Ben Appleton

[Premier League @premierleague]

Top of the league ✅
NINE wins in a row ✅

@Arsenal have picked up right where they left off last season!

[Gabriel Martinelli @gabimartinelli]

Once a Gunner, always a Gunner ❤️

[Radical Living @RadicalFalk]

Foreigners aren't ready for German beer culture.

[Hamilton Insights @LH44_insights]

Lewis Hamilton’s first win in red or the Heist at Barcelona

I will be honest. When the grid formed on Sunday morning and I saw Lewis on used softs against Antonelli and Russell on mediums, I was not cautiously optimistic. I was convinced I was about to watch a disaster unfold in slow motion. The thermal degradation at Barcelona is punishing. The soft tyre degrades fast. And the idea that he would jump the Silver Arrows at the start and then somehow hold two faster cars at bay felt like my wishful thinking dressed as strategy. Verstappen being on softs too gave me pause, because Red Bull almost never miscalculate. Almost. It removed a tenth of my concern. I was still ninety percent terrified.
What I had not accounted for was that Lewis was not racing Mercedes. He was running an operation against them.

Twelve years inside that organisation gives you something no strategy software can replicate: you know exactly where the system breaks. Lewis watched Toto Wolff navigate the Hamilton-Rosberg equilibrium, then the Russell dynamic, then every iteration of the internal political contract that governs how Mercedes treats its drivers when a championship is at stake. He did not just race for Mercedes. He studied it. And what he brought to Ferrari's pit wall was a map of the precise point where Mercedes' governance structure becomes a liability.

That point is this: a Mercedes in a title fight cannot coordinate against a third party without triggering an internal crisis. Equal treatment is not a courtesy at Mercedes. It is a structural constraint, baked into how decisions get made, how stops get called, how risk gets allocated between two drivers fighting each other as much as the field. Two Silver Arrows sounds like a threat. In reality, it is two cars whose strategic interests are partially opposed, managed by a team that will optimise for fairness before it optimises for victory.

Lewis knew this. Ferrari built their entire race around it.
When he said on Saturday that facing two Mercedes would be difficult, he was being truthful. He simply was not being completely so. The other truth, the one that actually shaped the race, is that a politically constrained opponent is a structurally weaker opponent, regardless of how fast their car is. You simply need to find the system’s crack in it and apply pressure there.

And the crack opened exactly as designed. Mercedes compromised the ideal timing of their two-stop by responding at the first stops to Hamilton's three-stop. Every call they made was filtered through two questions simultaneously: what is right for the race, and most importantly, what is fair between our drivers. When Antonelli was visibly faster than Russell on the hards and radioing for help, Mercedes held firm. Equal treatment. It cost them around 1.5 seconds. Ferrari only ever had to answer one question.

Then came the number that made it clinical. The theoretical pit stop time loss was 23 seconds. Lewis was going so much faster than both Mercedes that the computer was already projecting he would pass them both before the end. Then Alonso pulled off at Turn 10 on lap 40. The VSC came out, Lewis took his third stop and emerged still in the lead on fresh hards. He never had to test those projections on track. According to the race data, Alonso had just handed Hamilton and Ferrari the certainty of a victory they might have been set for anyway.

This victory did not come from nowhere. It came from a team and a driver assembling something race by race since the start of this season, each weekend adding a layer of fluency between Lewis and a machine that spent most of 2025 refusing to speak his language. Barcelona was not a breakthrough. It was a culmination.

None of this happens without Ferrari doing their part. They showed up in Barcelona with a transformative upgrade, a car that had become F1's fastest through corners, and a strategy wall willing to bet the race on one asymmetric read. Lewis did not win despite his machinery. He won because for the first time in two years, the machinery finally matched the driver inside it. In F1, nobody wins in a shitbox. And Ferrari made sure he did not have to.

And then he picked up the microphone. “To Team LH, I wouldn’t be standing here today without the support that you’ve given me. You really saved my life last year and helped me pick up from a dark place in a difficult moment in my life. So I just wanted to dedicate this win to you. This is our win.”

His 106th. His first in red. Built on insider knowledge, executed with mathematical ruthlessness and delivered on raw pace. But ultimately, a reminder that behind the operation, behind the data and the loophole and the 23 seconds, there is a human being who needed saving too. And came back to win anyway.

I am immensely proud and happy for him. I wish him continuous devastating pace, consistency and wit, and a team that keeps building him the tools to unleash it all. The records will keep following naturally...

... As I have seen somewhere... #W8ForIT 😉

[The People’s Champion 🇯🇲🇵🇰🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @troopzafc]

What an edit 🔥👏🏽❤️🔴⚪️🏆

[RohanJivan @RohanJivanAFC]

After 22 years of gloom, it’s about to go boom

🫡

[Charles Watts @charles_watts]

🚨 Hi everyone. To celebrate Arsenal’s title win I'll be giving away THREE 'Champions' prints by the brilliant @matthewjiwood to three random winners

- Simply repost this to enter

Winners picked on Saturday.

(If you're not feeling lucky the prints - and loads of others - can be found here: https://t.co/718xYZwECf)

[Sky Sports Premier League @SkySportsPL]

Today’s the day Arsenal get their hands on the Premier League trophy 🏆

[Louis Dunford @LouisDunford]

Oi Oi! #1 iTunes at the moment 👀

[Thierry Ennui @TitiEnnui]

For Those Who Waited 22 Years.

[Paddy @PaddyArsenal]

We need to get another dog named Won

[Paddy Power @paddypower]

Still, at least Rayan Cherki got to enjoy those kick-ups

[Julian Rosa @JULlANESQUE]

A love story written in red and white @arsenal ❤️🤍

[Nirel @Nirel01]

1. Arteta broke the Arsenal record for the most wins in a single season in two fewer games. He won 40 games in 58 matches. The old record was 39 wins in 60 matches. When Wenger did this he won two trophies.

2. Arteta broke the Arsenal record for the most goals scored in a single season. He did this two years ago.

3. Arteta is the English manager with the most win ratio in the Champions League history. In fact, the only people ahead of him in the list, are Bayern managers. Finish.

4. He has the longest unbeaten streak against the top 6 clubs in England (22 games).

5. Arteta has taken Arsenal to back-to-back UCL semifinals for the first time ever, and now in finals since 2006. For context, Wenger took Arsenal to two semifinals in 24 years. Pep took City to three Semifinals since he joined City.

6. Arteta has never finished a season in a lower position than the previous season. He’s the only manager in history to do this over six years.

7. He’s the fastest manager to reach 8 coach of the month awards in the league’s history.

Arteta has broken many Arsenal records, and some other records. And yet, none of this means anything if he doesn’t win a major trophy with the club. This is why, regardless of how I feel about him, I need him to win a major trophy. This is what will cement his name amongst the greats.

Arteta, please, drag your tired boys across the finish line. Claim these records with pride.

Congratulations in advance to my gaffer.

[LiveScore @livescore]

Chelsea have lost as many games 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙠 as Arsenal have the entire season 🤯

[HandofArsenal @HandofArsenal]

The fanbases who are calling us boring are either getting slapped in Europe as I post this or not in Europe at all. We move.

[HandofArsenal @HandofArsenal]

🚨 Mikel Arteta ���People will say In years to come will say I was there in there stadium that day when that kid scored THAT goal in THAT context”

[WelBeast @WelBeast]

I just can’t have enough of this goal. The noise. The run. The entire bench running to celebrate with him. Best moment of this season so far.

[HandofArsenal @HandofArsenal]

Genuinely, I think as a fanbase and club we needed a moment like this to spark us into life. Dont underestimate the gravity of such a galvanising goal and no one better than our own Max Dowman to be at forefront of it. This club will be the end of me

[Sam Dean @SamJDean]

Arsenal need to lean into these "boring"/"time-wasting"/"Set Piece FC" accusations. Let the wider world sneer. Create a siege mentality. Dig in. Be mean. For around two decades they were accused of being too soft, now they are apparently the opposite. Ride the hate-wave.