the air.
For the third year in succession, Arsenal ended the season as the Premier League’s second best team—a fact which wasn’t even certain heading into the final weeks of the domestic campaign. After the unexpected surge of 2022–23 and the desperately near miss of 2023–24, the Gunners were a distant 10 points adrift of deserved champions Liverpool last term.
A 5–1 aggregate victory over Real Madrid tipped Arsenal into the Champions League semifinals, yet that European run would only offer another avenue of extinguished hope as Paris Saint-Germain eased Arteta’s injury-plagued outfit aside.
An extravagant summer spend has seemingly plugged the gaps which were ruthlessly exposed last season, prompting many—Arteta among them—to ready themselves for another push for glory which has thus far remained tantalisingly out of reach.
