By Jeff Yong
For two consecutive seasons, Arsenal have played scintillating football, pushed Manchester City to the brink, and yet fallen agonisingly short.
The narrative of near-misses has become familiar: a team brimming with talent, tactical clarity, and youthful energy, but one that falters at the decisive moment.
As the 2025/26 campaign unfolds, the spectre of a third straight runner-up finish looms large. Unless Arsenal buck up, history may repeat itself.
The Gunners’ progress under Mikel Arteta is undeniable. From the days of languishing outside the Champions League spots, they have transformed into genuine contenders.
Yet football is cruelly binary: glory belongs to the champions, not the nearly-men. Arsenal’s inability to convert dominance into silverware risks cementing them as perennial bridesmaids.
The margins are fine, but the psychological weight of finishing second again could be devastating for a squad that has already tasted disappointment twice.
What Arsenal need is not another tactical tweak or marquee signing, but a collective injection of tenacity. To win the English Premier League, talent must be married to resilience.
It is about grinding out victories in cold midweek fixtures, about refusing to wilt under pressure, about believing that every duel matters. Victory, as Roland Garros himself once declared, “belongs to the most tenacious.”
Arsenal’s players should take that message literally. They may not have the luxury of boarding a bus from Brussels to Paris for a four-hour bus trip to the French capital after their match against Club Brugge on Thursday morning.
But if they can, it will be good. Not for sightseeing, but for reflection at Roland Garros. And they should, since their next EPL match is against bottom-placed Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday, December 14 at 4 am.
At the iconic clay courts that bear the name of Roland Garros, they could sit quietly for a while, absorbing the atmosphere of a place synonymous with endurance and grit. To ponder the quote etched into sporting lore: “Victory belongs to the most tenacious.”
Such a symbolic pilgrimage would remind Arsenal that greatness is not achieved by flair alone. It is forged in persistence, in the refusal to accept second best. The clay courts of Paris, where champions grind through five-set marathons, embody the very spirit Arsenal must embrace.
If Arsenal can internalise that lesson, they may yet break free from the cycle of near misses.
But if they fail to summon the tenacity required, the risk is clear: another season of dazzling football, another second-place finish, and another chapter in the story of what might have been.
WE