Champions
Bournemouth 1-1 City. Won on a sofa, at 9:32 on a Tuesday.
It didn't lift on a pitch. It lifted in a living room, in a pub, on a phone, the moment Eli Kroupi Jr cut in off Truffert's pull-back in the 39th and the Vitality scoreboard read 1-0 to Bournemouth. Haaland levelled at 90+5 to settle it 1-1 — but a point wasn't enough. The whistle went. Four points clear with a game to go, City stuck on a maximum of 81 — Arsenal, on 82 and rising, became champions. Twenty-two years since the last one. Fourteen league titles in the cabinet. We did the work — Burnley 1-0 on Monday was the answer — but it landed by post, delivered by a side with nothing to play for but pride.
The trophy presentation comes on Sunday at Selhurst, then again — louder, longer — at the Emirates whenever we choose to host it. The team that gets to lift it is the team that beat Atlético over two legs, that won at the London Stadium when the London Stadium was supposed to be where it all unravelled, that took 25 wins in a season nobody quite believed they could. Arteta, year six. First league title since Wenger's invincibles. The wait is over.
Ten days to Budapest.
The league was the foundation. The Champions League is the shrine. Twenty-one years since this club's last European final — Highbury, Henry, Cardiff, the night that still stings — and we're back with a chance to put a star above the badge for the first time in our history. The opponent is the one nobody wanted: Luis Enrique's PSG, the side that took 6-5 on aggregate at the Allianz to get here, the side built around an inverted Hakimi, a Vitinha pivot, and a forward line that doesn't stop pressing until the final whistle.
We have Palace on Sunday — a coronation, a B-team, a rotation exercise. Then five days to the road trip. Saka, Ødegaard, Rice — the spine that's now lifted a league together — flying to Hungary with a chance to lift a second trophy in a fortnight. Ben White is out for the season — MCL, no surgery. Jurrien Timber's back in training (his "30.05" Instagram post all but underlined Budapest); if he's not quite there, Mosquera has been deputising at right-back through the run-in and has the manager's trust. The rest of the spine is fresh. The big one's coming. One more.
Selhurst is now a parade. Bring the brass band.
Sunday at 4pm. We're already champions; Palace have a Conference League final at the Allianz three days later. Glasner will rotate, the legs will know it, and the away end will be the loudest it's ever been south of the river. Bring the brass band. Bring the flags. This is the last away game of a championship season — savour it. The trophy presentation is later, but the season can be put down with a wink and a parade.
The bigger question: how much do we risk? Saka, Ødegaard, Rice, Saliba, Raya, Gabriel — they don't all need 90 minutes at Selhurst. Five days later we're in Budapest against the Champions League's most relentless pressing side. Arteta's earned the right to manage Sunday as a glorified training session. Win the day. Save the legs.
The brutal stretch held
Atlético home and away. Fulham at the Emirates. West Ham on the road. Burnley to clinch. Four-in-eleven and not a step missed. The European tax everyone warned about? Paid in full — and the team came out the other side fresher, sharper, with 82 points in the bag and a date in Budapest. The schedule was the test. The squad was the answer.
Won at the London Stadium
The week that decided it was the second week of May. WHU 0-1 — Trossard 83', Wilson chalked off in stoppage time. The London Stadium had been a thing of dread for this lot before. This time we walked out with the points, the GD, and the cushion that did the rest. Saka and Ødegaard ran it. Raya saved the rest. That was the night the title moved south.
Now: PSG, Budapest, ten days
The Champions League final is on Sat 30 May at the Puskás Aréna. Luis Enrique's PSG took 6-5 at the Allianz to get there — Vitinha pivoting, Hakimi inverting, a forward line that doesn't stop. We have Palace at Selhurst first as a glorified parade. Then five days. Then the biggest game of any Arsenal life since Paris 2006. One more.
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