When Mikel Arteta walked into Arsenal in December 2019, he inherited a club adrift — an expensively assembled squad going nowhere, a disengaged fanbase, and standards that had quietly collapsed. Six and a half years later, after three consecutive runner-up finishes and countless near misses, Arsenal are Premier League champions for the first time in 22 years.

The title triumph is the crowning moment of one of English football's most thorough rebuilding projects. It is fitting that the destination was never truly in doubt — only, for so long, the timing.

A vow kept

A year ago, following a narrow home win over Newcastle, Arteta stood on the Emirates Stadium pitch, microphone in hand, and made a promise to supporters who had grown weary of falling short.

"We have to start creating our own history here. There is much more to come. We have to do it all together. It's not going to be easy, but this group of players, I'm telling you, they have the hunger, the quality, the talent, and we are going to make it happen."

Those words proved prophetic. The road was far from smooth — supporters endured an agonising run as Manchester City closed the gap at the top after the turn of the year, and a defeat at the Etihad Stadium felt, at the time, potentially terminal. But Arsenal refused to buckle.

Declan Rice captured that spirit perfectly when, after the final whistle that afternoon in April, he rose from his haunches and declared: "it's not done." His performances in central midfield across the season were among the most influential of any player in the title race.

Defensive brilliance underpins the triumph

Arsenal secured their title with four consecutive clean sheets, a sequence that embodies how Arteta has reshaped this club. Their 19th Premier League clean sheet of the season — and 32nd across all competitions — came in the decisive win over Burnley.

The Gunners have conceded seven fewer goals than Manchester City this term, yet the gap is even wider when measured by expected goals against, where Arsenal's figure is 32 percent lower than any other side in the division. In 18 of their 37 Premier League fixtures, they held opponents below 0.50 expected goals. Manchester City managed the same feat just twice.

Arteta has spoken before about engineering a "love for defending" throughout the squad. "The key is that everybody goes 100 miles per hour for every ball," he told Sky Sports. "Our strikers, our wingers, our attacking midfielders, they have a love for defending."

The arrivals of David Raya, Riccardo Calafiori, Cristhian Mosquera, and Piero Hincapie have reinforced that defensive structure. William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes have established themselves as the finest centre-back partnership in world football, while Raya commands his area with rare authority. Yet the system relies on collective commitment — wingers who chase relentlessly, midfielders who press without pause, and forwards whose off-the-ball work never stops.

Pep Guardiola himself has described Arsenal as one of the most competitive sides he has ever faced. That transformation from a soft-centred team easily bullied to one defined by steeliness took years of deliberate cultural work.

Set-piece mastery fills the attacking void

With Bukayo Saka — Arsenal's most dangerous attacker — restricted by injury for much of the campaign, goals from open play were harder to come by. The response was to become the most dangerous set-piece team the Premier League has ever seen.

Kai Havertz's header in the Burnley win was Arsenal's 18th corner goal of the season, a new Premier League record, taking their total from set-pieces, excluding penalties, to 24 — surpassing their own record of 22 set in 2023/24. That consistent supply of dead-ball goals has effectively compensated for the absence of a prolific star forward in the mould of Mohamed Salah or Erling Haaland.

The architect of that edge is Nicolas Jover, the set-piece coach Arteta recruited from Manchester City. As far back as 2022, Arteta outlined his philosophy to Sky Sports: "You have to be ahead of the game. You have to try to understand what can happen next, and how you are going to be first to make that decision and take advantage of it."

The journey in numbers

Arsenal's rise under Arteta traces a clear upward line: eighth, fifth, second, second, second — and now first. The 2023/24 season yielded the second-highest points total in club history, 89, alongside a record 91 league goals. It still was not enough to overhaul Manchester City. This time, resilience, defensive solidity, and set-piece precision proved decisive where attacking brilliance alone had not.

Monday's win over Burnley, when Saka and Havertz combined for the goal that sealed matters, was also the first time the trio of Saka, Martin Odegaard, and Havertz had started together in almost 18 months — dating back to a 5-1 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park in December 2024.

The transformation of the Emirates Stadium itself mirrors the transformation on the pitch. The half-empty stands and disillusionment Arteta witnessed when visiting as Manchester City's assistant, days before his appointment in 2019, feel like another era entirely. The noise that greeted Arsenal ahead of the Atletico Madrid and Burnley matches this season told its own story. History, as Arteta promised, has been created.