Estragon: “Well, shall we go?”Vladimir: “Yes, let’s go.”(They do not move)― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for GodotThe waiting is over. Twenty-two years, more than a generation, they have waited. They waited and wished and feared and worried and lost hope and cursed and overthought all the eventualities. And still they waited.Nobody inside Tottenham Hotspur’s old White Hart Lane stadium on April 25, 2004, as Thierry Henry twirled his shirt around his head and led the Arsenal charge down the pitch to the emotional bearpit of an away end screaming “Champions!”, could have imagined it taking so long to feel that again.At roughly 9.24pm on May 19, 2026 the final whistle in Bournemouth signalled an impromptu party at the Emirates Stadium. People ran in from every direction, yelling, chanting, crying, falling into fellow members of the tribe.Fireworks, footballs, people on bikes, people with babies, people in cars tooting their horns, people with dogs, people with bottles of champagne. Highbury felt like the centre of the English football universe.What were you doing this time 22 years ago?A lot happens in that stretch of time. People fall in love, fall out of love, have children, watch them become adults, grieve the loss of family or friends, get jobs, lose jobs, get sick, hopefully get better, celebrate special occasions, drift through many, many unremarkable days along the way. It is a quarter of a lifetime, if you’re lucky.When Arsenal won their previous league title in 2004, Max Dowman, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Cristhian Mosquera were not born. Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber and Gabriel Martinelli were toddling around in nappies. Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard were starting to learn letters and numbers in primary school. Mikel Arteta had just turned 22, and was soaking up football knowledge, languages and ideas as an ambitious young midfielder with spells playing in France and Scotland under his belt.This squad have this season carried the responsibility of millions, worldwide, who put their faith in a talented, dedicated and driven collection of footballers and coaches chosen to represent Arsenal.It is a lot to carry on your shoulders. The old motto “Remember who you are, what you are, and who you represent” resonates. It ripples. They represent themselves, their team-mates, their families, their club, and all these people all over the planet who care about Arsenal. For the length of a brutal, 10-month season, with the spectre of all the attempts behind this one, that carries significant weight.Along the way, one of the strange themes for many Arsenal supporters is how hard it has been to enjoy. That should be a contradiction — how could they not enjoy being top of the league for so long? But beneath the surface was the overwhelming desire to get there, to not let it slip, to hold on for dear life, which had built up over 22 years.Arsenal were not even contenders for most of those seasons. But this period of challenging has made it into a four-year title race. After falling short three times in a row, of course, they were going to live with fear until they finally made it.When Arsenal were defeated in front of their own shellshocked public by Bournemouth last month, probably the lowest point emotionally of this season, as Manchester City were gifted the chance to jump out at them like a horror movie twist, Arteta wasn’t able to sugarcoat how bloody hard this thing was. “Today, we have to suffer,” he said. “It’s painful. It’s a terrible feeling. But tomorrow is a different day.”Since 2004, there have been more than 8,000 days. It has been a long, meandering road through periods of frustration, anger, despair, optimism and — maybe the worst state for anyone in sports — apathy.Reflecting on the meaningful pivot points along the way brings context to where Arsenal are today, planting their flag, eventually, back at English football’s summit.It has been a long wait since Arsenal’s 2003-04 title (Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images)“Abramovich has parked his tank in our front garden, and it’s firing £50 notes” — David DeinA few months after that 2004 title, David Dein, then Arsenal’s vice-chairman, was in Monaco for the Champions League draw. He was asked about Chelsea’s new ownership, and their aggressive approach to hunting talent, which included sniffing around his club’s players. The imagery in his answer (above) was strong, reflecting concerns about a new style of owner coming into the Premier League and flexing unprecedented financial muscle.The football landscape was changing radically, and Arsenal’s plans to compete while moving from their cosy ancestral home of Highbury to the more commercially viable Emirates Stadium were crushed by the nouveau riche. All projections for a phase with restricted money for signing players while paying for the building work were thrown off course.Not long after, in January 2005, Chelsea were caught tapping up Ashley Cole at a secret meeting in a London hotel when a waiter whispered to a tabloid newspaper. It marked the beginning of the end of the relationship between Arsenal and Cole. They had a disagreement over a new contract, and he was lured to Chelsea anyway. That hurt, but was also a harbinger of what was to come.Arsenal became a selling club.Once Manchester City were under Abu Dhabi ownership in 2008, they helped themselves to Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Adebayor, Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy. Bitterly, Manchester United pulled Robin van Persie away. Cesc Fabregas returned to boyhood club Barcelona. The policy known as “Project Youth”, designed to keep Arsenal ambitious by recruiting the best young talent and developing them to grow a successful team, was picked apart.These unstoppable sales to supposed rivals symbolised how they were drifting down the Premier League pecking order. For Wenger and Arsenal, it was extremely painful.“Are you going to play again? Are you going to walk again?” — Aaron Ramsey Abou Diaby was the closest thing Arsenal had to a new Patrick Vieira, a prodigy who was about to play in a Champions League final in May 2006. Eduardo was a clever striker whose goals helped Arsenal’s title bid in 2007-08. Aaron Ramsey was a central-midfield cog of a young side trying to challenge a couple of years later.All these players suffered appalling injuries, which Wenger attributed to a Premier League stereotype that his team were soft and needed roughing up. “It goes along with the idea that, for a long time, to beat Arsenal you have to kick Arsenal,” he said, visibly angry, as this concept had repeated horrific consequences.Fabregas, a masterful technician and heartbeat of the team for a while, faced the cameras after Ramsey’s double leg break in a match at Stoke City. He was understandably emotional.“In five years, I have seen three of them,” he said. “There are things in football that are a little bit too much.”Arsenal were under no illusions that certain teams, encouraged by certain managers, were geared up to go in hard. ‘Oh, they don’t like it up ’em’. But lines of acceptable aggression were crossed.Ramsey recovered sufficiently to play on for several years. But in the cases of Diaby and Eduardo, their careers were wrecked by their injuries. The loss of Eduardo, and the way the scene immediately after it happened affected his team-mates, was a significant issue as they slipped off the top of the table and a potential title evaporated.Followers of Arsenal are sensitive to the fact that they were once criticised, ridiculed and targeted for being fancy and fragile. Yet now that they are tough and resilient, that is also regarded as unacceptable. The irony is lost on nobody who lived through all those leg breaks.“It’s hard to believe” — Mikel ArtetaThere is no sugar-coating it. Pride was trampled and left in the dirt when Arsenal lost 8-2 at Manchester United in August 2011.Equal foes not so long before, a chasm opened up. Wenger admitted to feeling humiliated. The reaction to this new reality was to make a late-transfer-window trolley-dash around football for five reinforcements. In came proven nous — including an intelligent midfielder from Everton whose arrival would have more impact than anyone would have dared to imagine.Arteta could not believe it, because it happened very suddenly, very late. He jumped at the chance to join a club who had always caught his eye. As a former Barcelona academy boy, he had felt some kind of connection with the way Arsenal played when he watched Wenger’s best teams on TV.The 2011-12 season was salvaged, and in time Arteta became captain and helped the team to end a trophyless period with the FA Cup in 2014. He was in tears after his final ever appearance two years later, feeling the moment before heading into a new chapter of his life in coaching. This club really got to him.