Martin Odegaard raised the Premier League trophy at Selhurst Park on Sunday, capping a title-winning campaign that Arsenal's harshest critics spent most of the season insisting would never arrive. Mikel Arteta's side are champions — and the numbers make a compelling case that they deserve every bit of it.

A season spent under the microscope

From the opening months of the campaign, Arsenal faced a relentless stream of criticism about how they play. Pundits branded their football "unwatchable" and dubbed them "Set-Piece FC." Paul Scholes declared they would be the "worst Premier League title winners ever." Even after the trophy was secured, Liverpool head coach Arne Slot delivered a thinly veiled observation: "Congratulations to them. But for me they have been a different champion to the last 10 seasons. It is the first time in 30 years that 40 per cent of goals had come from set-pieces."

Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler's complaints about Arsenal's time-wasting in March drew a sardonic response from Arteta — "What a surprise" — a remark that said everything about how the manager felt regarding the constant scrutiny of his methods.

Social media in the days after their title was confirmed buzzed with claims that "VARsenal" had benefited from refereeing fortune. None of it appeared to trouble Arteta, his players, or their supporters.

Opposition teams crowded Arsenal out — and still lost

A key reason Arsenal leaned so heavily on set-pieces and defensive resilience is that opposition sides spent the entire season refusing to engage them in open space. Arsenal recorded the most open-play shots in the Premier League where the opposition had nine or more players in the penalty area at the time of the attempt.

Manchester City exemplified this approach when they visited the Emirates in September. Pep Guardiola's team dropped into a back five, a low block, and surrendered a record-low 33.2 per cent possession. Yet when teams did open up against Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League, the consequences were stark — Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, and Atletico Madrid all tried to impose their own game and all were beaten.

From those heavily defended open-play situations, Arsenal scored 12 goals from 112 attempts — the highest total in the league. The last and perhaps most pivotal came when Leandro Trossard converted away at West Ham, with Odegaard threading through a packed defence to create the opportunity.

Injuries made the achievement more remarkable

Throughout the season, attacking cohesion was a luxury Arsenal rarely enjoyed for long. The longest run any Arsenal front four managed together across all competitions was just three matches. Their most effective attacking combination — Bukayo Saka, Viktor Gyokeres, and Trossard — started together on only 14 of the 38 league fixtures, and that trio is yet to lose a league game in which all three began.

Odegaard himself, so central to Arsenal's creative output, played 45 minutes or more in only 12 league games. Arteta later identified two periods where he feared the title might slip away: a spell before Christmas when the forward line was decimated by injury, and the March international break, when Saka was ruled out for a month alongside several others.

Arteta addressed the style criticism directly, linking it to these constraints: "Can we score 100 goals? Today? With the resources that we have, the players that have been out? The answer is no. Can a player score 35 goals? No. So how are we going to win 40-odd games to achieve what we want?"

Defence won them the title

Arsenal's defensive record in the closing stretch stands as a remarkable achievement. Following back-to-back defeats to Bournemouth and Manchester City in April, no team scored against Arsenal from open play across six consecutive matches — a run that encompassed two UEFA Champions League semi-finals and several title-defining league games.

The Gunners won seven league matches by a 1-0 scoreline this season. Notably, the only result to occur more frequently in the Premier League was Manchester City winning 3-0. That clinical, suffocating approach echoes the George Graham era, when a single goal lead felt to opposition supporters like an insurmountable wall.

For those who raise the issue of cynicism, it is worth noting that Arsenal were the only Premier League club this season not to concede a penalty or receive a red card. However one judges their methods, reckless they were not.

Worthy champions

Arsenal are not the greatest Premier League champions in history, and they make no such claim. What they are is the best team in England right now — a side that remained unbeaten in the UEFA Champions League all the way to the final, while other English clubs were eliminated with little resistance. They have been consistently at the summit of the table since October and have now finally crossed the line that has eluded them for so long.

The critics will linger. But the trophy is in Odegaard's hands, and that is all that matters.