Arsenal lifted the Premier League trophy for the first time since 2004, and the streets of north London made sure everyone knew about it. The parade happened. The red flares went off. The fans climbed traffic lights. What nobody can quite agree on is how many of them were there.
The Daily Mirror went with "hundreds of thousands" — safe, defensible, probably accurate. The Sun managed to run two contradictory figures in the same publication: "up to 1 million" in one headline, "over 750,000" in another. The Daily Express went straight to over one million. And on X, the number floating around was 1.5 million.
The numbers game
Here's the thing about crowd estimates at street events: nobody actually counts. "Hundreds of thousands" is almost certainly correct. "Over 750,000" starts to stretch credibility. "Over one million" requires a fair bit of faith, and "1.5 million" on X should be treated with the same scepticism you'd apply to anything else posted there.
What's not in dispute: it was enormous. Seventy-five people had to be rescued from height. Sixteen were arrested. One was stabbed. When a crowd is big enough to generate all of that on the side, the base number doesn't really need inflating.
Eze's cautionary tale that wasn't
Among those celebrating — medal around his neck, trophy in hand — was Eberechi Eze. Which makes the timing of pundit Richard Keys suggesting people should "ask Eze how he feels about his move" particularly baffling, even by Keys' standards.
Eze joined his boyhood club, won the league in his first season, played in a Champions League final, and is now heading to the World Cup. His minute tally at Arsenal this season: 3,118. His tally at Crystal Palace last season: 3,303. Barely any difference — except one version ends with a title parade and one ends with a mid-table finish.
It's hard to construct a less convincing cautionary tale than that.
