What becomes of the broken-hearted?
Arsenal are the the fifth team in history to finish second in the league three seasons running. What do the previous four tell us about what might happen next?
Before the start of last season, Arsenal probably thought all they had to do to win the title was to wait for Manchester City to crack. Finish above Pep Guardiola’s side, who had won the previous four league titles, and the championship would be theirs. City did crack. Arsenal were within seconds of beating them at the Etihad and then thrashed them at the Emirates and ended up finishing three points above them – although at times it had seemed like the gap would be much greater. Yet Arsenal didn’t win the league because Liverpool produced a far better season than anybody had imagined possible. And so, for the third successive season, Arsenal finished as runners-up.
It's an achievement that places them in strange position. On the one hand, coming second three years in a row speaks of great consistency. This Arsenal are clearly a very good side. But that comes with a measure of frustration: when a team comes so close so often, it’s inevitable that some will begin to ask whether they are failing to complete the job because of some intrinsic flaw. Four teams previously have finished as runners-up three seasons in a row, so it’s worth perhaps looking at them and what their example says about the position in which Arsenal find themselves.
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On It Was What It Was, the football history podcast, we look back 100 years at Herbert Chapman retaining the league title with Huddersfield. Listen here.
On Libero, we look at Arsenal’s transfer business this summer. Listen here.
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And, ever wanted the history of football tactics explained in one gorgeous poster? Or the Premier League as Fibonacci sequence? Then you’re in luck. Buy here.
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Preston North End, 1890-91, 1891-92, 1892-93
Preston had won the first two league titles, in 1888-89 and 1889-90, going unbeaten in winning the Double in the first league season. Crucially, though, that was a league that featured only sides from the Midlands and North-West. When Sunderland were permitted to take their place in the competition, the challenge increased significantly. As the Old Invincibles were slowly dismantled, Preston’s form gradually declined. They still had the best defence as they finished two points behind Everton in 1890-91, but finished five behind Sunderland the following season and were 11 adrift as Sunderland racked up a remarkable 100 goals in their 30 games in 1891-92. Preston’s run of second-place finishes represents a decline; although they have finished second three times since, they have never again won the league.
Manchester United 1946-47, 1947-48, 1948-49
Matt Busby took over United at the end of the war and soon had them playing far better football than any had imagined them capable of. He signed only one player in that first full season back, Jimmy Delaney, but redeployed various others, most notably transforming Johnny Carey from a slow inside-forward to a commanding full-back. Defeat to the eventual champions Liverpool in the fourth-last game of the season proved costly, as United finished a point back. They were rather further adrift of Arsenal and Portsmouth in the two seasons that followed, but they did win the FA Cup in 1948 and, as Busby’s first crop of young players began to emerge, United finished second again in 1950-51 before lifting the title for the third time in their history in 1951-52. Their run of second places can be seen as a transitional phase as the pre-War team came to an end and Busby’s enlightened youth policy began to bear fruit.
Leeds United 1969-70, 1970-71, 1971-72
If Don Revie’s Leeds hadn’t been quite so good and quite so ambitious, they might have won rather more. Their problem was that Revie began each season with the dream of winning what he called “the Triple”, and he kept coming close, which put extraordinary strain on a squad that simply wasn’t large enough to cope, particularly when they often went deep in Europe. In 1969-70, Leeds lost in the FA Cup final and the European Cup semi-final while league form collapsed late in the season as Everton took the title. A run of three games without a win in April cost them the title the following season, Arsenal sneaking home by a point as Leeds reached the fifth round of the Cup and won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Although they won the FA Cup, Leeds lost the title by a point in 1971-72 as well, defeat at Wolves in their final game handing Derby the title when they would have won it with a draw. Preston’s hat-trick of second places was evidence of decline, Manchester United’s of progress; for Leeds, though, there was little sense of development in either direction: they were just an excellent side who kept coming up against the limits of their own bodies.
Arsenal 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2000-01
Between Blackburn going into decline and Roman Abramovich arriving at Chelsea, the league tended to be won by Manchester United. And if they didn’t win it, Arsenal did. Although Liverpool and Newcastle occasionally mounted threats, there was a long spell around the turn of the millennium when Arsenal and United were clearly the two best sides in the country. For eight years in a row, Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal finished in the top two. Their three successive runners-up finishes can be seen as a transitional phase from Ian Wright and the fabled back four to Thierry Henry, Robert Pirès and Sol Campbell: a point behind in 1998-99, double-digits adrift the following two years, before winning two titles in three years.
So where does that leave Arsenal now? The big difference between Arsenal now and all four previous examples, is that the other four had all either won the league shortly before beginning their run or, in United’s case, won the FA Cup during the run at a time when the Cup was arguably more important that the league. Mikel Arteta has won the FA Cup, but that was in 2020, his first season. While it was certainly welcome, particularly given they beat Manchester City in the semi and Chelsea in the final, it just doesn’t matter in the same way now that it did in the 1940s.
That means there are, inevitably, questions about whether Arteta is “a winner”. Whether such a concept really exists is debatable, but what certainly is true is that teams can come fatalistically to believe they lack some vital edge that would carry them over the line – even when a historically great City side have twice been the team stopping them winning. And it’s also true that Arsenal have developed a habit of failing to win games they have dominated for large periods – most strikingly last season, the home game against Aston Villa when they drew having been 2-0 up.
The fear that players – and fans – may lose faith in Arteta is perhaps why they’re has been such urgency to Arsenal’s transfer business this summer. Arteta has clearly improved Arsenal since he replaced Unai Emery in 2019. There is no disgrace at all in finishing second, particularly not to the sides he has finished second to. And yet the demanding nature of modern football means that Arsenal begin this season, if not quite with a sense of now or never, at least with profound expectation.