Finally the bride? Arsenal's rise from disappointment to the cusp of greatness, as told by those who were there along the way

The night of 16 May 2022 still stains the memory of every Arsenal supporter. St James’ Park crackled, Newcastle’s foil display shimmered and 50,000 Geordies roared as Bruno Guimarães and company bulldozed Mikel Arteta’s callow leaders 2-0. Eleven red shirts sank to the turf, Granit Xhaka’s accusatory glare and Arteta’s thousand-yard stare summing up a club that had once again wilted when invited to the top table. “If some minds are not ready for this game, stay at home,” Xhaka scolded afterwards. It was the moment a soft tag, carried since the Highbury exodus, hardened into a personal insult for the manager.

Arteta’s response was architectural. George Graham, the granite-backed architect of the 1991 champions, told FourFourTwo: “What did Arteta do? Build a wall!” A back line fortified by William Saliba and a £105 million midfield general in Declan Rice would become the bedrock of a new Arsenal, one that has stalked the summit for three straight seasons without yet stepping onto the balcony.

The near-misses stack like sediment: second in 2023, second again in 2024, second once more in 2025, an echo of the 1999-2001 sequence that preceded Wenger’s 2002 Double. Each spring collapse – a 4-1 Etihad humbling here, a post-European hangover against Aston Villa there – has been catalogued, dissected and, crucially, used as aggregate for the next layer of paint on Arteta’s canvas.

Inside the Emirates the mood has shifted from fragile optimism to restless expectation. Tim Stillman, writer and podcaster, dates the revival to the 2022-23 winter surge: “We reached 50 points in 19 games. The atmosphere was the best since Wenger’s first seasons.” Sporting director Edu, described by Gilberto Silva as a “brother” wedded to “the club’s DNA”, targeted characters who had touched silver: Gabriel Jesus arrived with the streetwise swagger of a four-time Premier League winner, while Kai Havertz, Jurrien Timber and David Raya were added the following summer.

The 2023-24 campaign delivered 91 goals and 89 points – a haul that wins the league in most eras – yet Manchester City’s perfection again left Arsenal the bridesmaid. “We’ve done less and won the league,” Stillman sighs. Riccardo Calafiori, Mikel Merino and academy breakout Myles Lewis-Skelly were recruited to add sinew, but injuries and a 22-goal drop in output scuppered 2024-25, even as the defence conceded only four league defeats, the fewest since 2007-08.

Still, continental theatre offered a glimpse of the promised land. The overthrow of Real Madrid in the Champions League – Declan Rice imperious, the Emirates a seething cauldron – stands as “the finest night in Emirates Stadium history”, according to long-time observers. It was grit married to grandeur, the very cocktail Arteta has sought since that chastening evening in Newcastle.

Now, with Andrea Berta installed as sporting director and another record summer spree completed, Arsenal enter 2025-26 carrying the certainty that only a single slip separated them from destiny last May. The cathedral is built, the congregation is roaring, and the Highbury clock, could it chime, would surely say: finally, now or never.