Arsenal's Invincibles: The 2003-04 Season Without a League Defeat

In the 2003–04 Premier League season Arsenal played 38 league matches and lost none of them. They won 26, drew 12, scored 73 goals, conceded 26 and finished on 90 points, eleven clear of Chelsea. No team had gone through a top-flight season in England unbeaten since Preston North End in 1888–89, when the league had twelve clubs and each played 22 games. No Premier League side has done it since.

The side that did it

Arsène Wenger's team that season is one most Arsenal supporters can still name from memory. Jens Lehmann in goal, in his first season after joining from Borussia Dortmund. Lauren, Kolo Touré, Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole across the back. Patrick Vieira, the captain, beside Gilberto Silva in the middle, with Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg wide. Dennis Bergkamp behind Thierry Henry. It was not a big squad, and the same names turned up most weeks.

Henry was the centre of it. He scored 30 league goals and 39 in all competitions, won the Golden Boot, and was named player of the year by both the players and the football writers. The library's Arsenal page holds the club's wallpapers.

The game that nearly ended it in September

The closest the season came to its first defeat was the sixth league match, at Old Trafford on 21 September 2003. Patrick Vieira had been sent off in the 80th minute for a second yellow card, after an incident with Ruud van Nistelrooy. The score was still 0–0 in the 90th minute when Martin Keown pulled down Diego Forlán and Manchester United were given a penalty. Van Nistelrooy hit the crossbar. At the final whistle several Arsenal players confronted him, and the Football Association charged the club and a number of its players. Arsenal were fined £175,000, at the time the largest fine the FA had given a club. The match is still known as the Battle of Old Trafford.

Twelve draws, and why they mattered less than they look

Twelve draws is a lot for a champion, and in some later seasons it would have cost the title. In 2003–04 it did not, because the side that drew was almost never the side that was losing. A large part of the season's record came from games Arsenal were behind in and recovered. The 4–2 win over Liverpool at Highbury in April, after trailing twice, is the one usually picked: Henry scored three, including a run from the halfway line through most of the Liverpool defence.

Winning the title at White Hart Lane

The title was confirmed on 25 April 2004 with a 2–2 draw at Tottenham, which meant Arsenal won the league at the ground of their closest rivals for the second time, after 1971. Four games remained, and the question for the last month was no longer the title but the record. Arsenal drew two of them and won the other two, the last a 2–1 win at home to Leicester City on 15 May. Leicester scored first; Henry equalised from a penalty and Vieira scored the winner.

The Premier League had a gold-coloured version of the trophy made to mark the season. It is the only time it has been presented.

Where the season was less perfect

The unbeaten record belonged to the league only. Arsenal went out of the FA Cup in the semi-final to Manchester United, out of the League Cup in the semi-final to Middlesbrough, and out of the Champions League in the quarter-final to Chelsea, who won the second leg at Highbury 2–1 with a late goal from Wayne Bridge. The side that could not be beaten over 38 weeks was beaten three times in knockout ties between late January and early April.

Forty-nine, and the game that ended it

The run did not start or stop with the season. It began after a 3–2 home defeat by Leeds at Highbury in May 2003 and carried on into 2004–05, through 49 league matches in all. That passed the previous English top-flight record of 42 held by Nottingham Forest. It ended where the near miss of September 2003 had happened: Manchester United won 2–0 at Old Trafford on 24 October 2004, with goals from van Nistelrooy, from a penalty, and Wayne Rooney. The match is sometimes called the Battle of the Buffet, after food was thrown in the tunnel afterwards.