Three Reasons Why Arsenal Are Not 2025 Premier League Champions 

Success will surely come for this Arsenal side, but this season has been a painful reminder that titles won’t arrive simply because you want them to

At this stage, every game is weighted with possible symbolism, writes Scarlet Katz Roberts

The benefit of hindsight affords retroactive importance to points gained or missed.

Anything can be attributed meaning through the lens of the whole season.

But I felt the details below came to represent a microcosm of this campaign for several reasons. 

Emotional hangover

Let’s be clear, defensive lapses have not characterised Arsenal this season, but the sense of heaviness, of missing out on last season’s title by two points weighing heavily on the team, has.

We’ve struggled to control our emotions, allowing one setback turn into two, creating runs of dropped points.

The loss against West Ham, followed by draws at the City Ground and Old Trafford is just one example. By the same token, we’ve been unable to assert ourselves positively, not stringing three wins together at any point during the campaign. You can’t win titles like that, no matter the circumstances.

After the heartbreak in Paris, it was little wonder Arsenal appeared leggy and unfocused in the first half at Anfield when I actually thought Liverpool were there for the taking.

They were asleep for an early Saka chance which he surely would’ve taken if he was fully fit. But after that, Liverpool carved us open with uncharacteristic ease.

The two goals we ultimately conceded were distinctly ‘Un-Arsenal’ in a sense that they were defensively sloppy. For the first one, we reacted slowly to a quick throw. For the second, Diaz ran off Saliba with relative ease.

Injuries (27 in all...)

Somehow, a combination of Anfield in party mode, Trent fortuitously turning the atmosphere against his own team, and a fair amount of Arsenal determination, got us back in the game.

At 2-2 Arsenal were right in the contest, having controlled the second half admirably and got a deserved equaliser. Around the time of the second Arsenal goal, Arne Slot made several substitutions, introducing quality reinforcements: Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota, Alexis MacAllister among others. Arsenal continued for the most part as they were, before eventually bringing on Calafiori, Timber and Zinchenko.

Good players, yes, but all left backs. It would be worth pausing here to acknowledge that while our lack of bench options reflected the dire luck we’ve had with injuries this year, this kind of left back surplus contrasts with the poverty of options in other positions.

There’s much more to say about how last summer shaped up in terms of recruitment, and whether better choices could’ve been made along the way.

The answer to that is resoundingly, yes.

But 27 injuries to first team players is unprecedented. And yet, somehow, despite it being Mikel Merino up top, despite the shocking emergence of an eighteen year old at left back, and many starters struggling for form and fitness, we found a way back into the game.

Our makeshift number nine added another goal to his tally with a poacher's finish. Even hurt and exhausted, this team will not lie down. If we do finish second, which we deserve to, I think we will come to find a painful pride in this season. After all the setbacks, we should be able to say we were still the best of the rest.

Poor-discipline

Mikel Merino was shattered at Liverpool. If there had been more suitable options on the bench, I’m sure he wouldn’t have still been on the pitch, so I don’t blame him for making a tired challenge.

But, what was very reminiscent of our season was a match that we’d worked incredibly hard to gain a foothold in, suddenly becoming a Herculean task.

For the last fifteen minutes, we sat back and defended for our lives, this time just about emerging intact to hold on to a point.

There have, of course, been the farcical reds, which make up their own category in this farcical season.

Rice vs Brighton, the moment it all started going wrong, Trossard vs City, an extremely harsh application of a new and mysterious directive, Lewis-Skelly vs Wolves, an even more shocking decision.

The extent to which red cards have taken points away from us is debatable depending on how much guilt you apportion to our own players.

In Merino’s case, it was a fair decision, but how many times have we watched the guilty party trudge off the pitch? How many times have we murdered the game state by going a player down and had to go again? This is something that Mikel must look to rectify.

The future

Success will surely come for this Arsenal side, but this season has been a painful reminder that titles won’t arrive simply because you want them to.

The whole mystery of success is that every game, every season is a ruthless roll of the dice, and you may not end up with fair winds and blue skies.

Perhaps this season, there was too much heavy weather for the team to prevail.

But I would counsel them to take their moment no matter what, to pay little heed to the adversity that is a fixture of competitive sport.

No one backed Liverpool this season, but they saw their chance, and with a slice of fortune in the form of a fully fit squad, took it.

To this team I would say, go and win your first ten games, build momentum, and see what happens.