And so, the dust settles. The smoke drifts into a Parisian night. The stage at the Parc des Princes lies quiet now—emptied of noise but not of meaning. As the hours tick onward and the emotions cool, you begin to sift through the embers. Through the punditry, the pixelated fury, the fervent fanfall. You take the temperature of football’s fevered landscape and realise: what unfolded was not just a game, nor merely a tie lost. It was a rite of passage.
It didn’t end in the glory we all had dared to dream. No ticker-tape. No final dance. But my, what a campaign it was. There were moments—raw, rousing moments—when this group stood taller than they ever had before. Coming-of-age chapters, scrawled not in ink but in sweat and spirit. Psychological barriers once thought unscalable, breached. The squad stretched, stress-tested, and still they stood. They have shown those outside the walls—and perhaps more importantly, those within—that they belong. That they are knocking at the grand gate of Europe’s elite, not as guests, but as future residents.
Scars first. Then silver.
And yes, it was ultimately failure but it is Part of the process. We tire of the phrase. So hollow when overused. So easily tossed around to defend the indefensible. But this—this—is the truth of it. This is what the process looks like when it’s real. When it hurts. When it shapes you. Not a throwaway tagline, but a staircase climbed, one agonising rung at a time. This is a season not to be discarded, but to be remembered—for it has taken us forward.
We’ve looked Inter Milan in the eyes. We’ve stood on the same sacred grass as Real Madrid. We’ve sparred and staggered under Paris’s lights. And from each, we’ve taken something. Against Inter, injustice. A penalty cruelly awarded in a cagey game. A lesson in street-wisdom was learned that night. From Madrid, perhaps belief—real belief—was seeded. And from Paris? From the fire and the fury, from the high-octane heartbreak? Lessons only defeat can teach. Lessons only nights like that can engrave into bone.
Refreshingly—beautifully—even social media, often the loudest conductor of chaos, hummed with maturity. Arsenal fans, my people, my kin in red and white, spoke with grace. Not blind optimism. Not delusion. But measured pride. There was disappointment, yes. But not despair. The mitigating truths of a gruelling season were acknowledged. The pragmatism was comforting. But within that acceptance burned an ambition. A hunger. A message not of consolation, but of command: push on. Strengthen. Recruit with intent. Do not rest on progress. Elevate it.
And yet, as ever, the other side. The digital underbelly. The venomous chamber. The trolls in disguise—some with avatars, others with television contracts. The click merchants. The outrage peddlers. The “Arteta Out” chorus who cloak themselves in the colours but not the cause. I hesitate to call them fans, for fans do not feast on failure. Not at a moment like this.
Critique, yes. But this—this pile-on—is poison. And it is sadly, the age we live in. Where patience is scarce. Where understanding is drowned out by algorithms that favour rage. But let it be known: this season, this team, this journey—it has meant something. It has built something. And those who cannot see it are looking only with eyes, not with hearts.
Not a fall — a forging.
And so the question comes again—recycled in studio debates, weaponised on social media, whispered through the static of call-in shows: “Have Arsenal gone backwards?” A question posed not in pursuit of truth, but of turbulence. A prompt not for clarity, but for chaos. It has become the cudgel of those who masquerade as critics, but behave as cynics.
The truth? As ever in football, it is layered. Domestically, yes, we have regressed. A cold analysis of the numbers will tell you so—the points tallies, the metrics, the margins. The ruthless maths of the Premier League table will concede it. But to reduce an entire campaign, a living, breathing story, to that alone… is to mistake a raindrop for the whole storm.
Because Europe—ah, Europe—offered its own narrative. A journey one stage further. A run deeper. Duels with the continent’s finest, where Arsenal—once tentative guests—looked more like equals than intruders. The paradox, then: one step back in one world, one leap forward in another. How can that be regression?
No. To claim Arsenal “have gone backwards”, is to wilfully misread a work in progress as a finished draft. It is to turn the page too soon, to judge a mountain climb by the loose stones at its foot. And, more dangerously, it is to ignore how far we’ve come.
When Mikel Arteta inherited this canvas, the colours were muted. We were not a top-four side. We were not even a top-six certainty. We were adrift in mediocrity, anchored by bloated contracts and fractured dressing rooms. Mesut Özil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang —names that once rolled from our tongues as we sung from the rafters but whose exits were as symbolic as they were necessary. Sacrifices, both of them, at the altar of identity. The “non-negotiables” were not slogans—they were a declaration of war on complacency.
And then came the sowing. A style emerged. Laboured at first, halting and hesitant. We were still being bloodied by the elite. Still shipping goals. Still finding our voice. But the seeds—those unseen roots—were taking hold.
An FA Cup was a flower that bloomed early. A reminder that belief, when planted deep, can grow quickly. Then came fourth. Then came second. Then came heartbreak. And then—what maturity so often demands—came perspective. Last season’s near miss was not a collapse. It was a callus, hardened over the wound of the year before.
Yes, this year, we have fallen shy of a title charge. Yes, the final furlong has exposed our fatigue. Yes, injuries have thinned us, and recruitment has not replenished. But look closer: even in adversity, we have endured. A Champions League semi-final. A place at the domestic summit. This is not a team spiralling downward—it is one still scaling the peak.
Backward? No. This is forwards, with friction. Progress, with pain. The process—so often mocked, mislabelled, misunderstood—is not a meme. It is a mission. And though the path may twist, the destination remains clear.
This is not the end. This is ignition.
And here, dear reader, is where the metaphor broadens — where football hands us its most generous gift: perspective. For the truth, the universal truth, is this — that no dream worth dreaming follows a straight line. No goal, no summit, no vision ever unveiled itself without detours, without descent. The journey is jagged. The climb, cruel. The path to glory winds through shadow.
If you seek inspiration — let it bleed red and white.
Let it be Ian Wright.
Not just a legend, but a testament. A man who didn’t wear the cannon — he became it. Who turned rejection into resolve, non-league nights into Premier League dreams.
Southend said no. Brighton shut the door. So he waited — with Dulwich Hamlet and a dream he refused to bury.
Then came Crystal Palace. Then the goals. Then Arsenal — his Arsenal. A record fee, a sacred number, and a story carved in gold and grit.There were trophies: cups in ‘93, glory in Copenhagen. There were trials: seasons of drift, a near exit under Bruce Rioch.
And then — Arsène. And with him, revival.
By ‘98, Ian Wright had lived the dream: the title, the cup, the Double. He hadn’t climbed smoothly — he’d fought for every inch.
Progress, like Wrighty, isn’t straight. It stutters, stalls, and roars back. So when they say we’ve gone backwards… show them Ian Wright.
And remind them what forward really means.
And so we arrive at Arteta’s Arsenal. And yes — let us speak plainly — this was a setback. A stumble on a road that has already shown us vistas we dared not imagine just a few short years ago. But has Arteta taken us backwards? Not even close. This is a team that learns as it grows. That bleeds as it builds. That suffers to sharpen its steel. There will be changes — there must be. Not all who wear the red and white today will wear it tomorrow. That is the price of progress. Evolution demands casualties.
But the core remains. The cause remains. The coach remains. The belief — stronger than it has been for a generation — remains. And what a remarkable transformation he has engineered. When he arrived, we were fractured. A club split. A support base at war with itself. And now? Now we sing from the same hymn sheet. We believe, together. He has led not just a team, but a people.
He knows. He feels what this club means. He has worn the armband. He has heard the cannon fire not from a dugout, but from the centre circle. He is one of us, and he leads us still.
So to those who waver — those who question, who rage, who doubt — breathe. Step outside. Touch grass. This is not the end. It is the middle. There is work to be done — of course there is. There are names to sign, strategies to refine. But we will return. And when we do, we will be stronger for what has gone before.
Because even amid the regret of this Premier League run, there were Champions League nights that made the hairs stand on end. Nights that lit up Europe. Nights that made the continent turn its head toward north London once again. We worried them — do not let them pretend otherwise. The powerhouses of Europe felt our breath on their necks. The giants glanced nervously over their shoulders. They were worried.
Six years ago, this was a dream. Today, it is an expectation. That’s the journey. That’s the trajectory. And if that’s not progress — if that’s not cause for belief — then truly, what is?
Victoria Concordia Crescit