What’s not to like about… Arsenal? — Square Ball 22/8/25

Who put the ball in the Arsenal net?

Written by: Chris McMenamy

Leeds United are back in the Premier League and if there’s one thing we can bring then it’s pure unadulterated spite. Just look at the ‘controversial penalty’ awarded to the Peacocks on Monday night and the bitter reaction to it.

Having dealt with the miserable half of Merseyside, we move on to alleged title contenders Arsenal. What’s their deal? Why are they so annoying?

Do we have any history?

We do, aye. You can go back as far as Arsenal legend Herbert Chapman’s days managing the old Leeds City in the 1910s to trace the often overlooked history of Leeds and Arsenal, but we’ll be a bit more basic and say: Clarke, one-nil!

Those were the iconic words of commentator David Coleman as Allan Clarke scored the only goal when Leeds beat Arsenal in the 1972 FA Cup final. It was the centenary cup final and meant to be a celebration of the corinthian spirit of football played in front of Queen Elizabeth. Instead, it was an ugly, cynical fight for supremacy in which Arsenal’s Bob McNab was booked after only 48 seconds and Clarke yanked Charlie George’s long hair while standing behind him in the wall of a free-kick. That was only four years after the two sides met in what The Guardian described as ‘the worst final seen at Wembley’ as Terry Cooper scored the volley of his dreams to win Leeds the League Cup in a game littered by skirmishes all across the pitch (as pictured above).

In 1991, Leeds and Arsenal played four times in the same competition as their fourth round tie went to three replays before Arsenal finally won 2-1 and put everyone out of their misery. Maybe Jurgen Klopp was on to something about those replays.

The millennial Leeds fan best remembers Arsenal as the great Arsene Wenger side, the enemy of our enemy as they went about dismantling Scum’s stranglehold on the early Premier League. That Arsenal side won 4-1 in three consecutive matches at Elland Road, including two in their 2003/04 Invincibles season. But Leeds did get one famous win around that time, a 3-2 down at Highbury in May 2003 made famous by Mark Viduka’s late winner that all but confirmed Leeds avoided relegation while also handing the title to Manchester United.

Leeds faced Arsenal three times in the FA Cup during the club’s sixteen year hiatus from the Premier League, including a 1-0 defeat at The Emirates in January 2020 when Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds team battered Arsenal for ninety minutes without scoring and the exhilarating football was finally exposed to the world, prompting a great tweet from TSB designer Eamo:

This is like watching your favourite band go mainstream

— EAMO (@EamoV1) January 6, 2020

Our Premier League meetings since 2020 have been, for the most part, less than enjoyable with the exception of a 0-0 draw at Elland Road in 2020/21 when Raphinha made his full debut and Gjanni Alioski wound Nicolas Pepe up to the point of getting him sent off.

Who’s their most contemptible player?

If you’d asked me before the summer I’d have a different answer for you, but Arsenal’s most contemptible player right now is… Gabriel, probably. There’s just something about a whinging centre-back that does my head in. Michael Dawson was awful for it and I heard all the pundits are referring to Gabriel as the Brazilian Dawson.

There’s something particularly egregious about a big centre-back who goes down like he’s been shot at the slightest suggestion of contact but demands to retain his reputation as a hard man when it’s him doling out the punishment.

I’m thinking particularly about his diving when Patrick Bamford ‘clashed’ with him towards the end of Arsenal’s 1-0 win at Elland Road in October 2022. Gabriel went down incredibly easily and then kicked Bamford. Referee Chris Kavanagh gave Gabriel a red card before going to the monitor and overturning the decision, claiming that Bamford had pushed Gabriel to the floor, meaning that the penalty he’d also given Leeds was voided.

Not that I’m bitter, but I hope Jaka Bijol appears on Saturday and puts Gabriel a good seven rows into the Emirates’ comfortable seats. Goodness me, is that place spacious. Again, not that I’m bitter, I like standing at Elland Road and rubbing shoulders with the two people either side of me.

What’s the deal with their manager?

Mikel Arteta is an odd fish, to put it politely. Everything about him screams LinkedIn Premium, from his sartorial choices to weird team talks involving a light bulb.

Much like Thomas Edison, it feels as though Arteta’s shtick is stolen and not invented. He worked under Pep Guardiola at Man City for a while and his persona gives off a whiff of tryhard copycat. He is the football equivalent of an American coming of age movie nerd who dresses like a jock.

Arteta also pissed off the Leeds fans when Arsenal came to Elland Road in October 2022. Leeds were trying to initiate an attack when Rasmus Kristensen went to take a throw-in, only for his path to be blocked by Arteta, who had wandered out of his technical area. It enraged the fans inside Elland Road but, in hindsight, maybe he’d seen enough of Kristensen and was trying to do us all a favour.

Do we at least have any mutual friends?

Victor Orta tried to make Red Bull and Leeds best mates when it came to trading players, but it was a remarkably one sided relationship. However, the same is not true of Leeds and Arsenal, who’ve been swapping players like Pokemon cards since the days of Chapman. No, not Lee, although he did play for both clubs during his career.

John Lukic is the ultimate Peacock-Gunner, having left Leeds for Arsenal in 1983, before returning to Leeds in 1990, winning the First Division and then playing for another few years. Then he went back to Arsenal and saw out his final playing years, retiring in 2001 at the end of a 23-year career. David Seaman was a youth goalkeeper at Leeds before becoming an Arsenal legend also.

Another of Leeds’ First Division winning heroes in 1992 came from Arsenal in the form of defender Chris Whyte, who was briefly joined by the late David Rocastle ahead of 1992/93. The silky midfielder was part of the Arsenal side that won two league titles in 1989 and 1991, and made 34 appearances for Leeds before moving on in 1994.

The two Leeds managers that followed on from Howard Wilkinson both had Arsenal in common also. George Graham took over from Wilko in 1996 after managing Arsenal for nine years from 1986. Graham had been sacked not long after it came out that he’d accepted an illegal £425,000 payment from Norwegian agent Rune Hauge in 1992 to sign two of the agent’s players.

Graham stuck around for two years before running off to Tottenham when he had the chance in October 1998. His assistant at Leeds was David O’Leary, the ex-Arsenal defender who had spent the final two years of his career at Leeds, retiring with an Achilles injury in 1995. O’Leary took over from Graham.

In the darker years after relegation in 2004, Leeds had esteemed Arsenal cast-offs like Sanchez Watt and Stuart Taylor in the squad before the 2016/17 season saw best buddies Luke Ayling and Kyle Bartley in the Leeds defence, reigniting their youth team partnership at Arsenal. Ayling’s promotion winning teammate Ben White is now at Arsenal after his loan from Brighton in 2019/20 ended and he returned to play down south and eventually ended up joining the Gunners for around £50m. Lucky him.

Have we missed anything while we’ve been away?

Arsenal’s delusions of grandeur mean we now have to consider them as hot title contenders again. They led the Premier League for much of 2023/24 but fell short, winning only three of their final nine matches. It was a little like watching a horse lead the Grand National until the final few fences only to unseat the jockey and bolt off into the trees as Manchester City kicked into gear and did what good teams do: win.

They spent around £55m on Viktor Gyökeres, the Sporting Lisbon striker formerly deemed not good enough for Brighton. He scored 97 goals across two seasons in Portugal, but he didn’t score on his Arsenal debut against Manchester United last week so the online football world have declared him a dud. Let’s hope that Joe Rodon can give him a less than gentle proper introduction to the Premier League on Saturday.

Have they got any redeeming qualities? Maybe, but I just really want Leeds to go down to that bloody London and get into ‘em enough to upset all their weirdos online, so Arsenal are not getting any credit today.