Arsenal won the title pretty convincingly in 1991. Their rigid defence shipped just 18 goals and kept 25 clean sheets, while up front they netted 74 times with the league’s top scorer, Alan Smith, grabbing 23. They eventually finished a comfortable seven points ahead of Liverpool; yet something prevented that side from being acknowledged as one of the greatest sides ever – they lost one game that season.
Under George Graham Arsenal had become a force to be reckoned with in the late 1980s and early ‘90s as he took a side that were perennial contenders for pretty much nothing and turned them into regular challengers for almost everything.
Building his side around a group of young, hungry and enthusiastic players The Gunners had pipped Liverpool to the title in the most dramatic manner possible with almost the last kick of the 1988/89 season and the fiery Scotsman was determined that his young charges wouldn’t rest on their laurels.
The following season the same two sides once again fought it out for the title as Liverpool eventually wrestled the Division One trophy, which had spent so much of the previous decade at Anfield, from the Londoners and took it back to Merseyside, temporarily at least.
But by 1990 Graham’s Arsenal had matured to become one of the hardest teams to beat in the league with a mean defence, tough-tackling midfield and potent strike-force and going into the 1990/91 campaign there was little doubt that they would once again be challenging Liverpool when it came to lifting the most glittering prize in English football.
Other than signing promising English ‘keeper David Seaman from QPR for £1million and acquiring the services of tricky winger Anders Limpar, not to mention Andy Linighan from Norwich, Arsenal’s side was virtually unchanged from that which had won the league and finished runners-up in the previous two outings.
So few were surprised when The Gunners got off to a flying start, winning eight and drawing three of their first eleven league games as Graham’s men embarked on yet another duel with Liverpool who had won their first eight games of the season.
Even a mass-brawl at Old Trafford, which would ultimately see both sides deducted points and Tony Adams serving a four-month jail sentence for drink driving, didn’t seem to derail Arsenal’s charge.
Quickly overcoming the disappointment of a 6-2 home drubbing to Manchester United in the Rumbelows Cup Arsenal convincingly beat Kenny Dalglish’s table-topping Liverpool in December, not only ending the Reds’ own emphatic 14-game unbeaten streak, but significantly thrusting them into the ascendancy in terms of the title race. Their record now read; played 15, won 11, drawn 4, lost 0.
Going into the away game at Chelsea on February 2, Arsenal were still unbeaten after 23 games as people began to ask if this Arsenal team could become the first since Preston North End in 1889 to go a whole season unbeaten.
But their recent form was mixed to say the least. The win over Liverpool had been followed by three successive draws, then three straight wins, a 0-0 and a scrappy 1-0 victory, while they’d also met Leeds three times in just 16 days after their FA Cup Fourth Round tie went to a second replay.
Add in the fact that Arsenal had not won at Stamford Bridge since 1974 and omens didn’t look good.
So it was no surprise that on a blowy afternoon at the then incredibly hostile and now unrecognisable Stamford Bridge one of the most impressive sides in recent football history suffered their first and only defeat of a nigh-on perfect campaign.
With defensive stalwart Steve Bould taken out of the fray at half-time through injury and his centre-back partner still doing time, Arsenal were vulnerable at the back and it was no surprise when Graham Stewart pounced on a rare Nigel Winterburn error to give the home side the lead.
And when Kerry Dixon doubled their lead after another defensive mix-up the reputation of this great side was suddenly on the line.
Alan Smith did pull a goal back late-on but it was too little, too late and having gone more than half the season with an unblemished record Arsenal had finally been brought down to earth with a shuddering bump.
However, hard as it was to take, the defeat meant little in the grand scheme of things other than ensuring that George Graham’s side wouldn’t go down in history as only the second team ever at that time to make it through an entire campaign unbeaten.
Arsenal lifted the old Division One trophy with two games still to go to cap a magnificent season while cementing their second league title success in three years; and according to some of those who can proudly boast to have been part of the “Almost Invincibles” of 1991 that single loss was the furthest thing from their mind at the time.
“We never thought anyone could do that,” Perry Groves told Four Four Two magazine some years later. “But then Arsenal did go and do it in 2003/04. When I watched that, I thought: ‘We very nearly did that!’”
