5 best Arsenal moments of 2025

2025 has drawn to a close and, for Arsenal, it will be remembered as a bittersweet year for the Mikel Arteta process.

There were several bright moments – both on and off the pitch – which helped cement the Gunners’ regained status among the European elite: reaching two semi-finals in addition to a third consecutive second-place league finish proved their class.

But, alas, it ended the same way as the four years before it: without a trophy. That runner-up spot is mere camouflage for what was more so a top-four battle, while the team were comfortably defeated in both the UCL and Carabao Cup; perhaps the less that one says about their FA Cup ‘run’ in January, the better.

A look back at the best 5 moments for Arsenal in 2025

So, from on-field highs and history-making ties to the pursuit of a glorious future, here are five of the best Arsenal moments in 2025.

1. Beating Real Madrid

Fans were mocked online for seeking a quarter-final clash with Real Madrid rather than Atletico back in March; by 16th April, those jibes had disappeared.

You can take your pick over which match I am referring to: the brilliant 3-0 win at Emirates Stadium in which Arsenal completely bossed the European champions and Declan Rice produced two incredible free kicks, or else the 2-1 victory in Spain where the Gunners quelled any hope of a ‘Remontada’ and became the first English team ever to win at the Bernabeu twice.

Across those two nights, Rice would turn into prime Roberto Carlos, Gabriel Martinelli channelled his inner Thierry Henry and Arsenal themselves stepped up to the plate in Madrid-like fashion to claim a place in the UCL semi-finals for the first time since 2009.

It was all truly magical, the stuff of dreams.  

2. Signing Martin Zubimendi

“You cannot prise him from his boyhood club”, they said; “he rejected Liverpool and Real Madrid, no chance he goes to Arsenal”, they jeered.

After a long, drawn-out negotiation, however, Arteta did manage to lure Martin Zubimendi out of the Basque country for just £60m, earning full reward for his patient and proactive transfer strategy that saw an agreement reached with Real Sociedad as far back as last January.

Teams across Europe had sought the Spaniard for several years. Thus, his arrival in July was quite the coup and Zubimendi has spent his time here since putting in masterful displays alongside Rice in the Gunners midfield.

This deal might well rank among the most important of the Emirates era and it proved to be a sign of things to come from the front-footed Arsenal recruitment team, led brilliantly by their new Sporting Director Andrea Berta.

3. Eberechi Eze nets NLD hat-trick

The script could not have been better written.

Arsenal got one over Sp*rs last summer by hijacking their move for Eberechi Eze, and the player then poured salt into the wounds himself on derby day back in November as he fired in a sensational hat-trick.

His three strikes packed a punch only surpassed by that of a febrile home crowd and they marked his place in the history books too: becoming the first Arsenal player to score a hat-trick in the NLD since Alan Sunderland in 1978.

Eze has not hit the heights expected of him either before or after that match but, even so, his efforts that day alone made the transfer worth it.

4. Gabriel Martinelli makes history

Fans have spent the last five years looking for the Gabriel Martinelli of 2022/23; he has not hit those levels yet but he is looking much more like his old self.

Indeed, Europe has seen that version of Martinelli in the UCL and his brilliant goal versus Club Brugge earlier this month saw him follow Eze into club annals – he became the first Arsenal player in history to score in five consecutive UCL games.

Add to that how the Gunners have never lost a match in which the Brazil star has scored, a run which currently stands at 51 games and is, again, the best such run in club history (by quite a distance too, next on the list is Kai Havertz on 28 games).

Few players are more deserving of such honours than Martinelli, whose hard work and attitude, even if the quality sometimes lacks, has long endeared him to the Arsenal faithful – hopefully he maintains that form in 2026.

5. Futures tied down

Though Arsenal are in their ‘win now’ phase, Berta and co. have been busy tying down the futures of current stars.

It began in June when Gabriel Magalhaes signed a new four-year deal and continued in the following months, with Ethan Nwaneri, William Saliba and Myles Lewis-Skelly all likewise extending their deals in north London.

Fans know all too well about the past and how the Gunners have been badly burnt with star players running down their contracts. To see the hierarchy, then, act so efficiently and front-footed today is so refreshing, much more becoming of a team that holds ambitions of competing for all the biggest prizes.

That ambition should soon be realised.