During a Manchester City game in April this year, the TV cameras panned to a fan in the stands drinking water from a bottle labelled with the crest of City’s rivals for the Premier League title, Arsenal. 

The gag was clear: Arsenal were once again going to bottle it. They would, as usual, blow their lead. 

The most notable example had been in the 2022-3 season, when the London club topped the league for 248 days, only to implode at the end and gift City the title. The week after the water joke, Man City were at home to Arsenal themselves. The fan in question was giving media interviews outside the stadium, and there was a brisk trade in replica bottles.

The pressure on Arsenal was all the greater because they hadn’t managed to win the Premier League since 2004, hence the title of this book, brilliantly researched by the Daily Mail’s ‘Mr Arsenal’, Isaan Khan.

The biggest character to emerge from the account of the club’s 2025-26 season is manager Mikel Arteta. The Spaniard had spent the years since his 2019 appointment forming the club in his image, demanding the same dedication from players as he shows himself (he arrives at the training ground every day at 7am). 

Arteta got rid of prima donnas, replacing them with players who were married or in long-term relationships, as they would be more grounded and stable. Before signing Declan Rice, he quizzed the midfielder’s England team-mates Bukayo Saka and Aaron Ramsdale on Rice’s character. ‘Arteta wanted people, not just players.’

Attention was paid to every tiny detail that could improve performance. Arteta removed the outer cover of the tunnel at Arsenal’s Emirates stadium so the players would hear more crowd noise as they walked out. 

Before an away match at Liverpool he repeatedly played You’ll Never Walk Alone during training, to stop the legendary anthem intimidating his team. He hired professional pickpockets to steal from the players during a team dinner, teaching them the importance of always being alert.

Aided by Gabriel Heinze, who in a previous job with an Argentinian club had weighed his players twice a day, Arteta created a culture in which only maximum effort was enough.

He was similarly uncompromising with the media. During that 2022-23 season one journalist asked the manager why he wasn’t buying a striker. Arteta ‘held his irritation until the cameras switched off and made a beeline towards the culprit, fixing him with a death stare close-up’. 

But he has a kindly side too. Learning that a staff member’s son was being bullied, Arteta invited the boy to meet the players and use the club’s gym in the evenings, so helping to build his confidence.

On the night Arsenal finally won the title, one of their players, Myles Lewis-Skelly, picked up a certain object and said: ‘They called us bottlers, but now we’re holding a bottle!’ This one contained champagne.