Neverkusen

 There are teams which are “Neverkusens”. This was the derisive nickname given to teams which got close to winning the league title, but never did. There was Roma, who after their title win in 2001 reached the top 3 roughly 10 times without winning anything. There was the Atalanta side circa 2020 who regularly qualified for the Champions League but didn't win Serie A. There was Parma who had a great side in the 90s but no Scudetto.

In the English league, there was Bobby Robson's Ipswich side which came in second 2 times and won the UEFA cup. There was Kevin Keegan's Newcastle. Pochettino's Tottenham around 2017. Houllier and Benitez's Liverpool. One haunting fact is that after Preston finished the first league season ever unbeaten and followed it up with another title win, it has never won the league again, coming close on a few occasions

Then there was Leverkusen itself.

There is the great question of what happens to Arsenal if it doesn't win the league this season. This was supposed to be the year they were favourites, but they they didn't step up. There were always one or two things: they got too many red cards, or they scored too few goals. Gabriel Jesus had a little bit of a renaissance, and then he got injured. Now, Bukayo Saka, Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havetz are injured, which almost guarantees they will not win the league.

Arsenal went from 8^th to 5^th to 2^nd in 3 seasons. Now they have been 2^nd for 2 seasons. The two seasons where they were 2^nd, they could have been champions if Man City were not around raising the levels to absurd heights. But this season, after the Man City collapse, they weren't able to step up. Liverpool are on course to finish wih more than 93 whereas they are only on course with 73, which gets you a title only when everybody else has screwed up. It's true that the premier league this year is much more competitive, because you have 6 clubs in the running for 3^rd and 4^th place, with Newcastle, Man City, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and Chelsea in the mix. And while Man U and Tottenham are in the bottom half, they can hurt you, especially when Tottenham gets their fit players back.

The question is: are Arsenal going to win the league one day? The galling part for Arsenal is that they had genuine opportunities in the last 2 seasons. They lost in seasons when they were genuinely competitive. In the 22-23 season, they spent the great majority of the season in first place, before Man City went on one of their unstoppable marches to the table. In the 23-24 season, they alternated between 2^nd and 1^st, but were unable to get to the top. They got their best ever points total in the premier league, but was ultimately unable to reach Man City's level.

Arsenal are the classic “things will get better” side. They had a rivalry with Man United but I think they ultimately lost it because while they were knocked off their perch by Chelsea in the end, it was Man U who came back and won 3 in a row when Chelsea were at their best. Arsenal could have had a three-peat between 01 and 04, but they showed their frailty because they allowed Man U back in to win their title in 2003. They had always had a bit of that fragility, even when they were at their best. George Graham's side at their best didn't have this problem, and the 1998 Arsenal side were mentally strong, when the back four were at a late peak. But Arsene Wenger wasn't able to maintain their discipline.

This team is mentally stronger, but they always were a thin squad and prone to a bad spell when the injuries piled up. Liverpool had that problem, but they are reaping the rewards of Klopp building his second great side and Slot finding out how to get the best out of them.

The biggest question mark over the future of this Arsenal side is whether they can mount another title challenge in the future. I think that it's hard to tell. It's possible that having come close on so many occasions would break their resolve. This Arsenal side has had to shed some of the players who brought them forward, and Arteta has already shown his ruthlessness at showing Ozil and Aubamayeung out of the door at the first opportunity. He's since cleared off Emil Smith-Rowe, Aaron Ramsdale, Rob Holding, Fabio Vieira, Granit Xhaka, Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson, Ainsley Mainland Niles and Folarin Balogun. He had a few academy players with some promise, like Ethan Nwanieri and Myles Lewis-Skelly.

But Liverpool are also a side which needs refreshing soon. They might lose Mohamad Salah and Trent Alexander Arnold, and Virgil Van Dijk doesn't have a lot more time. Man City have to rebuild and get back to winning ways – the spine of their team is getting old. Arsenal, if they can push on from this level, will probably find a season in the future where everything clicks.

It sometimes takes time to create a winning side. Arteta started from a low level, when Arsenal were basically upper half of mid table, to regularly challenging from the Champion's League to regularly challenging for the title. But today the competition is very tough, and the bar for Arsenal is higher. For Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, regularly challenging for champion's league is already considered very good. I don't know what it would do to Arsenal if they were to lose one or two more title challenges, would it trigger them to finally go into decline.

There is the threat from the newcomers mentioned earlier. Any one of them could be on the verge of reaching Arsenal's level in the future and blocking their path to the title. Chelsea and Nottingham Forest's approach of buying too many players doesn't seem to be an outright disaster.

Another possibility for Arsenal would be another 10 years of late Wenger: regularly making the champion's league but never to win the league again.