Mikel Arteta's men create history: Is the Premier League title enough to prove their worth or is there more to come from the Gunners?

After a 22-year wait, Arsenal fans are celebrating winning the league. (Image credits – Heute; licence details) 

Arsenal have won the Premier League title for the first time since 2004 after Manchester City failed to beat Bournemouth on Tuesday in a must-win game. Mikel Arteta has now joined the elite list of Gunners' bosses who've lifted the league title at least once.

He's the youngest-ever manager at 44 years old to win the league with the North London giants and is also only the second youngest manager to win the Premier League after Jose Mourinho, who led Chelsea to glory when he was only 42 years old.

For decades Arsenal fans waited for this moment while enduring all the trolls, memes and “bottling” jokes. The Gunners finished runners-up thrice in a row, but still, they kept believing when any other team would've crumbled and got their morale down under pressure; they managed to get over the line and give their fans a moment they'd been dreaming of for years. Long gone are the days of the Gunners' “Invincibles Era"; now it's Mikel Arteta's resilient Arsenal era, and we're all living in it whether we like it or not.

Arsenal hasn't just won the league; it's the completion of the full circle of the process which was built right from scratch by Mikel Arteta. The Gunners, just four seasons back, were heading in a dark tunnel with no future, drifting into becoming a mid-table club. The Spaniard rebuilt the broken Arsenal side, with a fanbase in disarray, into a team based on mentality and showing courage on the pitch.

The Gunners' sporting director, Edu, played a key role as well, and alongside Arteta, they introduced a young set of players like Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, William Saliba and Gabriel Martinelli.

Arsenal fully trusted Mikel Arteta with his sporting project and gave him the exact players which he wanted to have in his squad, and now they're reaping the rewards of all the patience and trust shown to him since day one. This season the Gunners were easily the most consistent club from England, and they played every game with intent and hunger to win while defending as a unit with the mentality of “dying on the pitch for the crest", which was not there in the previous years. Arsenal's mentality shift under Arteta is one of the biggest reasons for their success now.

For the Gunners, it's not just a title but a validation of their being one of the biggest clubs in England. The Premier League finally returns to North London after 22 years, and they will also compete for the European crown against Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest. In the Champions League, Mikel Arteta's side has conceded the fewest goals, and they've proved that they're one of the elite squads in Europe right now.

After years of staying away from the throne, they're now embracing it and are one game away from becoming the “Kings of Europe”, which even the previous great teams of Arsenal failed to do.

From being mocked as "Corner Kick FC" to winning the Premier League: Why Arsenal are every bit deserving of the title

The driving force behind this successful Arsenal team is Mikel Arteta, who has silenced his critics. (Image credits – Heute; licence details) 

This season rivals and even top pundits tried to degrade Arsenal right from the start. Every set-piece goal they scored was followed by "Corner FC" and “Bottlers” jokes. Yes, Arsenal's style of football was definitely less entertaining, and any neutral football fan would admire the style of football played by Pep Guardiola's Manchester City. However, in the end what really matters is the Premier League crown, and the ones who were being mocked are wearing it.

Pep Guardiola revolutionised British football into positional play, high pressing and “tiki-taka"-based football. The Premier League couldn't adapt to Manchester City's style of football, which gave them dominance over this period. However, Arsenal did find a way to win, and in football it's always about winning, not pleasing rival fans. When Pep arrived in England, rival fans didn't appreciate the possession-based style of football as they grew up watching physical football in the Premier League. Therefore, it's always the perspective and the gimmicks played on by the rival fans whenever a rival team is successful.

While many critics argued that Arsenal were lucky to score all those set piece goals, they were absolutely not. Under Mikel Arteta, the Gunners became unpredictable and thrived in chaos and are easily one of the most tactically driven sides in Europe. Every movement inside the box, players blocking opposition defenders and sending in swinging crosses into the first post, was relentlessly rehearsed on the training ground.

Opponents couldn't figure out how to stop them from scoring from set pieces, and it shows the problem was never their style of football. The reality was Arsenal were simply outsmarting every side and were better.

This Arsenal side played with intensity throughout 90 minutes, with midfielders like Martin Ødegaard dictating games with elegance, while Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi shielded the defence. The defensive wall led by William Saliba anchored the backline, and this was by far one of the best defensive performances by a side in recent years. Up top, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli dominated the flanks, with Mikel Arteta stepping up as a striker in the first half of the season when both Viktor Gyökeres and Kai Havertz weren't fit.

In the previous years, Arsenal did play “beautiful football” as per pundits, but then they were blamed for being too immature and naive to cross the finishing line. This season the team have answered every criticism and deserve to celebrate like they did last night. Arsenal didn't win the league by playing anti-football, as many call it; they just evolved themselves, and ultimately it's always the survival of the fittest in life. History will remember the Gunners as the champions, just like they remembered Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan, which beat FC Barcelona at Camp Nou with a handful of possession and later went on to win the Champions League as well.

Rival fans can mock Arsenal as much as they want and term them as “Haramball merchants", but the club and the fans will gladly wear the Premier League crown with their heads held high after suffering for the last two decades. The Premier League table does not give points for football style or aesthetics but for points which matter, and this season no team in England was better than Arsenal, who fully deserve to be where they are right now.