A Pause, a Pulse, a Perspective
And so ends my brief sabbatical — three days away from the fevered heartbeat of football. Just long enough, perhaps, for the cheers of midweek euphoria to soften into silence. Just enough for the carnival to dismantle its stage. Enough to sidestep the cacophony of conversations — swirling, swelling, suffocating in their own circular noise.
And yet, what did I truly miss?
Very little, in truth. The endless transfer rumours continues its annual matinee — the great migration of names without destinations. Transfers touted and retracted in equal measure. The self-appointed sages of social media — those omniscient, omnipresent ‘ITKs’ — bellowing certainty from every corner. One whispers Madrid. Another swears by Manchester. A third insists it’s Saudi gold. Each tale tailored, each link looser than the last, and yet they claim lineage: agents, uncles, gardeners of the stars.
Still, the fog will clear. It always does. Because today, the curtain falls on the Premier League season — a final breath exhaled across English grounds. Elsewhere across Europe, too, the scripts have reached their epilogues. We now know our cast for next season’s continental gala — who shall dine at the table of kings, and who will not even make the room.
Unless, of course, you wear the red of Manchester, in which case… no invitation at all.
Oh there was one more football story that developed over this weekend… just a side note. The Arsenal Women’s team:
For yesterday — gloriously, thunderously, improbably — the Arsenal Women conquered Europe. They bested Barcelona. The best. The bar-setters. In Lisbon, they scaled the very summit of the sport. And with poise and panache, they planted the Arsenal flag in the soil of history.
Yes, I jested — called it “small news.” But make no mistake: this was a towering triumph. A victory to echo down the decades. And it deserves — it demands — to be celebrated from Highbury to Holloway, from north to south and far beyond.
Because for Arsenal — for all of us — it was a night to believe again. And in the end, isn’t that what football is for?
From Tepid to Triumphant: The Road to Lisbon
This, you see, has been a curious campaign — a season that began not with hope, but with hesitation. Arsenal Women, so often the standard-bearers, began their voyage through choppy waters. Tepid. Toothless. Uncertain. Under Jonas Eidevall, the flame flickered but never caught. While rivals surged, the red shirts of north London stood still — and as winter neared, the dream of a title seemed already consigned to another time.
By the moment the club chose to act — to end one chapter and begin another — it felt, perhaps, too late. Too much ground lost. Too many questions unanswered.
But football, that ever-capricious storyteller, adores a twist.
Enter Renée Slegers.
In January, a change. In January, a shift. In January, a resurrection. With quiet authority and burning clarity, Slegers breathed life into this fading season. And what followed was not merely improvement — it was rebirth. An upturn not just of form, but of belief. Of character. Of cohesion. Arsenal rose. Arsenal rallied. Arsenal became.
And now — astonishingly, gloriously — Arsenal reign again.
For the first time since 2007, they are champions of Europe. And they have done so not by avoiding the elite, but by confronting them head-on and emerging victorious.
Barcelona — the indomitable, the untouchable, the gold standard — were stopped. Not just beaten, but silenced. On the grandest stage, against the finest of opponents, Arsenal stood tallest. They held their nerve. They made history. They refused to yield.
And this was no gilded run of fortune. No smooth road. No easy ride. No team, in the annals of this competition, has had to fight through more. Fifteen matches. Three separate deficits overcome. Real Madrid laid to waste — an echo, perhaps, of the draw their male counterparts shared on the same week. Then Lyon — the perennial queens of Europe — dragged into the storm and left behind.
It was a route lined with giants. And Arsenal conquered them all.
And when the final whistle blew in Lisbon, what a picture it painted: a corner of Portugal drenched in red and white, voices lifted into the sunset, hearts swelling with pride. Beth Mead, Leah Williamson, Chloe Kelly — each voice post-match sang the same song. Of unity. Of belief. Of unshakeable togetherness. Of a squad that had found itself in the mirror of adversity, and emerged arm in arm, stronger than ever.
There is something sacred, almost mythical, about nights like these. The kind that remind you why you fell in love with the game in the first place. To see that Arsenal badge glinting beneath the Portuguese sky, to hear our anthem echo into eternity, to watch our women cradle the most coveted trophy in the club game — it was more than a win.
It was a moment.
The most decorated English side in the women’s game has written another chapter. Arsenal, again, are at the summit of Europe.
And oh, how sweet it is to be home.
No Parade, No Panic: The Men’s Season Winds Down
So, where the women have ended with an almighty crescendo — medals hoisted, memories forged, a continent conquered — the men will walk off stage today to a quieter kind of applause. There will be no ticker tape. No open-top bus weaving through Islington. No fireworks in the May dusk.
There will be no silver to show for it. But there will be peace.
Champions League football is already in the bag — a far cry from those latter Wenger years when fourth place felt like the edge of a cliff. Now, there’s calm. The arithmetic is simple. Barring the most absurd swing of goals imaginable, Arsenal will end this campaign as runners-up. The league table won’t shout about us, but it won’t scold us either.
Today is a Sunday to simply be. To watch. To breathe. To thank.
And yet, even in the quiet, the questions stir. Speculation has danced across the back pages this week — murmurings about movement, about futures unresolved. Leandro Trossard. Gabriel Martinelli. Both with value, both with admirers, both — perhaps — at a crossroads. With the club reportedly in the market for a wide attacker, it’ll be interesting to see if either makes a final cameo today.
But perhaps more poignant is the situation of Ethan Nwaneri — a diamond not yet polished, a star still in its dawn. No deal signed. No certainty. Just whispers, hope, and fear. For here is a talent too bright to be dimmed by the shadows of the bench. A player who must play — not just minutes, but meaningful minutes.
What must happen, though, is that we keep him. Because if there’s one thing this club cannot afford to lose, it is a boy who already looks like tomorrow.
Give him a run-out today, not as a parting gift in the season, but as a promise. A sign. A whisper to say: we believe in you. Let the Arsenal fans remind him — one last time this season — just how much he is loved.
As for the rest? Expect the usual shuffle of the pack. A strongest XI dictated more by fitness than form. Others, perhaps, have already waved their goodbyes. Don’t expect risks. Expect rotation. Expect a wind-down.
Southampton, our hosts, seeking only pride. The points they needed to avoid ignominy are in the bag, sparing them the indignity of equalling Derby County’s all-time low. Their fate is sealed, and this is their Premier League farewell — for now. The Saints return to the Championship, replaced next season by Sunderland.
And for me? That pleases.
Because we have the return of the North-East derby. Sunderland vs. Newcastle stirs the soul. A single-city derby of pure tribalism. There’s something raw about that — something that belongs only to the fiercest rivalries. Like us and Tottenham. Liverpool and Everton. Manchester split in two. But when two single city football clubs pit one against the other, when it is truly us or them, the emotion crackles. The air tightens. And Sunderland’s long road back, documented so painfully in Sunderland ‘Til I Die, now ends with a sunrise. You can almost feel the hangovers on Wearside this morning. Worth every sore head, I’d imagine.
So that’s where we leave it.
There isn’t much else to say now. Today will not define us. But it can still delight. It can still entertain. It can still — perhaps — offer one last glint of beauty before the curtain falls.
Yesterday, the women gave us glory. Today, the men might give us joy. And that’s enough.
One final game. One final cheer. One last reminder of what it means to be Arsenal.
Let the sun set gently on this season.
Victoria Concordia Crescit