Max Dowman’s stoppage-time winner and his assist for Viktor Gyökeres briefly softened the rising chorus of criticism aimed at Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal. The 16-year-old’s late strike — and the classroom-quiet return to school the next morning — reminded fans why football thrills: risk, spontaneity and individual invention. For a few hours, that felt like a rebuke to the tightly managed, percentage-driven approach that has defined Arsenal this season.
Yet the wider reaction to Arteta’s side remains surprisingly hostile. Brighton coach Fabian Hurzeler accused them of “time-wasting” after a narrow victory. Paul Scholes called them the “worst team to win the league.” Peter Schmeichel labelled their football “ugly” and irritating to watch. Dowman’s moment offered a rare flash of joy, but it didn’t erase the prevailing view that Arsenal’s methods have grown overly pragmatic.
That is the central paradox: this team could complete an unprecedented quadruple — Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup — and still be criticised for the way it plays. Where Arsène Wenger’s 2003–04 Invincibles were celebrated for expansive, attractive football, an Arteta quadruple might be judged as a triumph of efficiency over elegance.
Success breeds imitation. Pep Guardiola’s possession-first model and the ball-playing goalkeeper spread because they work. If Arteta’s more direct, set-piece and efficiency-focused model keeps delivering silverware, others will follow. There are already signs of that shift: “Artetaball” has prompted opponents to focus more on dead-ball routines, and Nicolas Jover’s set-piece coaching has become central to Arsenal’s scoring plans.
This season Arsenal have scored 21 Premier League goals from set pieces — a total higher than any team in Europe’s top five leagues — representing 34.4% of their league goals. Historically, title-winning teams have sometimes relied heavily on set pieces — Blackburn in 1994–95 and Manchester United in 2007–08 were in that bracket — but those United sides also benefited from truly prolific forwards. Arsenal today lack a comparable talisman, which helps explain the emphasis on rehearsed routines.
Recent dominant teams have typically been led by standout attackers. Manchester City had Erling Haaland (and previously Sergio Agüero) plus the creativity of Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden; Liverpool leaned on Mohamed Salah and Luis Díaz; across the continent, Real Madrid and PSG have world-class finishers. Arsenal’s goalscoring profile is different: efficient, often manufactured and spread across a unit rather than concentrated in one superstar. Only Gyökeres (16) and Gabriel Martinelli (11) have reached double figures in the league, yet Arsenal still lead the Premier League in goals — testimony to their planning, if not to flamboyant attacking instinct.
Arteta’s obsession with marginal gains and minimising risk has made Arsenal ruthlessly consistent and unusually dangerous in set-piece situations. But if that blueprint is copied widely, the game risks becoming more conservative, less about improvisation and more about engineered outcomes. Dowman’s wonder-goal was a reminder that unscripted moments are central to football’s appeal — but a single piece of individual brilliance is unlikely to reverse a tactical tide.
If Arsenal collect major trophies, many managers will try to replicate the formula. The sport may become more meritocratic in terms of winners, but it could also lose some of the daring that attracts fans. A teenager’s spectacular breakthrough warms the heart, but it will take a lot more than one brilliant finish to change the direction of top-level football that Arteta’s success is helping to shape.