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Paul Scholes says that if Arsenal finish first in the Premier League after 38 games this season, they should not be awarded the trophy. He reasons that the 2025/26 campaign has been of such low quality, that the Gunners have eked out so many results on the margins of set-pieces, that to crown them the best in the land would be to sully the good name of what should constitute a champion of England. An insult to the Invincibles, a slap to the Centurions.
And as one of the finest footballers to have ever graced our fair isle, Scholes, whose loyalty to one of the greatest teams of all time was rued by the likes of Xavi Hernandez and Zinedine Zidane – for they would never have a chance in hell of playing with him – certainly knows not just what a great champion looks like, but the very technical brilliance that defines the cream of the elite.
So someone had best remind Scholes not just that he once won the league with just 79 points – fewer than Arsenal have managed in two of the last three seasons – but that the Manchester United team he played for wasn’t exactly renowned for free-flowing, beautiful football. And do you know what? That’s absolutely fine.
Scholes was a part of the Red Devils side that – somehow – finished with 11 men after attempting to kick Arsenal off the park in 2004 to end the 49-game unbeaten run. From Ruud van Nistelrooy raking his studs down Ashley Cole, to Gary Neville pinpointing Jose Reyes, United were unafraid of the fight: as they were every time they faced the Gunners. Roy Keane would square up to anyone. It was Arsenal who were the expressionists: Arsene Wenger was the last great idealist of the game, attempting to out-pass everyone, putting faith in uncut gems from across the continent. Sir Alex Ferguson was about blood and thunder and £30 million statement signings and mind games and winning at all costs.
And to repeat. That’s absolutely fine. Two decades later, we’re all learning that sometimes, you have to win things the hard way – or at least try to.
“If they win, no one will ask how they did it,” Fabian Hurzeler said after Arsenal beat Brighton & Hove Albion 1-0 at the Amex. But he did make it clear that he believed, “only one team tried to play football” on the night.
“I will never be the kind of manager to try and win that way,” he continued. “If I ask you if you enjoyed this game, maybe one hand will be raised because he’s a big Arsenal fan. But if they win the league, then they win the league.”
This Arsenal side can play, let’s make no mistake about it. In the past three-and-a-half years, the Gunners have utterly sublime at times, with the likes of Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz dovetailing like red arrows. And they’ve done it on the biggest stages: Mikel Arteta’s men beat Manchester City 5-1 at their own game, outplayed Real Madrid at the Bernabeu, emptied stadiums for fun in the latter half of 2023/24, evoking the Wengerball of old.
Again: it means f**k all to a team if they don’t have anything to show for it at the end of the campaign.
It was perhaps never demonstrated better than tonight against Brighton – much to Hurzeler's chagrin – where, over the years, Arsenal have been utterly outplayed, outbantered by Neal Maupay and rattled by referees applying the law to the millimetre. Sure enough, six minutes in, Saka was set free from a deft Ebere Eze through ball, as the no.7 opted to square the ball into space and out for a throw. It was a cuter move than his goal, four minutes later, as he cut in from his customary right touchline, and bobbled the ball off Carlos Baleba’s back for the opener. By that point, Arsenal had already had to clear one off the line.
Such is the duality of a top team: never the grace without the grit. And so, Arsenal looked to shut the back door for the rest of the first half, probing with possession where necessary, but for the most part, happy to roll the ball around the backline, take as long as they can get away with on throw-ins and on the occasion that they actually lose the ball, bring Saka and Martinelli back as auxiliary full-backs.
The problem with ‘margins football’ is self-explanatory, though. Cristhian Mosquera was booked in the first 10 minutes for his first challenge. An hour in, with Brighton battering on the door, Arteta decided that he needed to play it safe and bring on a replacement: so Piero Hincapie – outstanding all game at left-back – moved to the right-sided centre-back berth to fill in out of position. It’s not the kind of thing you want to do at 1-0.
We see it most weeks now: Arsenal tried to shut up shop against Chelsea and were pegged back, having to rely on another corner and a moment of Pedro Neto petulance to squeak three points. They tried exactly the same thing recently against Wolverhampton Wanderers and were badly burned as a result. The goal is to hang on in there as long as possible, rather than obliterate opponents: it might not set pulses racing. But still, these players are playing at maximum capacity most weeks.
This is as good as it is going to get: Arsenal aren’t about to suddenly let the handbrake off. If this team – this particular team – go on and finish the job, Scholes is wrong, and Hurzeler is right. They will have grafted like you wouldn’t believe for that trophy.
This is not a team of Galacticos, really. They lack any real killer in the final third – they could well become the only other Premier League-winning side, other than City in 2020/21, to win it without a lethal centre-forward. The superstars of this team aren’t showponies: they’re a workhorse in Declan Rice, a unicorn in Bukayo Saka and stallions at the back. They have some of the best footballers on Earth in their respective positions. They don’t have a David Silva, an Erling Haaland or a Kevin De Bruyne; they don’t have a Mohamed Salah or a Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Generally, you need a bit of both. Generally, teams use both to destroy all others and rack up 85+ points. Arsenal are not doing that. And that, in itself, is fascinating.
To match Pep Guardiola’s superteam almost stride for stride, twice, lose a third title in a row, and go and win it after all – with a team who simply manage their way through duels, rather than play through them – would be an unbelievable achievement. How many have tried to maximise the margins to try and finish a place higher? It’s straightforward to do when you’re scrapping in the lower half of the league, trying to motor away from relegation. To win a title like that would be utterly unheard of. And to have done it playing every three days, potentially playing 60 games this season?
Sure enough, Arsenal clung on by their fingernails against the Seagulls. The final five minutes were agonising for that corner of Gooners – but that’s where the star power lies: in closing out games. Tonight saw the most long passes in a single Premier League game all season. They did not have a shot on target after the goal. It should be utterly impossible to keep that up – and yet Arsenal now three-and-a-half years into doing this for fun.
City transformed the league, and now Arsenal are reverting it. And it’s a bloody difficult league. Six of the 16 best clubs in Europe – if you believe the Champions League – hail from England (though perhaps you shouldn’t believe that, given that one of them is Tottenham). Every team in the league can pose you problems, as Nottingham Forest showed themselves tonight.
When Arteta was told how Hurzeler felt, he simply responded, “Next question”. He was then asked if he cared about other managers’ opinions.
“Depends,” he said. On the manager? “Yes. And what they said.”
And no podcaster can argue otherwise. Facts, not feelings. It’s popular to bait Gooners, for certain City fans with big followings, to claim that they’re the holders of ‘pure’ football and that anyone other than their team winning the title would set the league back, like Arteta is a politically incorrect dinosaur vying to be supreme leader.
Arsenal are not pretty, but they’re pretty efficient. It’s a change from a steamroller romping to the title.
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