Arsenal celebrate Premier League title after Champions League heartbreak

Arsenal’s season ended with mixed emotions: the club missed the chance to add the Champions League to its Premier League triumph, but still held a major parade in north London to mark its first English title in 22 years.

Arsenal’s hopes of turning a historic Premier League season into a double ended in painful fashion after Mikel Arteta’s side lost the Champions League final to Paris Saint-Germain on penalties. The match in Budapest finished 1-1 after extra time, with Kai Havertz scoring for Arsenal and Ousmane Dembélé equalising from the penalty spot for PSG. The French club then won the shootout 4-3, retaining the Champions League trophy and denying Arsenal their first European Cup.

The defeat was especially difficult because Arsenal had arrived in the final after already ending a 22-year wait for the Premier League title. Arteta’s team had produced one of the strongest domestic campaigns in the club’s modern history, but the loss to PSG meant the season finished with one major trophy rather than a domestic-and-European double. After the final, Arteta urged his players to use the disappointment as motivation, saying the pain of coming so close had to become “fuel” for the next stage of the team’s development.

Less than 24 hours later, Arsenal shifted from European disappointment to domestic celebration. The club held its Premier League title parade through Islington on Sunday, May 31, starting at 2pm. The event was organised to celebrate Arsenal’s first league title since 2004 and brought huge crowds onto the streets of north London.

According to reports from the parade, an estimated 800,000 fans attended the celebrations. Three open-top buses carried the men’s team, women’s team and club staff, with players including Declan Rice, Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz joining chants and speeches along the route. Red smoke, music and packed streets turned the event into a symbolic celebration of Arsenal’s return to the top of English football.

The mood of the parade showed how supporters viewed the season: the Champions League loss hurt, but it did not erase the significance of the Premier League title. Arsenal had waited more than two decades to win England’s top division again, and the parade allowed fans to celebrate a breakthrough campaign rather than focus only on the missed opportunity in Europe.

For Arsenal, the season ends as both a triumph and a reminder of unfinished business. The Premier League title confirms that Arteta’s project has reached the highest level in England, while the Champions League final defeat shows how narrow the gap remains at the very top of European football. The next challenge will be to turn the pain of Budapest into another step forward — and to make sure the parade in Islington becomes the start of a new era, not just the celebration of one exceptional season.