It’s not pretty, but an Arsenal triumph will quell 22-year neurosis

Fourteen of the 20 Premier League clubs have won the English title. Six have never had that pleasure. And it’s no coincidence that with the obvious exception of West Ham, supporting Bournemouth, Brentford, Brighton, Fulham and Crystal Palace is more pleasant than following a team burdened by entitlement.

Arsenal last sat on top of England’s other 91 professional clubs 22 years ago. Boy does the time-lag show. Big club fandom is a maelstrom of expectation, hair-trigger anger and shame. Yes, shame. Once a “wait” for a title exceeds a number deemed to be acceptable (five years?) mortification sets in.

That stigma is unknown to fans of Bournemouth and Brentford because you can’t miss what you’ve never had. But at Arsenal a growing mania has framed Mikel Arteta’s reign as a quest to right a wrong.

Burnley fans are too young to find the hiatus painful because the last time their club won the title was 1960. For Newcastle it was 1927, though expectations there are bigger.

Arsenal, if they can hold off Manchester City, will get their catharsis. They’ll also be told they were negative and Machiavellian. But their pragmatism has to be viewed in the context of that 22-year so-called “wait” and three consecutive second-place finishes (2023-25).

Three back-to-back near-misses are death to romanticism. You can quite see why Arsenal might use any means necessary to break that sequence. Set-pieces, timewasting, grappling in the box: none of it makes the heart sing. Give them a break though while they try to quell a neurosis that has festered since 2004.

Next season, sympathy would be less forthcoming. Aspiring champions are sometimes bent out of shape by impatience. Defending champions though are held to higher account.

Photograph by: Clive Mason / Getty Images