Are Arsenal closer to the quadruple than any team in English football history? | OneFootball

The weather is turning, the evenings are getting lighter and the clocks will soon spring forward.

Arsenal are one of only a select few teams in the entire history of English football to reach this point of the calendar year still dreaming of lifting all four major trophies.

It’s never been done before – could they end their painful six-year trophy drought in sensational style by winning the whole lot? With every passing week it looks ever more possible.

Mikel Arteta’s Gunners weren’t especially convincing as they laboured to a narrow 2-1 FA Cup victory over League One side Mansfield Town, but they won’t care about that as they ultimately did the job to keep their quadruple hopes alive.

They’ve booked their place in the last eight of the FA Cup, have a decent lead at the summit of the Premier League, a favourable-looking run to the Champions League final and can set the tone for a history-making end to the 2025-26 campaign when they face their title rivals Manchester City in the League Cup final.

Incredibly, Arsenal are the favourites in each and every competition they remain a part of. You can count the occasions that has happened before on one hand.

Before the modern Premier League era, only one team had reached this stage of a campaign with such hopes intact.

Back in 1982-83, dominant force Liverpool had such a commanding lead in the old First Division that they could afford to take just two points from their last seven games and still finish 11 points clear of runners-up Watford.

They won the League Cup in late March, beating rivals Manchester United 2-1 after extra time in the final. But they were dumped out of the FA Cup by Brighton in the fifth round, and their European dream died with a defeat to Polish minnows Widzew Lodz in the European Cup quarter-finals.

For all Manchester United’s dominance in the Premier League era, it would be decades before anyone mentioned the ‘Q’ word with any seriousness.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s iconic side won the treble in 1988-99, but they were eliminated early in the League Cup by Spurs. Rarely did they reach spring alive on all four fronts.

The Red Devils might’ve done it in 2008-09, though. They won the League Cup and Premier League in 2008-09 and made it all the way to the FA Cup semi-finals and Champions League final, where they were vanquished by Everton and Barcelona, respectively.

Looking back, that was probably as close as United came in Ferguson’s reign. We can’t see Arsenal facing any European opposition at the same level as that era-defining, treble-winning Barcelona, though.

Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea had faint hopes in 2006-07. They ended up winning both domestic cups, but they were always playing catch-up in the title and consistently stayed 2nd from September until the final table.

Eventually, and perhaps inevitably in the Pep Guardiola vs Jurgen Klopp era, both Manchester City and Liverpool came relatively close when they were at their absolute pomp.

City were pushed all the way by Jurgen Klopp’s Reds in 2018-19. They won the title on 98 points, one ahead of Liverpool, and finished the campaign with English football’s first-ever domestic treble, having beaten Chelsea and Watford in the two cup finals.

In hindsight, they might’ve easily might’ve won the quadruple were it not for their shock defeat (and most marginal of marginal offsides) in the Champions League quarter-finals against Tottenham.

But given the relentless pace of a title race against world-class opposition, few were talking about the quadruple at the time.

Liverpool came as close as any team has to a quadruple back in 2021-22, but they ultimately missed out the two prizes they coveted the most.

Klopp’s men beat Chelsea in both cup finals, and reached the Champions League final while pushing Man City to the final day in the Premier League.

Had City not come back from two goals behind against Aston Villa, they’d have been just one game away.

Unlike this Arsenal team, though, Liverpool were never in the driving seat. Their fate was out of their hands in the title run-in.

They only spent one week (in September) at the top of the table and ultimately paid the price for dropping cheap points in the first half of the season. They took 44 points from the last 48 available but that wasn’t enough to catch prime City.

When it comes to Arsenal in 2025-26, there is – of course – plenty of the race to be run. The all-important, legacy-defining parts.

Every stage of the Champions League knockouts. A cup final against their closest competitors. Likely tough tests in the FA Cup. Eight nervy Premier League outings in the run-in.

In all likelihood, they’ll come unstuck somewhere. Even just one piece of silverware is far from guaranteed.

But you look at things historically and you could certainly make an argument that no team has reached this point of a season looking in such a strong position on all four fronts.