Arsenal, The Invincibles in the unbeaten season 2003-04

If you are a football fanatic, especially a big fan of The Gunners, it is impossible that you never heard about The Invincibles. But what is the origin of this nickname and what happened in the 2003-04 season? Betimate takes a look and sums it up for all you guys to follow.

By: Harry Siuu

05/31/2021 01:08

arsenal-the-invincibles-in-the-unbeaten-season-2003-04

A few things about Arsenal

Before learning about The Invincibles, let’s grasp some knowledge about Arsenal F.C. in this section. We will quickly go through the club's history and their achievements so far.

History

Arsenal Football Club is an English professional football club based in Islington, London. They were initially known as Dial Square in the founding year, October 1886, now they are also referred to as The Gunners, which is a symbol featured on their logo.

Arsenal is playing at the Emirates Stadium with 60,704-seat capacity as their home ground. This is also the fourth largest stadium in England, after Wembley Stadium, Old Trafford Stadium, and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Since the club’s inception, there have been almost 30 full-time managers as well as caretakers that led Arsenal to plenty of titles. The current coach of Arsenal is Mikel Arteta, who has been in charge of this club since 2019.

Arsenal logo

Arsenal logo

League honors

During their career so far, Arsenal has obtained numerous trophies. They were the first football club from the South of England to participate in The Football League in 1893. They won the second-most top-notch matches in the history of English football.

They won a total of 13 league titles, the most FA Cups with 14 tims winning, two EFL Cups, 16 FA Community Shields, the League Centenary Trophy, one European Cup Winners’ Cup, and one Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. In the 20t century, Arsenal ended up with the highest average league position. Below are the detailed seasons and major competitions that Arsenal have won since the club’s inception.

1. EFL and Premier League

First Division / Premier League (First tier)

Winners (13): 1930–31, 1932–33, 1933–34, 1934–35, 1937–38, 1947–48, 1952–53, 1970–71, 1988–89, 1990–91, 1997–98, 2001–02, 2003–04

League Cup / EFL Cup

Winners (2): 1986–87, 1992–93

League Centenary Trophy

Winners (1) (record): 1988

2. The FA

FA Cup

Winners (14) (record): 1929–30, 1935–36, 1949–50, 1970–71, 1978–79, 1992–93, 1997–98, 2001–02, 2002–03, 2004–05, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2016–17, 2019–20

FA Community Shield (FA Charity Shield before 2002)

Winners (16): 1930, 1931, 1933, 1934, 1938, 1948, 1953, 1991 (shared), 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020

3. UEFA

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup (European Cup Winners' Cup before 1994)

Winners (1): 1993–94

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup[g]

Winners (1): 1969–70

UEFA Champions League

Runners-up (1): 2005–06

The origin of the Invincibles nickname

Now, every time someone mentions the 2003-04 season of football in the world, we think of Arsenal as “The Invincibles”. The reason why Arsenal was called under this nickname is that they were unbeaten within 38 games of the Premier League in that season. They won 26 matches and drew 12.

The ultimate result was Arsenal obtained 90 points, ranked first in the 2003-04 Premier League table. They surpassed all the giants in football, like Chelsea, Man United, and Liverpool with a huge difference in aggregate points.

Match	Date	Opponent	Venue	Result
1	7 May 2003	Southampton	Home	6–1
2	11 May 2003	Sunderland	Away	4–0
3	15 August 2003	Everton	Home	2–1
4	24 August 2003	Middlesbrough	Away	4–0
5	27 August 2003	Aston Villa	Home	2–0
6	31 August 2003	Manchester City	Away	2–1
7	13 September 2003	Portsmouth	Home	1–1
8	21 September 2003	Manchester United	Away	0–0
9	26 September 2003	Newcastle United	Home	3–2
10	4 October 2003	Liverpool	Away	2–1
11	18 October 2003	Chelsea	Home	2–1
12	26 October 2003	Charlton Athletic	Away	1–1
13	1 November 2003	Leeds United	Away	4–1
14	8 November 2003	Tottenham Hotspur	Home	2–1
15	22 November 2003	Birmingham City	Away	3–0
16	30 November 2003	Fulham	Home	0–0
17	6 December 2003	Leicester City	Away	1–1
18	14 December 2003	Blackburn Rovers	Home	1–0
19	20 December 2003	Bolton Wanderers	Away	1–1
20	26 December 2003	Wolverhampton Wanderers	Home	3–0
21	29 December 2003	Southampton	Away	1–0
22	7 January 2004	Everton	Away	1–1
23	10 January 2004	Middlesbrough	Home	4–1
24	18 January 2004	Aston Villa	Away	2–0
25	1 February 2004	Manchester City	Home	2–0
26	7 February 2004	Wolverhampton Wanderers	Away	3–1
27	10 February 2004	Southampton	Home	2–0
28	21 February 2004	Chelsea	Away	2–1
29	28 February 2004	Charlton Athletic	Home	2–1
30	13 March 2004	Blackburn Rovers	Away	2–0
31	20 March 2004	Bolton Wanderers	Home	2–1
32	28 March 2004	Manchester United	Home	1–1
33	9 April 2004	Liverpool	Home	4–2
34	11 April 2004	Newcastle United	Away	0–0
35	16 April 2004	Leeds United	Home	5–0
36	25 April 2004	Tottenham Hotspur	Away	2–2
37	1 May 2004	Birmingham City	Home	0–0
38	4 May 2004	Portsmouth	Away	1–1
39	9 May 2004	Fulham	Away	1–0
40	15 May 2004	Leicester City	Home	2–1
41	15 August 2004	Everton	Away	4–1
42	22 August 2004	Middlesbrough	Home	5–3
43	25 August 2004	Blackburn Rovers	Home	3–0
44	28 August 2004	Norwich City	Away	4–1
45	11 September 2004	Fulham	Away	3–0
46	18 September 2004	Bolton Wanderers	Home	2–2
47	25 September 2004	Manchester City	Away	1–0
48	2 October 2004	Charlton Athletic	Home	4–0
49	16 October 2004	Aston Villa	Home	3–1

The Invincibles in the 2003-04 season

The Invincibles in the 2003-04 season

Notable players of the Invincibles

No.	Position	Nation	Name	Total appearances	Total goals
14	FW	FRA	Thierry Henry	50 (1)	39
7	MF	FRA	Robert Pires	46 (5)	19
8	MF	SWE	Freddie Ljungberg	40 (4)	10
17	MF	BRA	Edu	28 (20)	7
9	FW	ESP	José Antonio Reyes	12 (9)	5
10	FW	NED	Dennis Bergkamp	29 (9)	5

In the table above, we have shown the top five notable players in the unbeaten season of Arsenal. They were the top goalscorers who brought back most of the goals for their team. Forward Thierry Henry was the name that was called a lot during that season as he had scored a total of 39 goals.

Two goals from him in the matches with Man City and Liverpool, along with one from Vieira against Tottenham Hotspur were mentioned in the Goal of the Season. This event also marked a spotlight in the career of manager Arsene Wenger.

Thierry Henry

Thierry Henry

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_F.C.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003%E2%80%9304_Arsenal_F.C._season

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincibles_(English_football)

Written by: Harry Siuu

a specialized football specialist with over ten years' experience as a football journalist who works for Betimate.com.

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