Arsenal Invincibles vs. Mikel Arteta's Gunners: What Champions League final means for debate on greatest team
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Arsenal Invincibles vs. Mikel Arteta's Gunners: What Champions League final means for debate on greatest team originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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What a difference six weeks make.
When Arsenallost 2-1 to Manchester City at a raucous Etihad Stadium on April 19, Mikel Arteta's side had won one game in six across all competitions and their imposing lead at the top of the Premier League had been whittled away.
In retrospect, that defeat and the impressive performance they turned in despite falling foul of Pep Guardiola's side came to feel freeing for Arsenal. They'd lost a cup final, been knocked out of the FA Cup by a Championship side, and seen their advantage in the title race dissolve. But they were still there, top of the table after the worst had happened.
By contrast, after beating Arsenal at Wembley and in Manchester, having slogged themselves back into contention from way behind, City did not have another kick in them to go again. Over the same period, Arsenal strung together gutsy wins and clean sheets. Jean-Philippe Mateta's consolation for Crystal Palace on the final day of the season was the first goal from open play the Gunners had conceded since Erling Haaland's winner in east Manchester.
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They were, of course, already champions of England by that point, for the first time in 22 years. That was the ultimate goal, the holy grail and the validation for the entire Arteta project.
But this weekend, against Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest, Arsenal have the chance to complete the rare feat of a Premier League and Champions League double, following in the footsteps of Manchester United in 1998/99 and 2007/08 and Manchester City in 2022/23. In the pre-Premier League era, Liverpool were champions of Europe and England in 1976/77 and 1983/84.
For football supporters of a certain generation, the mere suggestion might be considered close to sacrilege. But if Arteta's team beat reigning European kings PSG, will they be better than the Invincibles?
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Who were the Arsenal Invincibles?
Arsene Wenger's great Arsenal side won the 2003/04 Premier League without losing a single match, hence the "Invincibles" epithet.
It remains the only time that feat has been accomplished in the Premier League. In English football history, the only other 'Invincibles' were Preston North End, who won the First Division without defeat in 1888/89, when the season was only 22 games long.
In Arsenal's 38 Premier League matches in 2003/04, they won 26 and drew 12, amassing 90 points. Wenger's men scored 73 goals and conceded 26, a remarkably similar record to the 71 for and 27 against for Arteta's vintage, considering the vastly different perceptions regarding the respective entertainment value of the two sides.
Wenger's team went on a 49-game unbeaten streak in total, which ended in a 2-0 defeat to Manchester United in October 2004.
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Are Arteta's Arsenal better than the Invincibles?
We could make this argument very simple. If Arsenal beat PSG in the Champions League final, they'll have achieved a feat that was beyond Wenger's team or any other Gunners' side. So, in purely simple, trophy-winning terms, over the course of a season, they would be Arsenal's greatest.
But it's not as simple as that. If we measured football purely in terms of the number of games won, goals scored and trophies lifted, then we might as well watch spreadsheets and save ourselves the hassle. Sport is about how it makes you feel.
"The Invincibles had more of an X-factor, but that's because of players like Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Robert Pires," former Arsenal favourite Paul Merson told The Sporting News. "But they did also have that depth with Nwankwo Kanu and Sylvain Wiltord, too. They had serious ammunition in attacking areas.
"But this current generation and the Invincibles both have togetherness — that's what it takes to win a Premier League title. Both teams are physical too, and of course, hard to beat across all 38 games."
Hard, or in the case of Wenger's side, actually impossible. Not that his Invincibles didn't experience turbulence as they were dumped out of the Champions League by London rivals Chelsea and lost an FA Cup semifinal to Manchester United.
The disadvantage Arteta's team has in this conversation is the passage of time. We're better able to view the Invincibles in context, and it's some context. They weren't just a magical season; they were the culmination of a journey that changed English football and won widespread admiration.
After winning his first Premier League and FA Cup double in 1997/98, Wenger had to endure three titles in a row from Alex Ferguson's treble-winning Manchester United machine. Arsenal supporters today might make a similar point about Guardiola's City, but his great side collapsed during 2024/25 at the end of a cycle, finishing third behind the Gunners and Arne Slot's Liverpool.
The recently concluded campaign saw Slot's side limp to a fifth-placed finish, while this City team is a new one with only a few first-team survivors from their treble and four-in-a-row seasons.
Wenger's team won back the title in 2001/02, going unbeaten for the final 21 matches and concluding with 13 victories in a row — a thrilling foreshadowing of what the Invincibles would do. The likes of Henry, Bergkamp and Pires, and the swashbuckling play they instigated was like nothing else English football had seen. You could say the same for scoring 40% of your goals from set-pieces, but it tends to draw a different response.
"Nobody ever likes winning teams. People used to hate Manchester United when they were winning every week," said Merson, perhaps getting to the heart of the popularity Wenger's team enjoyed with neutrals. "Arsenal should continue doing what they're good at. They're there to win trophies and Arsenal fans won't mind how it's done. Everyone wants to see a winning team — I see a lot of entertaining teams in the Premier League and they never win anything."
If Arsenal can beat PSG this weekend, it would stand as a great achievement, one of English football's finest. But a personal view, again going back to how sport makes you feel, is that the Invincibles would remain ahead as their triumph crowned a successful period of golden memories. If Arteta's team go on to dominate following their superb 2025/26, perhaps with the shackles loosened a little, then it would be time for a reappraisal.
Paul Merson was speaking on behalf of Historic Newspapers, home to the world’s largest private newspaper archive and personalised newspaper gifts