Arsenal are Premier League champions for the first time in 22 years — and the celebrations that followed were everything the wait deserved. From the moment Manchester City’s title hopes were extinguished, Mikel Arteta‘s squad let go of every emotion they had been carrying and gave their fans a night they will never forget.
The players gathered at the club’s training ground in St Albans to watch the decisive result come in together. Arteta had publicly downplayed any watch-party plans, but there was never any real doubt about what would happen once that final whistle blew elsewhere. The squad — players, non-playing staff, and the people who had built this moment brick by brick — were always going to experience it as one.
The Trophy on the Wall That Said Everything
One of the most powerful moments of the night had been six years in the making. Arteta, known throughout his tenure for unconventional motivational thinking, had a blacked-out Premier League trophy mounted on a wall at the training ground seasons ago. It stayed colourless — a daily reminder of what was missing — until Arsenal finally won the title.
When the moment came, Bukayo Saka was the one who found the words. With Jurrien Timber filming on his phone, Saka turned to the trophy and delivered a line that will follow this squad for the rest of their careers.
“Light that up! Let me tell you something — 22 years they were laughing and joking. They’re not laughing anymore. It’s going to be shining bright!”
Some fans watching were taken aback by the edge in Saka’s delivery. He broke through at Arsenal as a gentle, softly spoken teenager — the Starboy. That image has been gradually replaced over recent seasons by something sharper and more assured. Tuesday night was his full arrival as a leader, not just a player.
He kept that energy going throughout the night. In another clip, Saka filmed 19-year-old Myles Lewis-Skelly clutching a bottle of champagne and delivered the line of the celebration: “They called us bottlers — and now we’re holding the bottles.”
The bottle theme ran all the way through the night and into the morning. Piero Hincapie, who had spent the day fielding jokes from teammates — Gabriel in particular — about a gaffe with his shorts against Burnley, got his own back by pretending to pour an Arsenal-branded bottle into his mouth, a pointed reference to the City fan who went viral mocking Arsenal in early April. Eberechi Eze got involved too, the bottle appearing prominently in his Instagram stories. One of his first posts showed Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard with his head back, eyes closed, an Arsenal water bottle in hand, at three in the morning.
A 5am Pilgrimage to the Emirates
The training ground was just the beginning. As the night stretched into the early hours, a group of players made their way to the Emirates Stadium — arriving around five in the morning once the crowds had thinned enough to walk freely around the ground.
Eze, Timber, Saka, and Declan Rice were among them. Eze posted a selfie with a finger to his lips — the universal signal for a quiet secret — walking around the south side of the stadium. They did not stay quiet for long. Supporters who had not yet left the area spotted the players and gathered quickly. Rice called a group over to take a photo on his own phone. They passed the Thierry Henry statue, walked down the stairs toward the front of the stadium, and gave the fans who had stayed through the night exactly the kind of access and intimacy that money cannot buy.
One player had particular reason to remember every minute of it. Riccardo Calafiori became a Premier League champion on his 24th birthday. It would be difficult to top that.
The Legends, the Departures and the Full Circle Moments
The celebrations carried the weight of everyone who helped build the foundation this squad stands on. Ian Wright was down at street level outside the Emirates, wearing a David Rocastle shirt among the chaos. He described watching Arsenal win as a fan — after doing it as a player in 1998 — as almost impossible to put into words. “Mikel has been unbelievable,” Wright said. “Almost visionary what he done. He turned everything around. Got the owners and fans onside. Stuck to his principles. This club deserves it.”
Academy manager Per Mertesacker — leaving the club at the end of this season — was spotted in the club level concourse. Players sang his famous chant back at him. He waved, smiled, and mimicked lifting an inflatable Premier League trophy in return.
Former players sent their messages too. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang posted a tribute to Saka, the player he once nicknamed Lil Chilli. Jorginho appeared on a FaceTime call with Saka, Timber, and Gabriel Jesus as they left the training ground just before midnight, the players high-fiving fans gathered outside while still on the call.
Sporting director Andrea Berta was caught on camera crowd surfing over the players in the viewing room at the training ground, spraying champagne. Any footage of Arteta himself celebrating has not yet surfaced — which feels entirely in character.
The squad sang We Are the Champions when the title was confirmed. But the song that may have meant the most came later — a rousing rendition of Wavin’ Flag by K’naan, the anthem of the 2010 World Cup that many of this squad grew up with. In a World Cup year, with most of the squad born in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it landed differently. Louder. More personal.
Two Premier League matches remain — a trip to Selhurst Park and then the Champions League final in Budapest the following week. The parade is scheduled for May 31st. After what unfolded at the Emirates in the early hours of Wednesday morning, it promises to be extraordinary.
Stay informed. Subscribe to the JournalTodays Newsletter for the latest Arsenal news, Premier League updates, and football coverage delivered straight to your inbox.
