The 22 Year Wait is Over

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2:23He's back with a bang, the Kiyosaka 1-0. Unbelievable score.

2:53Which of all gone? Second again, allé allé!

3:12Allé allé! Allé allé! Second again, second again, Allé allé! Everett Chase scores a game Michael put it in time He said WOW, FUCK UP TOP NO ONE MAKUNA NOW

3:44We love the air Champions of England, we love the AR! We love the AR! Champions of England, we love the AR! We love the AR! We are unbearable! We are unbearable! We are unbearable!

4:19We shall not be moved, we shall not be moved, we shall not be moved, we shall not be moved, we shall not be moved. This is the 2526 Premier League Champions podcast. My name is Elliot Smith and welcome to the only Arsenal Vision podcast dedicated to the 2025-26 Premier League Champions. I was going to say the only podcast dedicated to, but actually there's like 50 ,000 podcasts dedicated to this wonderful football club we support. The intro, an experience of the day at Selhurst Park, thanks to Tim. And we are the unbearables, but in a week's time, we may be the Unforgettables. And we will definitely be covering that throughout the week.

5:05Julien Laurent, did I say that right? Julien Laurent will be on tomorrow to discuss the Champions League. But for today, we'll be talking about this global powerhouse of a club becoming Premier League champions. For the first time in 22 years, a very special day. And wherever you are listening to this, if you can hear our voices, I am sure it was a special day for you. And I hope that you were surrounded by the love and support of this wonderful football club or in some way connected to it. And I think the four of us on this pod all connected to it in our own unique and different ways. And so we will share that day.

5:37Today will obviously be a detailed tactical breakdown of the Palace game. Tomorrow, no, I'm just kidding. Can you imagine? So, Glide, what do you think of the lineup yesterday? He doesn't answer my questions at the best of times. He's not answering it this time. So, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to talk about the day, the week, the meaning, the significance. And that will be a line under it, at least for now, as the rest of the week we'll shift gears to looking forward to Budapest, which I am very much looking forward to attending and hopefully seeing more history be made. So here with me now, beautiful golden glowing champions, men who I am very fortunate to share this podcast in this community with.

6:16And they are in no particular order. Tim, hello, Tim. Hello there. And that golden glow is I just about, just about put enough factor 50 on to avoid sunburn. but you know when it's very, very borderline. So it's a bit of a golden glow, but I reckon another 20 minutes and it would have been pink. A pink glow. Well, I'll tell you, it's funny. The famous commentary making the rounds that Andrew used on the Arscast is 22 years of gloom. It's about to go boom. And I was thinking, well, it was certainly a week of gloom while I was in London and then my plane took off and must have blown all the gloom away because it looked absolutely glorious there for the celebrations yesterday.

6:57here with me now is also paul hello paul a pleasure doing the instant reaction with you yesterday my friend and we will certainly i'm sure hear more of your thoughts on how nbc screwed up their tv coverage which is the content that everybody is here for but admittedly they did paul you were right they i mean who among us didn't want to see an extra 10 minutes of interview with kinkski while arsenal were getting ready to lift the trophy who yeah but but like it was really the two-parter of man did they screw it up but man did they miss the most wonderful party it didn't attract from us it's just a lot of other people missed out on what was the story of the day i think they thought it was going to be kind of dull it was like you know this practically a week later after we found out we're good like they missed the party well you know who didn't miss the party you know who didn't miss the party is clive hello clive hello no i did not miss the party i tell you from the pictures and videos you sent uh it seemed like you were in the heart of the party yeah i had a very interesting day when when you get around to me i'll tell you all about it um but yeah it was a very interesting day amongst people who are absolutely like i didn't go to like not in old carl or nothing like that or i didn't go to woodstock or nothing like that i didn't go to all these sort of festivals but that's what it's like going around london and And I'm not just talking close to the ground.

8:25I'm talking everywhere. So better than when you used to go to the jousts and stuff back in those days? Yeah, better than those days. Better than those days. Yeah. All right. Look, I think that the subject matter of this podcast needs to be the trophy lift and every little piece of that and teasing every bit of that out. And then I do want to shift to the scenes that we've seen this week and the size of this club and the global impact and cultural impact of this club. and the extent to which we've been surprised by it, delighted by it, and each of our individual moments. So I think the person who has to start this conversation, though, is you, Tim, because you were there.

9:04We're probably not going to discuss the game. So for those of you who do want to hear what we thought of Max's performance or wanted to get into Gabriel Jesus scoring a final goal, maybe those little bits will come out along the way, but I apologize if we don't talk about Zubimendi's performance it right back whatever you had in mind for this one but tim um could you just kind of give us the tick tock of being in the away end and the experience of being there for scenes that by now i mean all of us have started to relive for probably for the 10th or 11th time already yeah i mean put it this way i didn't see either of our goals yesterday and i genuinely i didn't know we'd won two one until about an hour and a half after the game because well well we're seven points clear by the way so shame on us for ever being nervous this wasn't much of a title run in at all yeah so after because what they do at premier league grounds they stop selling alcohol i think five ten minutes before kickoff but then they start again on 35 minutes and so on 30 minutes i was like this has been fun i'm going back downstairs that's where the vibes are and that's where the beer is so I went down and I didn't even hear the celebration for the Gabriel Jesus goal so I genuinely had no idea it happened um the second goal was just as I was going back to my seat so I heard the celebration and I thought that was one nil genuinely for the entire game because you can't I couldn't see the scoreboard from where I was sat it was it was just an listen i i've been to my in my younger days my fair share of kind of warehouse raves and stuff like that where the ecstasy is literal right there are there are pill form there are chemical reasons that everyone is hugging each other and talking to strangers and stuff like that but the like from the second you went through the turnstile like people i'd usually just nod at and say hello to which is very typical if you go to a way game you see people all the time don't necessarily talk to them you're like you're right probably don't know each other's names just for 30 years you just go you're right yeah good um but that was all ah i i know you i see you you're getting a hug we're having a big selfie you're getting a hug you're getting you'd have loved it elliot you'd have been in your absolute uh your absolute um yeah in heaven comfort zone And yeah, for me, the hugs are where I shine.

11:29It was just, that's just all it was basically. And, you know, the sun was very, very much shining. I think there'll be quite a lot of sunburnt people who are in that away. And it was, I mean, obviously the whole thing was lovely. And I mean, the thing is for me, the way I experienced Tuesday night when we actually did it, it was important for me to be at home and experience that with family. and obviously I got a little bit of FOMO seeing everyone outside the stadium but I was like Sunday I'm coming for that bit I'm coming for the community bit and my wife went and watched with some friends near the ground so they were near the stadium we went to the stadium afterwards so I did it all basically like ground went up to the Emirates and what Clive said like even we went for a beer in Euston which is obviously like towards North London just because we thought it might be a bit quieter there but like getting the tube to euston they had the one like they had a one-way system and it was just it was thousands of arsenal shirts just absolutely everywhere people going anywhere and everywhere even when we left euston and we were going towards the ground there are people getting the tube southbound they're not going to the game like not all of them were going to the games too many of them it's like what like where are you going like people going to brixton and stuff like that like right down in southeast london and we just we completely took over the capital and what was quite nice personally as well is by the time i got to the emirates it was like 9 p.m and actually people had started to file away a little bit so me and my friends got we went around the herbert chapman statue it was nice there was lots of people but there was plenty of space it wasn't heaving there are about 50 of us together who all just kind of converged one of my friends who'd got there earlier because they stopped allowing people to take beer to the perimeter of the stadium and genuinely i i had a couple in my hand and i was like well i can pocket a couple and hide them from the police but i can't pocket all of these um and i was literally about to put one down on the pavement and this guy just came up and he was like i've been looking for beer for two hours can i buy one for five pounds i was like if you'd come five seconds later mate you'd have watched me putting it on the pavement um but it was it was it was just it was an orgy how much did you charge him tim he gave me a five he just had a five pound note and he just gave me a fiver he was like i'll give you a fiver like for a can of fosters because that's all there was um you know it's very much beggars can't be choosers situation but the whole day could have gone to seven but five five feels he just he stuffed it in my hand i was like all right fair enough just the whole day from beginning to end was just utterly joyous stranger hugging friend hugging just um one of the greatest days of all of thousands of peoples of lives right and all experiencing it together and those you can't touch that as an experience yeah i will go through the tick tock of the the trophy lift part in a bit i want to get to that in time i will say there were a lot of fun chants that i heard going up in the away end and the one that actually moved me a little bit as dumb as it sounds I'm easily moved unlike the we will not be moved chant is um he said it's not done he said it's not done Declan Rice he said it's not done and I I don't know why it just like it hit me and and then watching the videos later of him hearing that song obviously the video Bikai Osaka um kicking off songs but Clive before we do the trophy lift I just want your sense from the the environs because you were out in the mass of humanity near the emirates you were out in camden town and an emiratory and you were with your family so you want to tell us uh for those who were in london but weren't in uh selhurst park what that experience was like yeah i don't know how i'm going to condense this down to 15 minutes but i'll give it a go right so honestly it's tough i'm thinking how am i going to do this right so waking up whilst you go into your twitter you're waking up you know i can see my intention was to go to the 12 pins that's where i go before games and i wake up look at my phone and it's half past nine and the queue is already like a thousand people it was not a thousand deep before they opened i'm thinking and it's almost 11 i'm thinking and it's 100 million degrees out there i think there's gonna be a lot of bodies on the floor that's number one that's what i'm thinking right and these lot are in there they're getting keen they're not gonna make it my mates went up to 12 pins went to the gunners couldn't make the queue for the gunners was ridiculous i I didn't bother going to Bank of Friendship because Timmy knows it's a small, small place.

16:12No chance. Don't bother going there. I thought, what do I do? What do I do? So I actually booked tickets in the electric ballroom in Candon Town. Now, the thing is, what's so interesting about this place? When I was younger, around 89, that was the nightclub of choice. So I'd come up from Luton, go to electric ballroom with my two good mates, Nigel and Rams. and funny enough me Nigel and Rams went back to electric ballroom with our kids who are now the age of what we were in 1989 so for me it's a full circle moment where I'm so my dearest friends and all the kids are bigger than us now and basically they're now living what we lived in 89 because 89 was my real home and away time I did 30 plus games blah blah blah and it was and for me this feels like 89 it feels very much like an explosion and so that was wonderful so electric ballroom was just it was beautifully done they charged people to get in but they did it really really well massive screams massive eruptions mosh pits and but it was all good i got myself to the side of that so i could watch it and so that was brilliant and went from there got the tube to the emirates i thought go to the emirates and much like tim said there were people filing away but tim i didn't go around the stadium your side the herman chapman side i went around the other side and trust me mate there was no spaces that side it was like just ridiculous and it was i don't know when my boy says it's just like not a nail that's what it's like you know so you've got people climbing up railings climbing up fences climbing up lampposts then there was literal fires it felt like going outside the air it's just like explosions and it's and there was no event there's no event the only people there was to stop getting drinks there's no a bit of security around a bit of police around but the club had put nothing on so all this was was a pilgrimage to the ground and everyone had the same idea I don't know the numbers compared to Tuesday but it's hey look mate it's Sunday it's Thanksgiving holiday and it's sunny I've never seen so much nylon in one place mate every single top in the history of Arsenal Football Club every bit of merch you ever sold with a short sleeve was on show you know and And it was really interesting.

18:25So going across, I come into King's Cross, come into King's Cross and Pancras. So what's happening there? Of course, you've got West Ham people going down West Ham. You've got Spurs people going across London. And they are looking like they are walking to a funeral. And it is like the contrast. And there's us just like bouncing along, high-fiving each other, hugging each other. Did you see the video of Arsenal fans cheering on the two lone Everton supporters walking towards the Seven Sisters? Yeah, it was like, so that was quite funny. So we didn't get to where we want to get to. And it was just across London.

19:00I mean, all in the tubes, Tim's absolutely right. Everyone just singing to each other. And you just hear it. Anywhere you went, you could just hear it. And it was like, my God, we have taken over. Do you know what? You know, like when you go on holiday, you go on holiday, you sit down, you relax for a week. You think, oh, I wish every day would be like this. That's what it's been like since Tuesday. It's almost like you're on holiday. and every day just gets better and better and better thinking when's it when's it gonna end and and i mean i think i know about the club i think i know about the fan base i've been in it most of my life but this has surprised me and what surprised me the most is probably what i've taken for granted is that next generation that younger generation my kids now who have got their moment and my goodness be careful what you wish for because your kids end up being more invested than you are.

19:49And because they are now, there's a new generation who are up for it. They really, really are. You know, we think we are serious. No, no, no, no, no. They're going to take it to a new level of commitment. It's so exciting. We have a new generation of Arsenal fans that now realise why they support the club, why their dads like me made them support them. And as soon as they did, they didn't win for flipping 22 years. Now they know what it's all about. Now that commitment that was going to go up, the explosion culturally and globally it's just gonna be something to behold you know i it's almost i'm beyond excited honestly beyond excited it's the culture club i mean there's just no way around it we own the streets we own the culture yeah i'm in whatsapp chat with arsenal america branches chapters whatever they're called you see the videos there pubs heaving all across this country you see what it looks like you know there were multiple videos coming out of africa from ethiopia nigeria and all different places is just again the streets heaving Indonesia I think I saw some incredible scenes um it's it's global and yeah go ahead Claire because one last thing I just missed this one out the only down part of the day right was after the game we sort of crossed some Spurs fans and they were like singing so where were you when you were shit and I thought oh here we go now because ours all are literally everywhere yeah so there are people from other teams thinking where have all these people come from where was we knew we all knew deep down we knew the size of the club we knew the size of the fan base we just didn't have much to shout about but we just shouted silently right yeah and um so and by the way i'm quite magnanimous this verse not anymore if you ever catch me being magnanimous this person i've been trying to tease the schadenfreude out of you clive so here we go you to hold me to account right so um sternly if you have to you know i mean because they need to get it a lot more often than they do because they are they're not they're not nice people right that's the only low point of the day i told you what's coming up going forward what's coming up going forward is people are going to be extremely extremely jealous of what we are now doing and are praying we lose that championship final of the weekend yeah well they can they can sit and pray i mean they can't take this from us i mean that that's the thing in a digital age everything is about the memes and the trolling and who gets the clap back.

22:06But this isn't that you can't take this away. You can't take those scenes outside the Emirates, those scenes at Selhurst Park. You can't take the scenes all over the world away. This joy is something that is real. It is visceral. You can feel it. And people told me when I was planning around the Union Chapel weekend, like, just stay in London for two weeks, mate, just stay through the whole thing. And I'm like, I got a wife and kids, man. I can't do that. And they were right. Yeah, they were right. I should have stayed for two weeks. I will also say, having consumed all the content, I'm not a Coldplay fan particularly, but I've cried a lot at the song Fix You, which seems to be in all the comps that get me tearing up.

22:45So, Paul, obviously a bit of a different experience, both for you and I, from a remove, but it meant that we kind of got to soak up all the pieces that were being shared around. And it is very special because in 2004, obviously, there wasn't social media like this. You couldn't connect to the world. You experienced it in whatever little isolation chamber you were in. For us, it was more of a chance to see what was going on all over the world. I was getting video calls from very drunk people from all over the world. You know, my friend Jim from Chicago and all of you guys. And of course, people in London walking the streets wanting to give a sense of what it was like.

23:19My friend Mark from Sellers Park. So it was a great way to sort of get little bits and pieces of all of it. So was there a bit or a piece from it that really stood out for you and became kind of the moment of the day? Well, yeah, I mean, it was a fantastic day. There was so much to feast on here. I think we were the real winners, Elliot. I think Tim and Clive, unfortunately, had to be stuck with the people while we got to, I don't know, scroll boom scroll yeah but for what it's worth let's not rub it in for them because they seem they seem pretty uh jealous and envious of our situation they think they had a good day it was fantastic it was just unbelievable there's so much stuff um i quite like the guy with the goat up his shirt i don't know where he was from it was it was very funny um there was just so many ways of people expressing it i do think that the huge mistake they made the classic they is they thought they were probably extremely surprised by like our the level of celebration and spontaneity you know we're often talked about how you know it's uh michael has manufactured this that and the other when in fact if you understood it you'd understand he's just channeled it right he knew what we needed and when he saw the pieces he channeled it but the spontaneity on tuesday it's like nobody planned that it was like and it's all so good natured and you could feel it all the way through the week and i think they thought it would play out that it would be this humdrum so what like every other club that goes through the motions and has won it by then they thought it was going to be a humdrum sunday and like and then it dragged on and dragged on and even i was thinking oh my you know they're kind of it's gonna play out and kind of fizzle out and then it starts and you have this what could have been the most boring uh trophy award and the medals and you just saw the players and each one got the moment and the crowd tim you guys were on it and sometimes they don't get the microphones right and you you know you can see the crowds going nuts the supporters going nuts but they haven't caught the fever the sound but wherever they put the bloody microphones um you know was right in the center hood and so you had this connection again that everybody could channel of of the team celebrating you know bukaya conducting an orchestra of away supporters every player having martinelli in the crowd crying his eyes out with supporters that connection just absolutely fantastic and yeah look there's a million moments in all of it but every player had the moment every you know we talked about in the ir you know ben white pulling down or pretending to pull down in capier's shorts it was just all going on all the time everybody had the way of expressing it it was michael uses a word beautiful to talk about things that don't seem very beautiful at the time a tough game coming up at the you know the worst moments but like this was beautiful absolutely beautiful hour hour and a half and beyond and and honestly i mean if we didn't have the three years of nearly getting it if we didn't have the 22 years you know it's not that it wouldn't have been as special but i think the journey made the destination sweeter.

27:00That's hard to enjoy in the moment. But it's the pain that absolutely leads to the pleasure, to the ecstasy. For me, Tim, the trophy lift was a moment that I thought, sort of similar to Paul, well, we saw the real celebrations on Tuesday when we won the league, the trophy lift will be perfunctory. It was not perfunctory. It hit me really hard. There's something about seeing the ribbons on the trophy. There's something about seeing the trophy in the hands of the people you love. And I said this on the IR, but I really want to reiterate it because it's important. The thing that struck me as each of them was walking up to get their medal, including Big Gabby, who had to be reminded to go back and get his medal.

27:39Also a touch of class from the club in terms of who was helping hand out the medals, not some celebrity person, but someone from a local, I think is a Down syndrome footballing group, which was a lovely touch of class and added to the occasion, added, I think, the right emotion and connection to the occasion. But as I watched them all walking up to take their medals, this is about the collective. You know, and I don't want to speak for other clubs because I don't know them. I don't know if Liverpool's trophy, for example, felt like Salah's title, you know, or Trent, Salah, and Van Dyke's title.

28:16I don't know if the top felt, so I don't want to speak to it. I'll simply speak for how it felt for me watching it. it felt very much like a collective. And every next guy that stepped up to grab his medal, I thought, oh yeah, I want it for him. Oh, but I really want it for him too. Oh, but I really want, you know, Leo steps up and his song goes up, you know, the Leo chant. And like for each one of them, they played a part, a really important one, a player who was really front and center in a lot of the video that was at least showed by the broadcasters was Miles Lewis-Skelly. You know, a player who, think about the arc of his season and his involvement and the real impact he had in getting this over the line and how he felt so much a part of it by the end.

28:52So I'd love to get your take, Tim, on the moment Odegaard lifts that trophy in the air, each player wanting to take the trophy, each player's trophy lift, Mikel's silly circling trophy lift getting thrown into the air. There are so many little moments. Are there a few moments from the trophy celebration that stand out to you as the ones that keep flashing through your mind? Yeah, definitely. I think there are a few things. um first of all like you really you see the players families i was um my actual seat was right near the back but before the trophy left i went and joined my mates who are sat very near the front and you see all the families um and i mean like i knew it was declan rice's brother standing near us because my word does he look like declan rice and like martin erdegaard's dad and even in the away end actually before the game we saw um christian norgaard's uh family i think his brother maybe in his other half if it if it wasn't his brother it was a man who looked a lot like christian norgaard with 16 norgaard on his back um and i think he played didn't he i do you know i don't even know he played he did and so you know you really get that sense of like players families and I think we all know like Kai Havertz and Martin Erdegaard are close and their families were together for the whole thing but I mean for me some of it I loved um the reception Ben White got as well um he he got a lot of love because obviously he can't play at the moment we know he's going to miss the Champions League final and that man has had um has had some crap he doesn't deserve over the national team um and he's been very dignified and kept his mouth shut when there's there's a lot more he can say about what happened to him and he's chosen not to do it he's chosen to keep his counsel even though it leads a lot of people to think the worst of him and that shows tremendous character by the way i know he's not the most like media kind of i don't want to say media savvy like media friendly individual like he's just he's he's kept his council and he got a lot of love um and i don't think that's because of how he played this season in particular obviously he made a contribution he made a big contribution but you know it was a recognition of we really recognize what you've done the last five years we recognize who's been on this journey um and so there was that obviously bakayo saka as well i think everyone I love the photo he does as well, where he kind of apes that tweet from five, six years ago.

31:33Let me just describe it quickly because there may be people who aren't on social media who didn't see it. So way back in the bad old days of 2020, Bukayo Saka had a picture of him sitting on the pitch, knees up, crestfallen, just saying you deserve better Arsenal fans. And after the trophy lift, there's a picture of him sitting on the pitch with the trophy, smiling saying you know something along the lines of we got there you know and and just a beautiful full circle moment sorry carry on to me yeah absolutely and obviously gabrielle and saliba um front and center as they usually are when arsenal score a goal no matter who scores it they seem to be even when the center forward scores in open play like those two seem to be the first on the scene and they were really kind of owning it as well and you know just watching as well especially being close to the front just watching people identify their families in the stands.

32:24So I could see like Martinelli, his family were kind of near us and getting them on the pitch and Piero Hincapié as well. Again, if it wasn't his family, it was three guys who looked a lot like him with Ecuador flags. I mean, I'm going to say, and they all had Hincapié on the back of their shirts. So either that's the Piero Hincapié fan club or it was his family. And just seeing the amount of people around the sides of the celebration who are on the pitch and you can tell who they are because they've all got the names of you know whoever their husband or dad is in the team and it really brings home to you how many people make this you know it's not just the people on the pitch and Arteta spoke in that Sky Sports interview last week very movingly about his wife and the sort of support and the sort of sacrifice and obviously they're really well rewarded so obviously like you know probably a lot of their families don't have to work and things like that but you know those people they go through it and we don't see those people and when they're under pressure and when they're getting criticized and when they're getting called bottlers and stuff like that like that must affect the families um as well to see um to see like the people they love being talked about like that which is not to kind of you know like obviously footballers are up for criticism and stuff and i love that arteta said that in his i can't remember if it's bbc or sky but he said like it's understandable we were under pressure it's fine that we were criticized we need criticism and all of that he was very gracious about that but yeah it it really kind of brings brings home to you um the amount of people that make it happen as it were the only slight sour note is that pierce morgan was there why what what what was he doing there like i'm sorry like he used to edit a newspaper that does not give you the right to go on the pitch with the player the with like the players and the players families um particularly because he's an incredibly unpopular man and uh people let him know about it that was the only kind of slight down note well i mean i am glad to say i did not notice that so it did not tarnish my experience of it um it is the case that it just felt it felt like it just kept going on and as it went on it just kept getting better and better you know like i i was i kept thinking well to peter out but it never did because each additional thing was great there's so much stuff that uh if you haven't seen it victor yokras did the bane celebration back to the fans and all the fans doing the bane celebration in the background it's a phenomenal picture he recreated his famous trophy walk gif meme thing that he did when he was uh in spain with lisbon he was sporting he um he walked down the hall just carrying the trophy and whistling and he did that on the pitch yesterday a great little clip of that um you know the nice thing about it being a journey to a a multi-year journey is even though this is the season we won it the way i almost think of this title is we just kept punching we just kept punching away and eventually we got there.

35:27We weren't our elite best this season. We were just the best over four years and this season it fell for us. And so because of that, when I see Martinelli, I feel he's a big part of this, even though this season maybe wasn't his season to be a big part of it. To Tim's point, Ben White, big part of it. Because for me, this title is about this four-year run more than it is just about this specific season. and the man, of course, for whom I think it is the most special moment is Mikel Arteta. And he did that Sky interview. We're seeing a silly Mikel, a relaxed Mikel, an emotional Mikel, that Sky interview where he nearly teared up, a tearful Mikel.

36:08Just beautiful to experience that. And Clive, seeing him thrown in the air, maybe a little higher than he would have liked, seeing what it meant to the players for him and what it means for him. I mean, the trophy lift was wonderful. it is a really special moment for Mikel in particular so certainly if you want to maybe weigh in on Mikel's celebration of the day, do but if there's something else from the trophy lift in particular you wanted to call out, obviously whatever resonates with you the most Yeah, I did see the Piers Morgan entry on the pitch and I thought, you know what mate, I'm not sure you deserve to be there and that's my original sort of reaction since I know exactly where Tim is on that but then I sort of extrapolate it out and I say to myself this has been a four year journey really when we were serious it started that palace you know and and over that time all of those players on the piece once they're still here have made a real significant contribution and even with Gary Jesus who's not the same player he was from that first game when he was mad at the matchup palace in the pink kit remember that game and and he's not the same player now but he scores a goal and his Arsenal career is coming to an end and now he's got something to show for it.

37:23So whatever I think about said player feels very mute at the moment. It feels very silly because we've all come on this journey and we've all arrived and we've all won. The amount of people coming up to the essay saying, oh, Clive, congratulations. I said, mate, I don't play and you deserve it just as much as anybody. I know what they were saying, listen to us, et cetera, but it is for everybody. I'm afraid that includes it's Morgan, do you know what I mean? You have to brush it under the carpet, even though he's been visceral on some occasions and really added to the fire and you think, oh, crikey.

37:59But coming back to Arteta, and this is, hey, look, it's the public world, right? He's in the most public job there is, arsehole manager, flagship MVP, main person, holds the strategy, does recruitment, all the coaching, controls identity and is the voice. And he's going to get bits and pieces, but, you know, let's be honest, right we've been we could be classed as being quite supportive to the manager you know i think we are classed that when there are errors we point out the errors but we don't attribute it and have a referenda on the manager after every single game yeah but i am so pleased for him because i believe in this way of doing things the continuous improvement way development of people maximizing potential using your resources to the to the limit finding a way and on that journey you're going to make mistakes and then what do you do afterwards and we all have moments of doubt you pick your own you know i have mine for the carabouk cup final this year oh my goodness this is not like the arsenal i know but then after a couple of games we reacted and we found our form again and you have to remember it's just a point in time and we do this 60 times after every game right so but for him and the sacrifice and tim spoke about his family he's got a lovely family and there's a phrase i'm speaking to various people surrounding players they say a phrase all the time it takes a village to support and produce somebody and that phrase it takes a village that's what probably tim saw on the pitch yesterday live and direct he saw each individual's players villages that support them that brings them to this point when some bloke on the podcast criticizes somebody then and then and then basically who do they go home and talk to not they care about anything and then go and talk to those very same people with the numbers on their back on the pitch and yeah i think it's very important they all got that recognition all got that moment all got the after parties and it's just starting right and um and the feeling of it just starting i can't get away from that i i tend to i know earlier i was talking to you about maybe not always enjoying the moment although i did yesterday big time i'm already in the future because that's where i live and i look at this group i think oh my god the future could be so good it could be so good i can't help myself but i have to say for the manager let's hope he enjoys this moment because he really deserves it there are a queue of people waiting to bury him it started from the first game starting from the anfield game remember he's got to let the handbrake off i just thought it's a nil nil they've got a long base called a goal eight minutes to go what's what we talk about why are you trying to murder him on a nil nil you know and like um so they've been queuing up waiting to get him waiting to get him and he fought and he fought and he fought and you know what those very sem-safe people and you know who they are i don't need to mention their names they'll probably be in the comments they have to now give him respect he is a champion mate and you have to give champions respect you have to and you might try and strip it away if we lose it the weekend or strip it away when we have a bad performance that's coming we know what's coming he's got to repeat it now he's got to do it again but right now he can live in the moment like just so pleased for him absolutely um the second youngest ever manager to win a premier league his first ever managerial job.

41:11Six years in the job. He's been second or first, four of them, in the era of Manchester City and their financial irregularities, shall we say. And Pep Guardiola, the only manager to finish above Pep, in the league twice. Okay? He did it. He did it at a club that sometimes and quite frequently lagged behind in wage bill. A lot of people talk about how much money has been spent. A lot of money has been spent. But I don't know if you noticed, a lot of money is spent at all the Premier League clubs. Wage bill most closely tracks with success of any metric in football. And lagging behind, what were our predictions for the last few seasons?

41:50Arsenal first, Arsenal first, Arsenal first. He took us to a place where we were predicting Premier League wins. I want you to think about 2020. Did you think Arsenal would compete for a title? Did you think Arsenal would be in the final of the Champions League? did you think arsenal would be favorites for the title three seasons running that's what he's built that's what he's built and there have been resources to help him build it but he's built it now i'll say something maybe gracious about people who couldn't stay on the boat people who couldn't hold their nerve because the fact of the matter is the pain of finishing second the pain of the bridesmaid poster at anfield the pain of the ridicule the pain of thinking we're going to be Pochettino's Spurs.

42:34I get it. It hurts. And you don't want that. And you don't want that pain. And your emotion and your fear of that overrides your intellect. But now that we've won it, I think what everyone's intellect can tell them quite clearly and what we've all known is to be right at the top of the Premier League four seasons running is hard. You know who never did it? Klopp never did it. Klopp never did it. He'd win a title. He'd get 96 points. He'd be 68 the next season. But Mikel kept punching away and punching away and finding motivational techniques and finding players to come in and figuring out the problems from the season before that had to be solved, whether it was being bullied physically, needing a Declan Rice, an elite lighthouse figure, or needing to stay fit, so building to the squad, adding set piece details so we could find more goals in this group.

43:15And he kept punching away, and he got us there. And the reward is that now we can think of this as an era, an era of success instead of one success, and it can go on, as Clyde pointed out, to become a very special era. and so I think the emotional aspects of football lead you to fear things fear failure in a way that can also lead you to lash out but now that the success is there I think it is so clear how special this manager is how fortunate we are to have him how much more is coming how little we maybe understand and appreciate what he is doing in his first ever job is astonishing I don't know that there's anything like it, an analog in football.

43:55And so we celebrate this and where we go from here could be quite special. And Paul, I think it is the case that this day was for the collective. And what we're coming to find out from the trophy lift, from the things that have been shared is how far Mikel has gone to try to unify and unite and motivate the players, how he's taken on board comments from players like Ezza when he wanted Mikel to give them space, how he's sort of understood the human side of them. I think a lot of us look at Mikel as tactically excellent, but did he have the soft skills? I think we're learning he really had the soft skills, and that's why the players feel so connected to him and stayed so bought in.

44:32So does this feel, I mean, it's the players, it's the fans, it's all of our moment, but does it feel like Mikel's moment may be chief among them for you? Yeah, for sure. I mean, he was the man with the plan, and it's easier now when you go back and see it. You kind of see key moments, his initial press conference, the times he sat down to talk about where he's at. At the time, it's like, well, maybe this is just like manager speak or PR stuff. So here's a thought I've had. Like, I think he's a brilliant leader, an organizational leader, who happens to be a Premier League manager. And you'll see Alex Ferguson doing these tours around the world, and he's presenting at a business conference or in cooperation with Harvard Business Management.

45:24And you're thinking, you know, it sounds cool and you're famous and stuff, but it really doesn't apply. You really can't apply Fergie time at the office. But you listen to what Mikel Arteta talks about in terms of organizational team stuff. That's all directly applicable to any team anywhere. And what I think is particularly funny about how people hear the stories, the media love a story that they can riff on. And if they find some dumb thing that Mikel Arteta did with his team, they'll love it and they keep going on about the pickpockets and I don't know. The light bulb and all the stuff that can make the Amazon done.

46:10cycles whatever it is they think they've heard no that part everybody respected that that one i think universally respected what they don't understand is he's speaking to the people in the room and he knows how to connect right it's not for everybody out there it's for his team it's for his group win the dog um makes sense when you're part of that group he's he knows how to connect people he knew from the get-go that the critical thing wasn't to connect with just his team and just his organization it was to connect it with the fans and when you go back and see those comments he made when he was at man city and how it made him sad to see what was going on at arsenal he saw this incredible project that if you connected the pieces together i'm like what are we talking about we're not talking about like it wasn't a great game but we're not drawn into talking about that game or like the last the last few games this season we're talking about the connection of this club and like he didn't manufacture it he just enabled it he he knocked down all the barriers that connected this great club that like he didn't build this international support he just like opened up the channels he got everybody to feel he talked about beautiful moments he always talks at that emotional level that opens up the channels and it's corny to everybody else sometimes it's corny to us because we're not the exact audience at the time we're not in the room with this team he's he is i think he's a bit of a visionary because there's nobody else like him and he knows how to open open up uh uh this spread out connected network of people who love this club who are connected to this club clive i saw you waving yeah because you're on a really important point actually and maybe that we've got some insight being over here locally you get to hear things and see things and um it's interesting in arteta's interviews he mentioned vinay he mentioned edu he mentioned tim lewis and they were the ones that gave him an opportunity they were the ones that supported his strategy they were the ones that traveled to the u.s to meet the cronkey to say look this is a plan i have i'm going to buy some 23 year olds etc they were the ones that supported him when he was coming eighth and i thought it's really really classic him to mention those people even though some of them left in not great circumstances to mention those people to say you you were part of my journey and i'm going to give you a shout out and that whole thing about connection to the fans okay B and I was getting some stick at Spurs in a moment but he was a huge part of the the supporter fan engagement Tim knows that from various working groups he's been on B and I was front and center with that front and say with the AST really there I don't know Edu so much but there was one story I just wanted to share I can share it now it's not such a secret anymore but it was around the remember the Newcastle game when the dodgy goal happened and there was I had to give you the old disgracity and stuff and things like that I was talking to someone with the club about something I was working on and they asked me, what do you think about that statement that the club put out for the fans?