Saka: Arsenal critics ‘not laughing anymore’ as club celebrate title
A jubilant Bukayo Saka hit back at Arsenal’s critics by saying “they’re not laughing at us anymore” as the club celebrated their first Premier League title in 22 years. Arsenal players and staff gathered at their London Colney training base to watch rivals Manchester City draw 1-1 with Bournemouth, guaranteeing the Gunners their first championship since 2004 and their 14th top-flight in all, with a game to spare. City’s draw at the Vitality Stadium on Tuesday sparked wild scenes at Arsenal’s training ground, and also outside the Emirates Stadium, where thousands of supporters gathered to toast the club’s success by lighting fireworks and flares.
Ian Wright, who scored 185 times for Arsenal and won the title in 1998, was mobbed by fans as he joined in on the party outside the club’s ground. Arsenal, runners-up in the league for the previous three seasons, had faced accusations of “bottling” their trophy bid after they surrendered the league summit in the wake of a 2-1 defeat at City on April 19. But while City subsequently drew at Everton, and then at Bournemouth, Arsenal bounced back by winning their next four without conceding as Mikel Arteta – absent from the celebrations after he said he would watch the game on Tuesday night with his family – became the first former Premier League player to win the title as a manager, and claim the second trophy of his six-and-a-half-year tenure.
Arteta, who rejoined Arsenal as manager in December 2019 with the club in disarray, installed a blacked-out Premier League trophy at the club’s training base which would light up only when the Gunners were crowned champions. “Light that up,” Saka said in footage posted by defender Jurrien Timber on his Instagram account. “Let me tell you something.
Twenty-two years, 22 years. there was laughing, there was joking, they’re not laughing anymore. Look, it is going to be shining, it is going to be shining bright.
” In an Instagram story, this time on Saka’s channel, Myles Lewis-Skelly is holding a champagne bottle. “They called us bottlers,” said Lewis-Skelly, who like Saka, is a graduate of the club’s Hale End Academy. “And now we’re holding the bottle.