Have Any Current Arsenal Players Won Anything?

In the 2022/23 Premier League season, Arsenal finished second behind Manchester City and though it was their best result since 2015/16, there was a nagging feeling that they missed a golden opportunity. The Gunners were sitting pretty at the top of the table from 20th August 2022 to 26th April 2023 (with just a minor slip in February), so there were legitimate suggestions that Arsenal had bottled it.

If indeed that was the case, could this have been because the squad lacked experience or – crucially – proven winners? In this article, we’ll run through the current first-team squad and find out which of them have won trophies in the past, and whether there are enough players who’ve won things to mount a more sustained title challenge in 2023/24 and beyond.

Most Successful Current Arsenal Players

Here we’ll go through all the current squad members and show which of them has won trophies in senior football. Note that we will count top-flight league titles, and club and national side cup competitions. We will not include the Community Shield, lower league or youth competitions. All information is correct as of 24th November, 2023.

As you can see, only five of the current crop of Arsenal players have won four or more trophies (excluding the Community Shield, which – let’s face it – doesn’t really count for much!). In comparison, every player who featured in the Manchester City squad last season won four trophies in that campaign alone (Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League and UEFA Cup), and almost all of them have won multiple trophies prior to that (whether with City, with previous sides or with their national sides).

Success breeds success and winning can become habitual (as Man City have shown in recent years and Alex Ferguson’s Man United sides of the 1990s and 2000s exhibited), but getting into that habit is no easy task. When Arsenal boss, Mikel Arteta, signed the Man City duo of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, he clearly thought their winning mentality might rub off on their new Gunners colleagues (especially the younger players). After all, Gabriel Jesus and Zinchenko have won more than a score of trophies between them, more than the number won by two-thirds of the current squad combined. More than half the squad have won either one or no trophies in their senior career to date.

The hope for Arteta (and Arsenal fans) is that once the Gunners get a Premier League title on the board (or indeed a Champions League or another FA Cup or two) it will give the players confidence to kick on and win lots more. That’s easier said than done, of course, especially with Man City looking unlikely to give up their supremacy anytime soon.

How Does the Current Squad Compare to the Invincibles (in Terms of Trophies Won)?

Arsenal last won the Premier League title back in 2003/04… yes, a full 20 years ago! But they did so in some style, going the whole campaign without losing a single match. Thus they were dubbed “The Invincibles”. Featuring plenty of world-class players such as Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Freddie Ljungberg, Ashley Cole and Patrick Vieira, there were many “winners” in the squad. But how many trophies had they won prior to that fantastic unbeaten run to the title? We’ll focus on the players who made 20 or more Premier League appearances for Arsenal during the campaign and show the honours they had won before the title-winning season.

Interestingly, when you compare the top 10 players of the 2003/04 season (in terms of number of trophies won) with the top 10 of the current squad, there is barely anything in it. The 2003/04 top 10 had won 52 trophies between them compared to 51 for the current crop. But just look at what the Invincibles had won…

In Arsène Wenger’s team, there were four World Cup winners (three of whom had also won the European Championship with France). Nine of the players had also won at least one league title before, mostly the Premier League or in another highly-rated European country including Italy and Germany. This contrasts with the Belgian, Croatian, Swiss and Brazilian titles that feature amongst the silverware won by the current players.

Can Arsenal Find the Winning Habit?

Whether the current crop of Arsenal players will have enough about them to get on a roll of winning trophies remains to be seen. But we have the feeling that a couple more additions of proven winners to the squad could be in order. If Arteta is serious about challenging for the title in this campaign and future years, a couple of World Cup or European Championship winners could well be at the top of his shopping list when the January transfer window opens and they could make that crucial difference.