After a thumping victory to round off another eventful season, here are five talking points from the final game.
Golden Granit
For the first time in his career Granit Xhaka bagged a brace, and both goals were rapturously received around the Emirates.
The midfielder – playing his 297th match for us – was loudly cheered when his name was read out before kick-off, and within 14 minutes of the first whistle, he had given the supporters double reason to sing his name.
His first goal was a well taken header from a Gabriel Jesus cross, the second stabbed home from close range, and both were typical of the more advanced positions he’s been taking up throughout the season.
He even missed a glorious chance to complete a memorable hat-trick on the half hour, failing to make decent contact from a right wing cross when well placed in front of goal.
It didn’t take the gloss off a fine all-round performance though, and he capped his best ever scoring season for us – nine in all competitions, and 23 for his Gunners career.
When he was replaced with 15 minutes remaining, the Emirates rose as one for a resounding standing ovation.
Settled side
Mikel Arteta named the same starting XI that he fielded away at Nottingham Forest last week, which was entirely in character – we have made the fewest changes between matches of any Premier League side this season.
The boss has made a total of 38 changes throughout the season – an average of one per game – at least 10 fewer than any other side. Chelsea made more than 130 by way of comparison.
A product of the settled line ups throughout the season is that four players featured in all 38 games. Aaron Ramsdale played every minute (the first to do that for us since Wojciech Szczesny in 2011/12), while Gabriel started all 38. Bukayo Saka and Ben White also played in every game. It’s the first time since 1990/91 that we have had four ever-present players for a league campaign.
For Bukayo, it marks two consecutive seasons in which he has played every game – we haven’t had an outfield player manage that since Lee Dixon did so at right back in 1989/90 and 1990/91.
Bukayo’s run of consecutive league fixtures now stands at 80 and counting – during which time he’s contributed 19 assists, and today’s goal took his scoring tally to 25 in that run.
Ton up
Our second goal of the afternoon was also our 100th in all competitions this season.
It’s the first time we’ve reached three figures since 2018/19, and of our 103 total goals, 88 came in the league. That’s our highest scoring Premier League season ever, and the most we’ve got in any league campaign since 1963/64, when we grabbed 90 in a 42-game campaign.
Jakub Kiwior scored our final goal of the season – his first for the club – and took the number of players who scored for us to 19.
Three players shared the top scorer honour – Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli all amassed 15 each.
Making progress
We finished this season with 84 points – a tally we have only ever bettered twice in our history (title winning campaigns of 2001/02 and 2003/04).
It’s also 15 more than we mustered last season and marks the fourth year in a row we’ve improved our points return, from 56 in 2019/20, 61 in 2020/21 and 69 in 2021/22.
We’ve finished as Premier League runners-up for the seventh time. In the end the gap to Manchester City at the top was five points, as they lost their final game at Brentford.
This was our 26th league win of the season, matching our best ever return in a 38-game campaign, along with the title-winning seasons of 2001/02 and 2003/04.
Final day flourish
We have now won our final league game in each of the past 12 seasons. This win also stretched our unbeaten run in such fixtures to 18 – the last time we lost a season closer in the Premier League was back in 20024/05 in the Highbury days, when we lost 2-1 at Birmingham City.
In fact we have won on the final day more often than any other Premier League side – this was our 22nd – for a win rate of 71 per cent.
In contrast Wolves have now lost their final game in eight of their nine seasons in the Premier League, including each of their last six in a row.
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