The morning after Wolves, the narrative was already being written without us. Two points dropped against the bottom side in the league, a two-goal lead surrendered in injury time, Manchester City cutting the gap to just two points. The usual suspects, Rio Ferdinand, Gary Neville, the whole carousel of them, were reaching for their scripts about Arsenal's mentality and how we'd find a way to blow it just like we always do.

What actually happened is the story nobody is telling properly.

The players met. Not Arteta calling them in, not some crisis summit choreographed for the cameras, but the players themselves sitting down and saying what they felt. Declan Rice described the conversation as ‘firm.’ Gyokeres elaborated after the Spurs win: “It's important sometimes just to say what you feel and to let it all out in the group. Most of us spoke. Everyone can recognise how different people feel in the moment and you get a better understanding of the feeling. When you speak in the group openly like that, you come closer together and it's very important to do that sometimes.” Four days later, we went to Tottenham and won 4-1. Our biggest away league win at Spurs since a 5-0 in December 1978.

I have watched Arsenal for thirty years. I know what a dressing room looks like when the pressure arrives and the room is not right. In February 2008, Arsenal travelled to Birmingham five points clear at the top of the Premier League with just over two months of the season remaining. In the third minute, Martin Taylor's challenge on Eduardo da Silva left him with a compound fracture of his fibula and a dislocated ankle so horrific that Sky Sports refused to show replays. The players regrouped through sheer will, Theo Walcott scored twice, and we fought our way into a 2-1 lead. Then Gael Clichy conceded a penalty in the final seconds. James McFadden scored. Two points dropped.

What happened after the final whistle is the part that matters. William Gallas, the captain, walked to the other end of the pitch and kicked an advertising hoarding. When the whistle went, he sat down alone in the centre circle, in tears, and refused to leave. Wenger had to come onto the pitch to collect him. According to Jens Lehmann's autobiography, once Gallas finally made it to the dressing room, he came to blows with Gilberto Silva, who accused him of seeking attention. Arsenal physio Gary Lewin said afterwards: “My personal feeling is that the Gallas incident was more instrumental than Eduardo's injury. Players do get injured. But I think it all got overshadowed by what Gallas did.”
Arsenal won just one of their next seven matches. The title was gone.

Fast forward to 2022-23, the Arteta era title challenge that still hurts to revisit. We spent 248 days at the top of the Premier League, eight points clear at one stage, and lost the title by five points after winning just three of our final nine matches. When the pressure built, the group went inward. There were no reported player meetings, no collective processing of the difficult moments. The response to dropped points was more dropped points. In 2023-24, Arsenal finished just two points behind City, but again when the crucial moments arrived the group had no visible mechanism for turning adversity into something galvanising.

Now compare that to what happened after Wolves this season. Two points dropped, City closing in, and the players called the meeting themselves. Declan Rice described it as firm. Gyokeres said the group spoke openly, honestly, and came out of the room closer than before. Four days later, 4-1 at Tottenham. That is not a coincidence. That is what a different kind of dressing room looks like.

Since the turn of the year, Gyokeres has scored more goals across all competitions than any other Premier League player, eight in 2026 before the Spurs game. His double against Tottenham took him to 15 in all competitions and 10 in the league for the season. The striker the media spent has been questioning, the one they said was too slow to adapt, too different to what Arsenal needed, is currently the most in-form forward in English football.

But what struck me about his comments after the derby was not the goal tally. It was where he directed the credit. Not to himself, not to Arteta, not to the system. He pointed to the room, to the conversation, to the collective. "If you're not honest, I think it's hard to improve." That is not a quote from a player still finding his feet. That is a player who already understands what this club demands and what it stands for.

Arteta has talked about mental strength so often that certain corners of the media have started treating it as a deflection, as the kind of thing managers say when they have nothing more interesting to offer. Gary Neville in particular has made a habit of rolling his eyes at Arteta's language around mentality and togetherness, as if the psychological architecture of a title-winning squad is somehow beneath serious analysis.

The team meeting after Wolves is the evidence that shuts that argument down. This is not a buzzword. It is a methodology. When results go badly, this group talks. When the pressure builds, they turn toward each other rather than away. When the media constructs a crisis narrative, the players go into a room, say what they feel, and come out the other side with something to prove. Arteta himself put it plainly after the final whistle at Spurs: “After what happened against Wolves and the manner in which we lost two points in the last kick of the game, it was tough. You have to lift yourself up because you're feeling angry, upset, ashamed at some point. We are all different nationalities, we all have different feelings, and then you have to bring everybody together.”

That is what this squad does. It brings itself together. Not just a better squad, not just better tactics, not just more depth. A better room. A room where players say what they feel, where honesty is the currency, and where a 4-1 win over Spurs is what comes out the other side.
The Wolves draw hurt. The team meeting fixed it. Gallas sat in the centre circle. Rice called a meeting. That is the difference between then and now. This squad does not wobble. It recalibrates.