Almost 11 years ago, Jose Mourinho had a smirk on his face.
His dominant Chelsea side had moved within five points of the Premier League title with a 0-0 draw at the Emirates, and sitting in the post-match press conference, the Special One crafted his killer response to the Arsenal fans’ chants of ‘Boring, boring Chelsea.’
‘You know, I think boring is ten years without a title. That’s very boring.’
A decade on, Mourinho is long gone from the Premier League, yet his words continue to haunt Arsenal, whose league drought has stretched to 22 years since their 2004 Invincibles triumph.
‘Specialist in failure’ Arsene Wenger departed in 2018, allowing Mikel Arteta to supercharge the Gunners’ return to the elite, but three successive second places have come at a huge cost to their identity.
Now it’s ‘boring, boring Arsenal.’ But Arteta disagrees.
He said: ‘I hear completely the opposite: all around Europe that we are the most exciting team in Europe – the most goals, the most clean sheets.’
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Indeed, Arsenal scored 23 Champions League goals in their flawless league phase campaign, more than any other club across Uefa competitions this season, whilst conceding three fewer than any other UCL team.
That run included victories over Bayern Munich and Inter Milan, who are six and five points clear in their domestic leagues.
However, it is in the Premier League where Arsenal have drawn dissatisfaction from pundits.
‘No one will remember this Arsenal team’, said ex-Chesterfield loanee Jamie O’Hara on TalkSport, whilst ex-Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes claimed on his own podcast, ‘If Arsenal win, this could be the worst team to win the league.’
But the data doesn’t agree.
Arsenal are projected to finish the season with 84 points, identical to Arne Slot’s outstanding Liverpool team last season and five more than Manchester United’s treble winners in 1999.
In fact, United boast six of the nine lowest Premier League winning points totals, including a lowly 75 points in 1997. Scholes played in all six.
Of course, many observers highlight Arsenal’s efficiency from set-pieces and deride them as one-dimensional, especially regarding corners.
According to Chris Anderson and David Sally in their book, ‘The Numbers Game’, a goal occurs every 45 corners. In the Premier League this season, Arsenal have scored 17 goals from 148 corners, meaning they score every 8.7 corners, vastly outperforming Anderson and Sally’s metric.
But becoming a greater threat from a wider variety of chances denotes a team that is more exciting, not less so. Arsenal fans’ cheering of earning corner kicks may have become their latest charge in a list of footballing crimes including AFTV and Piers Morgan, but surely it would be more boring if they sat in silence as their team delivered nothing from them.
Ahead of Newcastle’s clash with PSG last week, Anthony Gordon echoed the thoughts of many Premier League fans, saying, “In the Champions League […] teams try and come to play proper football.
‘In the Premier League, you have seen longer throw-ins, set pieces – it has become slower and a lot more set-piece based.’
He is undoubtedly right, but these are the symptoms of a slower league, not the cause.
Set pieces have become the most effective way to bypass the deep blocks and defensive systems of teams who expect to be played off the park if they play expansive football. Stoke City’s Pulis-ball was intended to disrupt teams. Arteta and his fellow set-piece disciples are trying to overcome today’s disruptors.
The games that will define Arsenal's Premier League season
Spurs (A), Feb 22
Arsenal’s north London rivals would love nothing more than to trample the Gunners’ hopes of a first league title in 22 years. Revenge for November’s 4-1 defeat will represent a dangling carrot for Thomas Frank’s men, with memories of Eberechi Eze’s hattrick fresh in the minds. Spurs have faltered once again this season, sitting 14th, but with Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro supposedly returning soon, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium may become a more formidable prospect in the back end of the season.
Chelsea (H), March 1
Only a week after the Spurs match, Arsenal will host Chelsea. The Blues had won won five matches in a row under Liam Rosenior prior to Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup demise and will have a desire to set the record straight.
Manchester City (A), April 18
No matter what happens between now and Arsenal’s visit to the Etihad Stadium on 18 April, it will be the biggest game of the season for both sides, regardless of whatever transpires in the League Cup final a month prior to this fixture. A Pemier League trophy would release six years of mounting pressure on Mikel Arteta since his sole managerial trophy in the 2020 FA Cup, as well as allowing him to finally step out of his mentor Guardiola’s shadow. What better time to do it than against the Catalan?
Newcastle (H), April 25
Perhaps Arsenal’s match against Newcastle is not as laced with jeopardy as City a week earlier, but the Magpies are a dangerous prospect. The Gunners have been burned by them before, with particularly nightmarish memories from the Carabao Cup semi-final defeat last season, and Bruno Guimaraes prolonging their five-year wait for Champions League football in the penultimate fixture of the 2021-2022 season. Mid-table Newcastle are also likely to be knee-deep in a scramble for the European places.
Crystal Palace (A), May 24
Despite Eze’s departure to Arsenal last summer, Crystal Palace’s season started tremendously and they were fifth after twelve games played. In the ten games since, they have won just nine more points, lost Marc Guehi to City, and suffered the ignominy of Olver Glasner very publicly declaring his disappointment with the board and intent to leave the club in the summer. But the Eagles could pose a real threat if Arsenal arrive at Selhurst Park on the final day of the season without the Premier League trophy guaranteed. Glasner’s departure means he will be fired up to put himself in the shop window ahead of the summer break, and Eze’s former teammates won’t want to let him have it his own way.
And that is more important than ever, because as money continues to flood into football, the rewards get bigger, and the incentive to prioritise style over substance disappears. Transactional football is the name of the game for all 20 Premier League clubs.
But until they win the league, Arsenal’s yardstick will be Manchester City, micromanaged to six stunning Premier League titles by Pep Guardiola and currently six points behind the Gunners in the table.
But City are arguably more boring than Arsenal this season. Their goals have come from 12 different players, two fewer than the leaders, and they have taken the fourth most shots, behind Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal.
If the most decorated foreign Premier League manager of all time is struggling to break sides down, it is important to set teams’ performances this season in the context of increased transactionality.
The Sky Blues also only scored 15 goals in a Champions League campaign that required Benfica’s goalkeeper Anatoly Trubin to seal a 4-2 win over Real Madrid, as City capitalised to sneak into the Round of 16 instead.
Benfica’s manager? Mourinho.
Moments after being labelled boring in 2015, he said: ‘If the media tells the truth, people will fall in love with us. But you have to tell the truth.’
Arsenal will hope the Special One was right.
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