A ruthless $470m plot saved Arsenal from disaster. Now, it’s more ‘unbearable’ than Invincible
Drifting away from the Arsene Wenger years. Drifting from a botched succession under Unai Emery . Now, under former club captain Mikel Arteta , it was drifting still — straight towards irrelevance.
It was the English winter of 2020, and something desperately had to change for the fallen giant, once one of the world’s premier clubs, but now a laughing stock. That Arsenal will face Paris Saint-Germain this weekend for the right to be crowned the season’s greatest club in Europe shows you just howArsenal didn’t even qualify for Europe in the 2020-21 season, but less than six years later, it has a red-hot chance to win it all.
Selling fans the dream, this icon ‘sold its soul’ instead. Now it lives a $300m nightmareThe investigation reports how Arteta, with non-executive director Tim Lewis in tow, pitched a compelling vision for how Arsenal would return to glory. The presentation was based on the theory of a Premier League “win window” — a period between 2023 and 2027 when it was determined Manchester City and Liverpool’s strength would diminish.
Age profiles of star players — like Kevin de Bruyne and Virgil van Dijk — squad strengths, contract lengths, and even the potential for managers, like Jurgen Klopp, to leave formed the basis of the prediction. Kroenke — who reportedly first raised his concerns in the summer of 2020 and tasked Lewis with forensically analysing the club’s inner workings — approved the plan along with his son Josh.
A reimagined football department was thus born out of the ashes of its predecessor, which was gutted after spending a club record £72 million on Nicolas Pepe, and signing veteran flops David Luiz and Cedric Soares. Arsenal now instead focused on more affordable purchases of promising talent aged 23 or under that cost about £35m each, or less.
Champion players Martin Odegaard, who lifted the Premier League trophy first on Sunday, and Ben White were among that first wave of signings. Meanwhile, the likes of Luiz, Hector Bellerin, and former star signings Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, were controversially shown the door. There were even younger players identified as having the potential to compliment the core signings, like academy star Bukayo Saka and fellow young guns Gabriel Martinelli and William Saliba.
As Arsenal then entered the win window in better shape, it was time to get bolder, and spend bigger. The ante was upped with a new club record signing in £105m Declan Rice from West Ham, while David Raya was poached from Brentford and Jurrien Timber was added from Ajax.
Successive second-place finishes between 2023 and 2025 meant Arsenal was close, but a final push was required with the lack of a top-tier striker thought to be the missing, final piece. Instead, Liverpool paid a staggering £125m for his signature, and Arsenal smartly pivoted to adding more depth instead, having been derailed by an injury crisis in 2024-25.
As such, Arsenal spent big on a range of stars who wouldn’t nail down first-team spots, but would prove to be crucial role players. This influx consisted of Viktor Gyokeres, Martin Zubimendi, Cristhian Mosquera, Noni Madueke and Piero Hincapie. Arsenal had spent massively. No Premier League club had a higher net spend than the £250m Arsenal coughed up in 2025-26, according to Squawka.
But it now has the silverware to justify it after winning the Premier League for the first time since 2004. In the Premier League, Arsenal’s masterplan came to fruition not just through its carefully engineered transfer policy, but through a style of play that was just as meticulously planned. Every player understood where they had to be on the pitch, and when. Opponents were ruthlessly pressurised within the first six seconds of them obtaining the ball.
Discipline was maintained if the ball couldn’t be won back, evidenced by the fact Arsenal did not concede one red card or one penalty across the entire campaign. Meanwhile, a premium was placed on ball security over risky forward moves. Above all, however, the true value of set pieces wasn’t just recognised, but almost worshipped. Arteta employed dead-ball specialist Nicolas Jover, who is widely known to have a bonus clause tied to how many goals Arsenal scores from set pieces.
Part of that success was not just Jover’s expertise, but the way in which Arsenal intimately understood where the boundaries were, and how to always come within inches of it.reported how Arsenal was in discussions with the league’s official refereeing body to understand what rules could be exploited — such as how to legally crowd the goalkeeper — and what couldn’t. Little wonder that as Arsenal celebrated its coronation at Crystal Palace over the weekend, its fans chanted “we are unbearable”, rather than Invincible.
Which brings us to this weekend and Europe, where Arsenal’s reinvention has arguably been even more effective this season. Arsenal isn’t just undefeated in its 14-game run to the Budapest final, but it has only conceded six goals. But if Arsenal is the immovable object then it’s about to meet the unstoppable force of PSG, offering a pronounced clash of styles. Holders PSG’s flowing attack is arguably the continent’s most exhilarating, while Arteta’s Arsenal is wedded to a pragmatic approach.
Arsenal’s consistency beat out Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City to be crowned champions of England and led them back to Europe’s summit two decades after reaching the 2006 final. In the Champions League Arsenal have been stingy -- by contrast PSG let in 22 goals through the tournament.
“Without the ball, they are the best team in the world,” PSG coach Luis Enrique said of the north London side. “They have been improving for several seasons now; they love the ball, but they are the best team without it. “They won the Premier League and they’re in the Champions League final this year after reaching the semi-finals last season. They deserve to be there, and Arteta instils a competitive spirit in his players.
” Arteta’s side depends on structure and discipline, seeking to control opponents by stopping them reaching dangerous areas, limiting their shots in the box -- no Premier League team has conceded fewer. The Gunners aggressively press opponents high, seeking to dominate territory, and hate giving the ball away themselves. They possess imposing, physical players, from impressive centre-back pairing Gabriel and Saliba, through the spine of the team, in Rice and imposing strikers Gyokeres and Kai Havertz.
That aids Arsenal’s dead ball mastery, under the cunning eye of set piece coach Jover, whom they signed from Manchester City in 2021. But it hasn’t remotely fazed Arsenal.
“We want to be the best and the most dominant team in every aspect of the game,” Arteta said, imploring his team to score even more from dead balls. With 27 Premier League goals scored this season from dead ball situations, 38 per cent of its total, some have labelled Arsenal ‘Set Piece FC’.
“Every time they get a corner, my head is in my hands,” former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher told Sky Sports. After three consecutive second place finishes, Arsenal recognise winning ugly is better than not winning at all.
“I don’t know how you celebrate one goal different to another -- maybe for YouTube one is nicer than another,” Arteta said, unperturbed by criticism. If teams do penetrate the backline, they must beat Raya, enjoying a superb season in goal. The Spaniard has matched the record of nine clean sheets in the Champions League. A 10th could secure the trophy.
Struggles from open play, particularly when star winger Saka was out injured, frustrated even its own supporters at times. Those joyous scenes outside the Emirates stadium, with some players joining the fans until past five in the morning, allow Arsenal to double down on their approach, particularly against a team as lethal as PSG.
While Arsenal have sometimes lacked star power in attack, opponents PSG boast several electric forwards who thrive in organised chaos and will back themselves to break down the competition’s toughest defence. Coach Enrique may have weeded his team of superstars but Ousmane Dembele, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Desire Doue are some of the most dynamic attackers on the planet.
The French champions demolish teams in transition with searing pace, helping top scorers PSG net 44 goals in the Champions League, one short of the all-time record of 45. PSG showed their attacking prowess in the first leg of their semi-final tussle with Bayern Munich, edging the German giants 5-4 in an all-timer. Arsenal seek to reduce risk, PSG encourage it.
“When we can keep the ball and create space, it makes the match easier,” said Enrique after his team put five past Chelsea in the last 16 first leg. They racked up eight goals against the Blues on aggregate, plus six against Bayern Munich and four against Liverpool in the other knockout games. In the second leg against Bayern he shifted strategy and denied Vincent Kompany the end-to-end contest he expected in a 1-1 draw.
However for the most part PSG, who put five goals past Inter Milan in last season’s final, have done just that. Whichever style emerges triumphant will do more than just determine who leaves Budapest with the European crown. Despite all its success — 14 top-flight titles, FA Cups and Community Shields abound — Arsenal has never won European football’s premier trophy. Only once has it even appeared in the final, with that sole honour coming 20 years ago against Barcelona.
On that fateful night, Arsenal miraculously led 1-0 after 75 minutes — having played most of the game with 10 men — until a double strike within the next four minutes turned would-be glory into a Parisian nightmare. The club had just farewelled Highbury. After that final, it would farewell Invincibles Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole and Robet Pires, too, who were leaving as Patrick Vieira already had. Thierry Henry would, too, the following year.
Needless to say, that final was truly the end of an era, separating the Arsenal of then from the one that would spend 22 years searching for glory once more. Now another Arsenal era has begun — its commencement rubber-stamped in the way only major silverware can. Should that silverware double this weekend, there will be no doubt that we are at least witnessing the greatest Arsenal side since the Invincibles, or perhaps even greater.
Legendary former manager Wenger believes that it’s the piece of history that the club truly deserves.
“We touched it before — we were thirteen minutes away from winning it — so you want it to happen this time. He added: “I feel the club deserves it, this season deserves it and the consistency of the team deserves it.
“When I arrived at Arsenal, the club had very little Champions League history. Then we had 20 consecutive years of qualification, and now the crown of that history would be to become champions. Arsenal boss Arteta was even more confident of the result when speaking earlier this week.
“You could sense the energy, you can sense the positivity and the confidence on the players and everybody around the club,” he said. “We have an amazing opportunity to write new history in our football club, and we are convinced that we’re going to do it. “We will fly to Budapest on Thursday fully convinced that in a few days’ time we can be champions of Europe. ”
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