In the giddy days between Arsenal being confirmed as English champions and actually getting to lift the Premier League trophy, there was a little line that the players had been talking about.
They wouldn’t actually believe they’d done it until they actually got to hold it; to feel how heavy it was.
It had been weighing over them for so long, after all. This proved it was real. Every part of its 25.4kg testament to that, nothing left to waste.
That’s a bit like Arsenal themselves, given how much went into this arduous title win. Nothing was left on the training ground.
This Premier League season demanded everything from them.
If there has been some commentary on how the Premier League also needed a different winner to underline its vaunted competitiveness, that touches on one of the key themes of the campaign.
The 2025-26 season has been one which rewarded efficiency and punished waste, much more so than any other in recent years.
The point is emphasised right through the division, going down to the very bottom.
The most impressive overperformers beyond the champions were the new middle class: Bournemouth, Sunderland, Brighton and Brentford.
They have risen because their sophisticated recruitment has maximised resources, taking advantage of the complacency of those wealthier.
One of them, of course, was West Ham United.
Going by the last Deloitte Football Money League, the Championship’s newest entrants are also the 20th richest club in the world.
Only eight Premier League clubs are wealthier, and none of them – naturally – are the new middle class.
West Ham instead as the new grand example of football’s historic propensity for waste only just ahead – or perhaps below – Tottenham Hotspur.
This is a consequence of years of both bad management also squandering every single advantage.
The strangely open spaces of their tax payers’ stadium reflect the chasm between what has been earned and what has actually been achieved.
It is all the worse when you look at the bookend that is their last promotion.
West Ham came up in 2012, which was when the Premier League was in final negotiations for the £5bn international broadcast deal that changed everything.
There was now more money than clubs knew what to do with.
Now, in 2026, the Premier League demands that you have a very strong idea of what you do with it.
It’s also plays into something of an irony to the Premier League in 2026.
It’s got so much money, to produce… this: set-pieces, wrestling in the box, and much more laboured football than we saw in the season’s great counterpoint: Paris Saint-Germain-Bayern Munich.
As fashionable as it has been to dismiss this as some kind of English reductiveness, it is the opposite. Thirteen of the managers are from continental Europe, after all, all bolstered by the legions of expensive coaching staff.
This evolution, or devolution, really comes from so much money ensuring these coaches have to think about this even more.
That’s not just about the cost of success or failure, either. It’s because, with an expanded European calendar, it has made the Premier League so rich in all kinds of talent. It’s not like 20, or even five years ago. Every week, coaches are coming up against the most complex pressing and tactical plans.
The effect of this can be seen in one stat. There were only eight wins by four goals or more, a historic low.
More games were in the balance for longer, as Arsenal know all too well.
One reason that Arteta’s staff actually tilted towards set-pieces away from the aggression of 2022-23, in fact, was because they were increasingly facing more massed defences. That brought more set-pieces, that invited specialism.
Hence we’re seeing so much more of that, as well as the wrestling in the box that only brings increased use of VAR.
It is the Premier League sapping everything out of its teams.
Set-pieces are just the ultimate manifestation of this. Why leave such a potential advantage unexplored?
It could be argued this might have the adverse effect of making the Premier League less appealing, but the very competitiveness also keeps it so compelling
The 2025-26 campaign might not have the richest football, but it was abundant in storylines, maybe more than ever before.
Nottingham Forest had four managers.
It’s incredible to think that Ruben Amorim’s tactics board, Rio Ngumoha’s goal to win the Alexander Isak derby and Graham Potter’s stint at West Ham were all this season.
By the end, even the debacle of Liam Rosenior’s brief tenure at Chelsea was overtaken by stories of more historic dimensions, like the departures of greats such as Mohamed Salah and Pep Guardiola.
And still no outcome to the Manchester City case. The club insist on their innocence.
Amid such headlines, it can be easy to forget Keith Andrews’ impact at Brentford or Daniel Farke’s impressive adaptability to keep Leeds United up.
One of England’s great soap operas might be concluding, though, as Manchester United have restored a seriousness. Michael Carrick perpetuated the theme of the season by showing Amorim the value of using players efficiently – putting them in their right positions.
Liverpool, amid other tests, found that huge signings in a season like this were a massive risk rather than any kind of guarantee.
If Arne Slot will continue to face scrutiny, Spurs should still feel the most embarrassment. They should never have even come close to relegation.
West Ham now take the mantle of the worse relegation ever, if only because of the worth. The club have taken in billions since their last promotion, and this is the result of it: a shambolic and furious relegation.
It was still one game from being Tottenham, and that game might have been the controversial win at Aston Villa.
They had to go to a Hail Mary of paying a respected manager in Roberto De Zerbi a reported £16m. There is perhaps another lesson there, given the success of coaches like Arteta and Unai Emery.
If best practice in football is still to bring in head coaches under a sporting director, there is a strong argument that you can properly maximise everything you’ve got after that if the coach proves he can be a manager and you empower them.
Everyone will now be looking to Arsenal in that regard, even if so many claim they don’t enjoy looking at their football.
Arteta’s side have been the model of efficiency. It has been the crucial quality, in a campaign that has punished waste.