Arsenal end 22-year wait as Premier League champions after City draw

The scale of the celebration reflected how heavy the wait had become. Arsenal had finished runners-up in each of the previous three Premier League seasons, a run of near-misses that made this triumph feel like release as much as reward. Fans gathered in North London on Tuesday night with fireworks, flares and repeated chants of “Champions! Champions! Ole! Ole! Ole!”, turning the streets around the Emirates into a corridor of noise that lasted deep into the night and into the early hours of Wednesday.

Inside the club, the players watched the decisive Bournemouth-Manchester City match together at London Colney, the training ground about an hour north of London. When the final whistle went, the reaction was immediate. The squad’s celebrations began there, then moved on to the Emirates, where the sense of shared ownership between the team and its supporters was visible long before sunrise. Former manager Arsène Wenger sent a video message congratulating the players and urging them to savour the moment, a reminder that Arsenal’s old standard had finally been matched again.

By around 5:00 am BST on Wednesday, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber and Eberechi Eze were still outside the stadium with supporters, extending a night that had already become a dawn. Rice, Saka and Eze also posted their own celebrations on social media, with Saka and Eze answering back at critics who had mocked Arsenal as “bottlers,” while Rice pointed back to his earlier “it’s not done” message from April. Ian Wright, who scored 185 goals for Arsenal and helped deliver the 1998 double, joined the street scenes as well and was mobbed by fans.