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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Arsenal Wins FA Cup Putting An End To 9 Year Title Drought

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Nine years. Nine long, arduous years. Over. The silverware drought is over. Arsenal have lifted a trophy.

And how? Two goals down inside eight minutes. Behind until the 71st minute. Extra time. Aaron Ramsey.

The first team to come from two goals down to win an FA Cup final since Liverpool in 2006.

How’s that for character?

It took them longer than the fans would have hoped, 3,283 days in total, since Patrick Vieira thrust the same trophy above his head after that penalty shoot-out against Manchester United in 2005.

But today, memories of final defeats – the Champions League in 2006 and the League Cup in 2011 – can be burned away. Arsenal have done it.

Arsene Wenger has finally proved the doubters wrong.

He will be able to point up at another trophy on the banner that spans the Emirates and know his team are back among the elite at last.

It has come after investment from the club in a genuine world class superstar in Mesut Ozil, and although the £42.5m German has had ups and downs in his first season his initial boost to the club has pushed them towards this moment.

And it may push Wenger into making similar investments this summer, to bolster the squad further and get them closer to challenging for the Premier League title and the Champions League.

This victory can spur them on: the young players who had never won anything, the likes of Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Laurent Koscielny, Kieran Gibbs and Aaron Ramsey, will believe. Touching the cold steel of success for the first time and having that heavy medal draped around their necks will lift that weight on their shoulders.

Reuters
Digging deep: Arsenal did it the hard way

This win is not just about today, though. It is much, much more than that.

It is about the idea, the plan, Arsenal’s beliefs. It is about Wenger’s reign.

The Premier League’s longest serving manager, Wenger has now won five FA Cups, to go along with three league titles. And even in the absence of trophies, the belief, the identity, never wavered, and for that the club must be praised.

Sure, there have been times where criticism has been warranted, and had today gone the other way – as it looked like it would for so long – this would have been another. But having achieved this success there must be reflection.

Reflection on a journey that has brought them from Highbury to the Emirates, a journey from Bruce Rioch to Wenger, a journey from one-nil to the Arsenal to the fantasy football, a journey, finally, to tangible success, again.

And in the end it will be about Wenger’s legacy, when the day does come that the Frenchman leaves the club, it will not be one that is frayed by the despair or near misses, but one that has come full circle.

A club that can be whole again.

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