The 2022/23 season has been a remarkable season for Arsenal in which they reached milestones they had not achieved in decades, despite not being able to add the icing on the cake by winning the premier league after being top for the majority of the season.
They proved to be the only team in the league with what it takes to challenge reigning champions Manchester City, who have won the title five times in seven seasons since Pep Guardiola took over as manager.
The introduction of Oleksandr Zinchenko in the inverted left-back role, William Saliba in defence and Gabriel Jesus in attack revolutionalised how they played this season and became the catalyst of the progress achieved since the club qualified for the champions league for the first time since Mikel Arteta was appointed as Arsenal manager and led for the majority of the season.
They also improved their league position from finishing 8th in his first two seasons, fifth in his third season and second this season.
Records broken this season
Despite fielding the second youngest team in average at 25 years and 52 days, Arsenal set a new record for most goals scored in the premier league with Jakub Kiwior’s fifth goal against Wolves that marked their 88th premier league goal this season, surpassing the previous record of 87 goals that was set in 2004/2005 by The Invincibles.
Club Captain Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli scored 15 goals each in the premier league for the first time since 1970/71 when Arsenal last had two players on 15 goals. Arsenal were also the only team in the league with four players with more than 10 goals that included Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard and had 16 different scorers in the premier league, the most of any team.
Arsenal scored 103 goals in all competitions, marking the first time the club scored a century of goals since the 2018/2019 season under Unai Emery when Arsenal reached the Europa League final. Arsenal also became the first team in the league to win ten London derbies in a season and did the double over their biggest London rivals, Tottenham and Chelsea.
2 decades of struggles
For the past two decades since the Invincibles triumph of the 2003/2004 season whereby Arsenal went an entire season unbeaten, results had been unsatisfactory due to the high standards that had been set in the past, the clubs’ size and stature as one of the biggest clubs in Europe as well as number of league titles as well as domestic cups.
Fans have had to endure a long spell without winning the biggest titles and trophies and to add salt to the injury had to watch their local and league rivals win multiple league titles as well as European cups as they watched in envy.
Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger recently admitted in an interview that he had to sacrifice his best players such as Robin Van Persie who was sold to Manchester United and led them to their 20th league title to fund the club’s stadium move from Highbury where the Gunners last won a league title to their current home, The Emirates stadium.
Arsenal has a lot of positives to build on after only falling short of the title by five points. Qualifying for the champions league for the first time since 2015/16, the connection with the fan base having been restored, the level of play drastically improving and transfers that will be done ahead of the 2023/2024 season.
The Gunners will be in contention to win the biggest trophies in England and Europe as they look to reclaim their status among the best in the world.
