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Do Arsenal have anything left to play for in the Premier League?

By on March 24, 2025

ARSENAL

As we wait for Premier League football to return after the March international break, I thought now would be a good time to reflect on the season so far and assess where Arsenal stand heading into the business end of the campaign.

Season so far

Heading into the 2024/25 season, fans with Arsenal tickets were in confident mood. The expectation was that the club would once again be battling it out with Manchester City for the title and we’d be competing for major honours. After narrowly missing out to Pep Guardiola’s men in the previous two seasons, many thought this would finally be our year.

However, it’s safe to say things haven’t gone according to plan. Despite Man City shock collapse, unfortunately Arsenal haven’t been the ones to take advantage. We’ve endured an extremely difficult campaign with our title hopes derailed by crippling injuries and contentious refereeing decisions.

We’ve been hugely unfortunate this season with some decisions that we don’t usually see, or have never seen before or since. Declan Rice’s sending off against Brighton early on set the tone. It was a ludicrous decision and it cost Arsenal two valuable points. Leandro Trossard was then inexplicably sent off for a second yellow for ‘kicking the ball away’ less than a second after the ref had blown for a foul.

Then we had the unfortunate William Saliba red against Bournemouth when VAR got involved to convince the ref to change his yellow for a red. The following day we say a Chelsea defender get away with a very similar challenge with only a yellow. This time, the VAR decided not to overrule the referee. Both of these dismissals cost us more points.

A late winner against Liverpool at the Emirates was harshly ruled out, Gabriel Martinelli should have won a penalty after being fouled by Ibrahima Konate and Trent Alexander-Arnold while Virgil van Dijk got away with kicking out [twice] at Kai Havertz all in the same game. An untimely injury to Gabriel Magalhaes just after half-time changed the game and once again Arsenal dropped two points.

We’ve also been on the wrong end of a crazy penalty decision when Saliba accidently clashed heads with Brighton’s Joao Pedro – a decision we’ve never seen before – and it cost us two more points. A contentious handball in the Villa game cost us two points and then we had the ridiculous red card on Myles Lewis-Skelly against Wolves. It’s safe to say we’ve been on the wrong end of some outrageous and contentious decisions that have cost Arsenal around 7-9 points.

Injuries

However, just as costly has been the crippling injury list Mikel Arteta has had to deal with. Ben White missed 4 months with a serious knee injury, Takehiro Tomiyasu has missed the entire campaign with knee problems and Riccardo Calafiori has been plagued by injuries all season [he’s just picked up another injury while away with Italy] so we’ve been stretched in the full-back positions.

But it’s in attack where Arsenal have really been decimated. Bukayo Saka tore his hamstring in December and was ruled out for at least 3 months. This was a monumental blow for the club and looking back this was arguably the biggest turning point of the season. Saka is close to making his comeback, but his return is probably too late to salvage our title hopes.

Gabriel Jesus did his ACL just two weeks after Saka got injured and just as he was starting to rediscover his best form. The Brazilian will be out for around nine months and it was another big blow to lose such a creative player. However, things went from bad to worse in early February when Gabriel Martinelli picked up a hamstring injury before Kai Havertz tore his hamstring while away on a warm weather training camp in Dubai.

To lose four of our key attackers at the same time to long-term injuries was catastrophic and Arsenal’s squad just couldn’t cope. Leandro Trossard has failed to step-up to fill the void as his form has been poor but luckily youngster Ethan Nwaneri has taken his chance to shine. The teenager has been a revelation and proved that he can be a reliable deputy to Saka on the wing or Odegaard in the middle.

With no recognised striker fit, Merino has been tasked with leading the line up front and to be fair, he’s done a solid job. His all-round play is lacking at times but he’s been a focal point and chipped in with some important goals. However, the lack of firepower has cost us and we’ve faltered badly in recent weeks.

What’s left to play for?

As things stand, Arsenal sit second in the table – 12 points behind Liverpool. Realistically, our title hopes are all-but over as it’s extremely unlikely that Liverpool will lose at least four of their remaining nine matches. We do have to go to Anfield in our third last game which is an opportunity to cut the deficit, but even if we beat Arne Slot’s men and they drop more points, it’s difficult to see us going on a nine-game winning streak.

We have some winnable games coming up against the likes of Fulham, Everton, Brentford, Palace, Ipswich, Bournemouth and Southampton, but there are also very tough games against Liverpool and Newcastle to navigate. The chances are, by the time we head to the south coast on the last day of the season, fans with Southampton vs Arsenal tickets are highly unlikely to be keeping an eye on the Liverpool score as the Reds will have wrapped up the title and we’ll be focussed on securing second spot.

Champions League qualification should be easy enough as this season the Premier League is almost certainly going to have five places and we’re 11 points clear of sixth place. With Saka back and a decent fixture list coming up, Arsenal should easily win enough matches to qualify for the Champions League again next season.

We’re also in pole position to finish second as we’re four points clear of Nottingham Forest, while Chelsea are nine points adrift. As long as our form doesn’t fall off a cliff, we should finish second – third at the very worst – in the Premier League.

Luckily, we still have at least two huge games to look forward to as Arsenal face Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Realistically, we will be focussed on those games as we still have a chance to produce something magical this season in Europe so it’s still all to play for in the Champions League.