Arsenal have done it.After 22 years, 165 players, four head coaches, two home stadiums, 984 days top of the table and five finishes in second position, they have deservedly been crowned champions of England again.When they last won the Premier League, their 2003-04 glorious unbeaten ‘Invincibles’ season, few would have thought the London club would have to wait well into the 2020s to add another top-flight title.Overall, Arsenal performed well in the Premier League in the intervening years and won five FA Cups, but it was not until this campaign that they secured a 14th top-division title.Here, The Athletic explores how Arsenal’s title drought stacked up historically and dives into the numbers behind their 22-year wait — looking at the club’s players and scorers and how close they came to ending it before this season.While the title drought may have felt like an eternity to Arsenal fans, it was not, in the context of the English top division’s history, an especially notable one. Far from it.Heading into this season, 18 of the 23 other clubs to have won the league since its inception in 1888-89 were on longer runs without reclaiming their crown than Arsenal. All 23 are now, of course, on longer waits than Arsenal.Preston North End, the only side other than Arsenal to go a season unbeaten in England's elite division, sit at the top of this list — having last triumphed in 1889-90. Sheffield United, West Bromwich Albion and Huddersfield Town are the three other clubs to have been waiting 100 years or more to be crowned champions again.Huddersfield's last title in 1925-26 was the club's third in succession, with those three triumphs the Yorkshire team's only top-flight titles.Meanwhile, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea are the only clubs other than Arsenal to be on droughts currently lasting under 10 years.When it comes to gaps between actually winning the title (so now looking at the ending of droughts), there are 14 instances of clubs going longer than 22 years before securing top-flight glory again.As you can see, Arsenal only went slightly more than a quarter of the way to Blackburn Rovers' 81-year wait between titles, which the Lancashire club ended under Kenny Dalglish in May 1995. To have surpassed the length of this gap, then Arsenal would have had to have failed to win the league before the start of the 2085-86 campaign.Chelsea's 50-year gap between titles, which was ended in stunning style by Jose Mourinho's team in 2004-05 (the season after Arsenal's previous win), is the longest to have taken place exclusively since the end of the Second World War in 1945.Now, here is how long Arsenal went between winning each of their league titles following their first triumph in 1930-31 under Herbert Chapman.So this was their longest gap between titles, surpassing the 18 years they went from 1953 to 1971 and then again from 1971 to 1989.Now, let's take a look at how Arsenal have performed in the Premier League since that previous league championship in 2003-04 under Arsene Wenger.The club have been consistent: coming in the top four in 16 of the 22 seasons since then and not finishing outside the top eight once. Liverpool, who have won the league twice in this period, are the only other club who the latter fact is also true of.Yet on the flipside, no club has finished second more often than Arsenal from 2004-05 onwards. While it is true they are level with Manchester United on this metric, the side from Old Trafford have won the league five times in this period, compared to Arsenal's one.Three of those five second-place finishes by Arsenal came in the previous three seasons, all under Arteta. This was one of just five occasions that a side has finished runners-up in the English top flight in three consecutive campaigns, and the first since Wenger's Arsenal at the turn of this century.Arsenal avoided the fate of becoming the first team to finish second in four consecutive seasons.Arsenal came very close in recent years to winning the Premier League before doing so this season. The two points they finished behind Manchester City in 2023-24 was the smallest gap between themselves and the top from 2004-05 to 2024-25.At the other end of the scale, the 43 points they finished behind Liverpool in 2019-20 was their biggest chasm from the champions in this period. It was in December of that season that Arteta became Arsenal's manager, taking over from interim manager and another of the club's former players Freddie Ljungberg. The Swede had, in turn, replaced the sacked Unai Emery almost a month before.Arsenal finished an average of 17 points off the champions from 2004-05 to 2024-25. But Manchester City (twice) and Liverpool (once) winning the title with 98+ points over a three-season spell from 2017-18 to 2019-20 should not be forgotten.Arsenal would be fifth in a Premier League table across the entire period since the start of the 2004-05 season. However, all of the top five are within 36 points of each other, which shows how consistently competitive they have been.Now, let's look at the 165 players who have represented Arsenal in the Premier League in the period since their previous title in 2003-04 — from Theo Walcott, who played in the competition for the London club the most often in this time, to the 11 men who have done so just once (use the arrow in the table below).The current Arsenal player who has played the most Premier League games for the club is Bukayo Saka, with 226. Meanwhile, current manager Arteta played 110 times in the competition for the club as a midfielder from 2011 to 2016.Dennis Bergkamp (53 matches) is the earliest-born player to feature for Arsenal in the league since the previous title, with the Dutchman's date of birth being May 10, 1969. No prizes for guessing the player with the most recent birthdate to represent the club in the top flight in this time. That is Max Dowman, who was born on December 31, 2009 and has appeared in five league games. Bergkamp was born before humans had walked on the moon and Dowman after Bitcoin began being used as a currency.And here are Arsenal's 20 top scorers in the Premier League over the past 22 seasons, with Dutchman Robin van Persie leading the way with 96.Again, it is Saka among current players who tops this list, with the Englishman netting 60 times in the league for Arsenal.Finally, these are the four men who managed Arsenal during their wait for another title — with Wenger, who guided the club to the 2003-04 triumph, having taken charge of the most Premier League games with 532 (he was in charge for 828 matches in the competition overall).Arsenal's wait to add another league title was an emotionally draining one for their fans, made worse by several near-misses. Yet they have put all that pain to bed now and are worthy champions this season.How long they go before their next Premier League triumph is anyone's guess, but one thing is for sure: they will be hoping it is far shorter than the 22 years they have just experienced.