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When Arsenal last won the English Premier League back in 2004, they did so in a canter and won the league without losing a game. That team came to be known as the Invincibles and remains the finest team to have ever won the league title in England. The record remains unsurpassed. If anyone had predicted at the time that Arsenal would fail to win another league title for the next 13 years, then he would have been laughed out of the room.
Over the past 13 seasons, Arsenal have often threatened to win the league but eventually came up short and considering the sort of start they have had to the 2017-18 season, it is almost certain that the wait for another league title will stretch to 14 years.
So is there an end in sight for this drought for one of the biggest clubs in England? Can there be a pulsating end to this barren run with a dramatic win like the one in the 2014 FA Cup final? The grim reality is that Arsenal are as far away from challenging for the Premier League as they have ever been in all these years and here are the 5 reasons why the Gunners won't be lifting the league trophy anytime soon.
#5 Continued regression
Many will argue that the magnificent victory against Premier League Champions Chelsea in the FA Cup Final last season was a satisfactory end to a turgid season. It might have been a euphoric game for the club but the fact remains that they ended up outside the Champions League places for the first time during Arsene Wenger's (then) 21 year reign.
However, Arsenal had been on autopilot for some time and the signs of continues regression had been noticeable for some time.
It was not actually surprising that the club failed to make it to the top 4 after years of making a dash for it successfully in the final few weeks of the season. Years of summer transfer window bunglings ( buying no outfield player in 2015 for instance or failing to add a striker to replace Robin van Persie) and Wenger's inability to evolve with the times made the club ripe for the collapse that they experienced last year.
However, nothing seems to have changed this season either and Arsenal have already recorded 3 defeats in 11 games. As another season passes them by, it is quite hard to see them challenging for the league in the near future, let alone actually winning it.
#4 Backroom overhaul
Modern football clubs change personnel working behind the scenes continuously in order to ensure that the club does not lag behind. After last season's disaster, Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis had told fans that the poor show would be a 'catalyst for change' at the club. However, the changes that have been made are only cosmetic in nature.
Manager Arsene Wenger dismissed all talk of a new Director of Football by making fun of the idea at a press conference. Wenger said at the time, "Is it someone who stands on the road and directs the players left and right? I never understand what it means, director of football.”
Former goalkeeper Jens Lehmann has been added to the coaching staff but his exact role is unknown, while legal expert Huss Fahmy has been appointed to take care of contract negotiations. That being said, Arsene Wenger's coaching team has remained intact and the footballing side of things has remained just what it was 20 years ago.
A club that refuses to change things despite repeated failure to win the league are probably not interested in winning the league at all.
#3 Other top clubs aren't standing still
The top clubs and genuine title contenders in the Premier League nowadays do not only spend a lot of money on high-quality players but also keep refreshing their squad every season so as to stand a better chance of having a crack at the title.
The only exception is perhaps Tottenham Hotspur, who have built a superb squad on a budget and in Mauricio Pochettino, they have a manager who had consistently proven to be one of the best young tactical minds in Europe at the moment.
In addition to that, the presence of some of the best coaches in Europe like Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Jurgen Klopp has also made the Premier League a far more tactically evolved league. In this sort of an environment, it is highly unlikely to see Arsenal, with their cavalier approach to preparation and tactics, challenging these club for the Premier League trophy anytime soon.
#2 Silent Stan
“If you want to win championships then you would never get involved. I think the best owners in sports are the guys that sort of watch both sides a bit.” These were the words of Arsenal's majority shareholder Stan Kroenke at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference last year.
Although the American does not interfere in the day to day running of the club, his ownership of the club is one of the big reasons why the club seems to be going nowhere as far as their quest for a Premier League trophy is concerned.
It seems Kroenke is not quite bothered about the direction of the club as long as his investment is safe and the value of the television deals keep rising from one cycle to the next.
For instance, there was widespread belief that CEO Ivan Gazidis had lined up some managers to replace Arsene Wenger following the disastrous 2016-17 season. However, the decision was vetoed by Kroenke in the end and Wenger was handed a fresh two-year contract.
That extension could eventually prove to be one of the fatal decisions for the long-term prosperity of the club. Kroenke has sent a signal that he can tolerate abject results as long as the value of the club keeps rising.
#1 The Manager
When Arsene Wenger first arrived in England, he took the league by storm and his methods were truly revolutionary. Reams have been written about how he brought about changes by changing the dietary habits of players, used statistics to fine tune performance and provided vitamin supplements in order to ensure that the recovery process was aided.
However, truth be told, other clubs in the league have all caught up with those advancements and Wenger's lack of tactical nous as a manager has proven to be Arsenal's undoing for several years now.
No manager with any aspirations to win the Premier League will ever get trounced 10-2 on aggregate by Bayern Munich and that is only one of the several recent thrashings that Arsenal have suffered under Wenger. He is quite clearly no longer the man to take Arsenal forward and any chance of winning the league under him is nothing more than a pipe dream.
On the other hand, there is no indication that he is going to give up anytime soon and if Kroenke has anything to do with it, then it is perhaps clear that Wenger has a job for life at Arsenal.
