All-time greatest Arsenal performances in EPL

The origins of the Arsenal football club can be traced back to late 1886 when a group of workers employed by the Woolwich Arsenal Armament Factory decided to form a football team.

The original name was Dial Square, an apparent reference to the sundial on top of the factory’s entrance. In December 1886, Dial Square played its first game-winning 6-0 against the Eastern Wanderers. Shortly after this game, the team changed its name to Royal Arsenal.

Over time, a group of players from Nottingham Forest joined Royal Arsenal. This gave a great impetus to Arsenal football club, as reflected in the red shirt until today.

Some of the Arsenal players asked their former team to provide the London team with a spare football kit, and forest gladly obliged, and the Gunners dipped themselves into the red.

This was when fans of Arsenal FC started forming globally. The team became a sensation with a list of casinos not on Gamstop offering some of the best Arsenal odds. 

The history of Arsenal FC

Arsenal floated from one pitch to another to play their matches. The club commenced playing its first season at Plumstead Common. Eventually, they rented the nearby Sportsman Ground, leading the club to join the London Senior Cup for the first time. Success on the field brought more supporters and increased interest in the club.

To entertain their ever-increasing support base, the club move to a better football ground – the Manor Ground. After a few seasons at the Manor Ground, the team moved to the Invicta Ground, where they stayed for six years.

The initial overall success of the Gunners led the team to venture into professional football. At the time, this move shocked the football authorities, and the club has expelled the club from the London Football Association and boycotted it by most of the southern clubs.

The unstoppable Gunners aiming for football domination

Nothing could deter the Gunners from achieving success throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century, especially their feat of getting promoted to Division One in 1903.

From that date onwards, the club never looked back, and today Arsenal Football Club is one of the most successful teams in England and has a widespread following across the globe.

On the assets side of the balance sheet, Arsenal can boast of having won thirteen league titles; thirteen Football Association Cups; two League Cups; the League Centenary Trophy; fifteen times the Community Shield; one UEFA Winners’ Cup, and one Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

It is also the only English football club to establish the record of a thirty-eight-match league season unbeaten, thus tagged as the Invincibles and provided with a special gold Premier League trophy.

The Gunners have played fantastic and memorable matches throughout their one hundred and twenty-eight years of history.

Although it may be true to state that the club has lowered its guns a bit during these last few seasons and failed to properly compete for the Premier League title, the North London club has provided football fans with plenty of good league campaigns bringing joy and sometimes sorrow to their faithful fans and supporters.

When luck is just not on your side, football suffers

The 2005/2006 Premier League season was not one of the most successful campaigns for Arsenal. The Gunners finished fourth in the table; however, this season had some merits.

The last season, Arsenal played at Highbury and bid farewell to the club’s spiritual home. Before the season’s final game, Arsenal’s arch-rival Tottenham Hotspurs sat fourth in the table and earmarked to qualify for the UEFA Champions League.

In that memorable game for the Gunners, the Frenchman Thierry Henry scored three goals to beat Wigan whilst Spurs suffered a 2-1 loss to another London club West Ham. This outcome enabled Arsenal to surpass Tottenham Hotspurs in the table and qualify for the UEFA Champions League.

The 2007/2008 Premier League season can be termed a miserable season for the Gunners. They lost only three games during the season but had to contend with finishing in third place in the league table.

Throughout most of the season, Arsenal had been on top of the league ahead of Manchester United. Unfortunately, their prolific striker Eduardo suffered a terrible injury, leading to the team losing its firing power and consequently losing on winning the Premier League title.

Notwithstanding, during the season, Arsenal played some excellent and entertaining football, with Emmanuel Adebayor scoring thirty goals and garnering thirty-eight points, the highest total for any third-placed squad in the Premier League.

Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal revamp and back to basics football

Season 1999/2000 saw the Gunners finishing in the second spot in the league title. Despite winning more games than the previous Premier League season, Arsenal had to succumb to the relentless form of Manchester United and finished a distant second in the league.

This season introduced Thierry Henry to the Premier League (the player was brought from the Italian giants Juventus). Henry finished as the top scorer in his first season with twenty-five goals in all competitions.

Another remarkable highlight of this season was Nwankwo Kanu’s final fifteen-minute hat-trick against Chelsea, which Arsenal won 3-2.

Arsene Wenger’s second season at Highbury (1998/1999) led Arsenal to second place in the Premier League runners-up to Manchester United. The Reds pipped the Gunners to the title by a single point on the campaign’s final day.

During this season, Arsenal had a formidable defence conceding only seventeen goals and Nicolas Anelka’s last season at the North London club netted nineteen goals.

The road to improvement

In the 2004/2005 season, Arsenal managed to improve on their record by going to an unprecedented forty-nine games without a defeat.

This record should have been fifty games without a defeat if not for the dismal refereeing performance during the 2-0 loss against Manchester United. Most of the Arsenal fans are still not over this grave mishap!! The excellent Arsenal side managed by Wenger finished second.

Season 1997/1998 brought better prospects to the Gunners as they finished at the top of the table of the Premier League. This season marked the one hundred seasons of competitive football for Arsenal, and it was also Arsene Wenger’s first entire campaign in charge of the Gunners.

Wenger, recruited from managing a Japanese club, was somewhat ridiculed by the British media and, to a certain extent, by his players at Arsenal. The team’s achievements proved everybody wrong except Wenger himself and the club owner.

It was the first time in seven years that the Gunners won the Premier League title, topping the Red Devils from Manchester with just one point. During this campaign, Arsene Wenger was named Manager of the Year and the Dutch player Dennis Bergkamp PFA Players’ Player of the Year.

The above a just a few of the greatest performances of Arsenal Football Club in the English Premier League. There were other instances worth mentioning; indeed, there will be another occasion where the Gunners will outshine their opponents on the playing field.