Arsenal close to first Premier League title in 22 years

Arsenal’s title chase has not been built on glamour, but on control, nerve and the ability to survive when the match turns ugly. At the London Stadium, Leandro Trossard’s late goal earned a 1-0 win over West Ham United on 10 May 2026, and Arsenal kept their grip on a Premier League race that now looks increasingly like theirs to lose.

The margin at the top mattered as much as the result itself. Before kick-off, Arsenal led Manchester City by five points with a game in hand, sitting on 76 points from 35 matches. Pep Guardiola has already acknowledged the pressure of chasing Arsenal, while Mikel Arteta has kept insisting his players stay present and treat no single fixture as the decisive one. That restraint has become part of Arsenal’s identity: not a team chasing headlines, but one protecting position.

This is the contradiction at the heart of Arsenal’s season. The football has not always been easy on the eye, yet the points have arrived. Narrow wins, defensive discipline and late interventions have carried the campaign, and that may matter more than any flourish in a title race measured by margins rather than style. West Ham offered another example. Arsenal survived a highly controversial VAR decision that ruled out a late equaliser, then left with the kind of result champions tend to collect when they are still standing after everyone else has strained.

The historical weight is unavoidable. Arsenal’s last Premier League title came in 2003/04, when Arsène Wenger’s side completed the league unbeaten with 26 wins and 12 draws and finished 11 points clear. That team became the Invincibles, and its 49-game unbeaten top-flight run from May 2003 to October 2004 remains one of English football’s defining records. Preston North End’s 1888/89 side is the only other team cited as having gone through a league season unbeaten before Arsenal. No one has matched Arsenal’s feat in a 38-game Premier League season.

That history explains why this run feels so loaded. Every result is measured against the Invincibles, every stumble framed against 22 years without a league crown. Yet Arteta’s Arsenal have reached this point by different means, through resilience more than romance. If the title is sealed, it will be remembered not for spectacle, but for substance.