Having been a part of the Mikel Arteta era from the beginning, Gabriel Martinelli has lived through all the ups and downs, and has now completed a dream come true after winning the Premier League title.
The Brazilian winger was signed by Unai Emery as a teenager back in 2019, and is our second-longest serving player after Bukayo Saka, so has seen the transformation of our fortunes every day first-hand.
And now those hands have lifted the league championship trophy, he feels that it means so much more to him having spent so long chasing the prize and has finally gotten over the line.
“I got here before (Mikel Arteta), so it’s something that I always talk about,” he said after our 2-1 win against Crystal Palace. “I got here seven years ago and winning this title today is something that I’ve been dreaming of. It’s a pleasure for me to play for Arsenal and winning this title is something that means a lot to everyone and for me, it’s even more. It means so much to me.
“It feels amazing. Winning the Premier League is something we’ve been trying to do for the past few years and we did it this year. It means a lot to everyone in the football club, not just the players, but the staff, the fans and every single person that works in the training ground, the stadium. Everyone deserves this moment and everyone is part of it.”
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Gabi played his part in our 2-1 win against Crystal Palace to round off the season, providing a fine pass for Gabriel Jesus to slot in our opener and was lively throughout.
While the game might have been a dead rubber Mikel Arteta opted to rest many of his players with Saturday’s Champions League final in mind, our winger believes it was important to finish with another victory and keep the feel-good factor rolling into our Budapest final this weekend, as we aim to claim our first European Cup.
On the win at Palace, he said: “It just gives us more confidence. We played with a different team today, and it’s good for the ones that weren’t playing much to get some more game time. It was good for me, so we’re happy to win the game and to enjoy the game as well.
“We’ve been trying to enjoy (the celebrations) but of course we know we have this game today and we’ve got a big one coming up next week so we have to enjoy it but we have to be ready for the game as well.
“We want to win everything that we can. We are in the final, it’s just one game and we’ll go for it.”
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