The Best Comebacks to Next Year Is Our Year

Somewhere in England right now, in a pub, in a WhatsApp group, in the comments beneath a YouTube video of Mikel Corner-teta gripping the fourth official’s board as though it were a life raft, an Arsenal fan is saying it. Quietly at first, then with gathering conviction, then with the full evangelical fervour of someone who has found religion and would very much like to share it with you over a pint you didn’t ask for. Next year is our year. It arrives every May, like clockwork, like tax returns, like the slow fade of Arsenal’s title challenge somewhere around the third week of March. And every May, the rival fan, you, presumably, given that you’ve clicked on this, nods politely, makes the appropriate sounds, and walks away entirely unprepared for what they should have said.

This is that preparation. Consider it a verbal pre-season. A tactical dossier. A set-piece routine, drilled on the training ground, ready to be deployed the moment the four words are uttered. We at Quad Juice have catalogued twenty years of Arsenal’s near-misses, photo finishes, and spectacular collapses so that you don’t have to, and we’ve distilled them into a listicle of comebacks so sharp, so precisely calibrated, so premium in their delivery, that the only appropriate response is silence followed by a quiet sip of something alcoholic. Or, in the Arsenal fan’s case, something from our 750ml bottle of Quad Juice, thoughtfully gifted by you, their loving rival.

Why “Next Year Is Our Year” Is the Most Load-Bearing Sentence in Football

Before we get to the comebacks, a moment of genuine tactical analysis. “Next year is our year” is not simply a statement of optimism. It is a sophisticated psychological defence mechanism, engineered by the Arsenal fanbase over decades of near-misses to protect against the crushing weight of evidence. It does several things at once: it acknowledges the present failure (implicitly), it defers accountability to a future that can never be disproved (elegant), and it reframes the conversation away from the actual question, which is, of course, “what happened this time?”

The Arsenal fan who deploys it is not naïve. They are experienced. They have done this before. They said it after 2016, after 2017’s FA Cup (a trophy even mid-table clubs have won), after the near-miss of 2020, after the extraordinary photo-finish collapse of 2023, and after the even more extraordinary sequel of 2024. Each iteration arrives with identical confidence, identical hand gestures, identical references to the process being trusted. It is, in the most technical sense, a closing argument with no new evidence.

Your job is not to be cruel about this. Your job is to be precise. The best comebacks to “next year is our year” do not mock. They inquire. They reframe. They stand in the doorway of the conversation and politely ask for the paperwork. If you want to master the full range of these techniques across every digital battlefield, the comprehensive guide on how to win every WhatsApp argument with an Arsenal fan is essential reading, but this article focuses on that single, miraculous, endlessly renewable sentence.

The Comebacks, Tier One: The Precision Interrogatives

These comebacks work by asking a genuine-seeming question that contains, buried somewhere inside it, a small explosive device.

“Which year were you referring to? I want to write it down.”

Delivered deadpan, with a pen actually produced from a pocket if circumstances allow. The implication, that you have been given this date before and would like documentary evidence this time, is both polite and devastating. Do not smile. Do not embellish. Simply wait for the answer, nod slowly, and fold the paper. The Arsenal fan will spend the next forty-five seconds trying to explain why writing it down is somehow aggressive.

“Since 1886, or just from next January?”

The “Bottling It Since 1886” principle, applied verbally. Arsenal were founded in 1886, which means they have technically been waiting for their year for approximately 138 years. The question does not require a punchline. The arithmetic is the punchline.

“How many years does the process need?”

This one is for the Arteta disciple specifically, the fan who greets every trophy drought with a PowerPoint presentation about high press metrics and expected goals. The beauty of this question is that it has no good answer. Say three, and you can note that three has passed. Say five, and they’ve moved the goalposts. Say “it’s not about years, it’s about building sustainable excellence,” and you simply nod, produce a bottle of Quad Juice’s Trust The Process edition, and walk away without another word.

“Is this the year you finally win a European Cup? Or still working up to that one?”

Zero European Cups. None. A single solitary UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup from 1994 that even Arsenal fans struggle to find on Google. Manchester United have three European Cups. Liverpool have six. Chelsea, Tottenham’s local rivals and Arsenal’s moral nemesis, have two Champions League trophies. Arsenal have none. This is not an insult. This is a Wikipedia citation.

The Comebacks, Tier Two: The Historical Parallels

These comebacks require a light touch of football knowledge and a willingness to draw the kind of comparisons that stick in the memory like a wayward pass going out for a throw-in in the forty-third minute.

“This reminds me of 2023. And 2022. And 2020. And—”

Simply begin listing years. Slowly. Thoughtfully. As though recalling old friends. 2016, when they finished second. 2019, when the process was still in its infancy. 2023, when they led the table for months before a run of form so fragile it appeared to be held together with tactical tape and corner routines. 2024, when they did it again. There is no need to add commentary. The years speak for themselves, like a trophy cabinet that echoes.

“I remember when Facebook didn’t exist and Arsenal last won the league. Good times.”

The Invincibles won the title in 2003–04. Facebook launched in 2004. The iPhone didn’t exist. Twitter didn’t exist. WhatsApp didn’t exist. The Mars Curiosity Rover was not yet on Mars. For every year that has passed since Arsenal’s last title, you can find a technology, a cultural moment, or a sporting dynasty that has risen, peaked, and declined entirely within that window. The point is not that 2004 was long ago. The point is that 2004 was so long ago it has started to look like a different geological period.

“Put a bottle of Quad Juice on ice for next May. Just in case.”

This is the premium version of the historical parallel, it takes the Arsenal fan’s optimism at face value, meets it with generosity, and weaponises it. Tell them you’ll get them a bottle of Quad Juice for next year’s celebration, 750ml of 100% premium grape juice, presented in full Bordeaux bottle livery, shipped with a complimentary bottle-service sparkler. Tell them it’s “in case things go the usual way.” Then actually buy it. The gift’s power increases exponentially the following May when it is, once again, opened in defeat.

“Didn’t Mikel say something similar in that press conference? The one after the loss?”

This is not about any specific press conference. It is about every press conference. Arsenal managers have been saying variations of “next year” in the third person, filtered through phrases like “we are building something special” and “the direction of travel is correct” and “I am proud of how the players have responded to adversity” for so long that it has effectively become the club’s mission statement. You don’t even need to specify which press conference. There are seventeen to choose from.

The Comebacks, Tier Three: The Tactical Observations

These comebacks target the football itself. They are for the serious enthusiast, the rival fan who watches the game rather than just the table, who notices the sideways passing in the forty-eighth minute, who has strong opinions about the second pivot and when it breaks down. They require more setup but land harder, because the Arsenal fan cannot dismiss them as ignorance.

“I agree. Once the set-piece routine finally clicks, anything is possible.”

Delivered with complete sincerity. Arteta’s Arsenal have invested enormously in set-piece analysis. They work on corners with a devotion usually reserved for religious practice. The implicit joke, that even with all this, the results have been the results, does not need to be stated. You simply validate the set-piece thesis and leave the rest in the air.

“As long as they stay patient in the low block, the second-half chances will come.”

This is football commentary that means absolutely nothing, delivered in the tones of a Champions League co-commentator who has been given three correct facts and told to extrapolate for six minutes. It sounds like analysis. It contains no substance. It is the verbal equivalent of passing sideways for eighty-nine minutes and calling it controlled football. The Arsenal fan, who has been fed a diet of exactly this kind of commentary, will nod involuntarily before catching themselves.

“I think the inverted fullbacks will be crucial.”

Again: complete tactical gibberish delivered with total confidence. Inverted fullbacks are always crucial. In any season, in any tactical system, in any league. They are football’s “quantum entanglement”, something people cite with authority without being entirely sure what it means in context. Every modern fullback is, to some extent, inverted. This comeback works because it is completely accurate and completely meaningless simultaneously, which is the precise texture of most football punditry and most Arsenal fan post-match analysis.

“Absolutely. VAR really has been the deciding factor this season.”

The arsenal, lowercase, not the club, of the Arsenal fan’s explanatory framework always includes VAR. VAR decisions, VAR delays, the PGMOL, Dermot Gallagher, the former referee who explains on Sky Sports why the offside was correct, the letter Arsenal apparently send to the Premier League after every controversial decision. This comeback accepts the VAR narrative completely, which is far more unsettling than challenging it.

For a more comprehensive breakdown of how to navigate this specific conversational terrain in real time, the article on surviving pub football banter as a rival fan in North London covers the full range of encounters, from the post-match pint to the pre-match table with a red-and-white scarf draped across it.

The Comebacks, Tier Four: The Philosophical Challenges

These are the nuclear options. They are not for the casual WhatsApp group. They are for a long journey, a post-match pub with time to kill, or a Christmas dinner where someone has already made a questionable tactical point about the three-five-two. Deploy only when ready to commit to the full exchange.

“What would it feel like, do you think? Winning. Hypothetically.”

The power here is the word “hypothetically.” It frames winning the league as something in the realm of thought experiments, like imagining a fifth spatial dimension or a world where Arsenal signed Mbappé instead of just being linked with him in every transfer window for four consecutive summers. The Arsenal fan will start to answer genuinely, then catch the hypothetically, then lose the thread entirely.

“Trust the process is technically the longest-running loyalty scheme in the Premier League.”

With no points redeemable for trophies, admittedly. This comeback works best on the Arsenal fan who is also professionally engaged in any field involving strategy, delivery timelines, or project management. It frames the Arteta project as a loyalty card where you collect stamps for each near-miss and the prize, when it eventually arrives, will have been earned through diligent years of data collection. The gentle implication, that most loyalty schemes eventually deliver something, hangs in the air unresolved.

“I’ve been following the long-form piece on what Quad Juice is, it’s essentially the same story told from the bottle’s perspective.”

A direct reading recommendation. The piece on what Quad Juice is and how the Classico Bottling Experience works tells the full story of a product that has been waiting since 1886 for the right moment to be opened. There is no guarantee the moment arrives. The process, however, continues to be trusted. The Arsenal fan will not find this as funny as you do, which is the correct outcome.

“You know what? I believe you. This is genuinely the most together they’ve looked since last May.”

“Last May” does not need to be specified. In the Arsenal calendar, every May is a variation on the same May, the table close but not close enough, the dropped points in March or April that everyone agrees were not representative, the manager’s measured disappointment in the post-season interview, the summer of transfer links and cautious optimism. By agreeing that this May looks like last May, you have technically said something supportive while making your actual point with considerable efficiency.

The Comebacks, Tier Five: The Silent Weapons

Sometimes the best comeback is not verbal. Sometimes it is physical. These are the non-verbal options, catalogued here with full tactical notes.

The Quiet Nod

A slow, considered nod. The kind a doctor gives when a patient describes symptoms they recognise immediately. Not a nod of agreement, a nod of acknowledgement. Of having heard this before. Of having filed it beside the previous years’ versions. The Arsenal fan will ask what the nod means. You say “nothing, just thinking.” They will not sleep well.

The Gift

Order a bottle of Quad Juice, the full 750ml Bordeaux-format bottle, sparkler included, and give it to them in October. Tell them it’s for the celebration. “Bottling It Since 1886” on the label. Let the label do the work. You don’t have to say anything. The bottle will still be on their shelf in May, either unopened or opened in deeply ambiguous circumstances, and you will not have had to construct a single sentence.

The Screenshot

Every year, the Arsenal fan will say “next year is our year” somewhere digital, a group chat, a tweet, a comment. Screenshot it. Do not send it immediately. File it. Return it in May, without comment, just the screenshot. No emoji. No caption. Just the receipt. This is the digital equivalent of the slow nod, and it is significantly more devastating because it has a timestamp.

The Calendar Reminder

Set a recurring annual event in your phone for the third week of May. Title it “Arsenal’s Year.” Every year, when it fires, forward it to the Arsenal fan with a question mark. No other text. They will initially find this endearing. By year five, they will not.

For those operating primarily in digital spaces, the full doctrine on the rules of trolling football Twitter without getting banned will provide structural guidance for deploying these techniques across social platforms without triggering moderation. The screenshot, in particular, requires care in public threads.

The Geography of “Next Year”, Why London’s Rival Fans Have A Special Obligation

There is a particular edge to this conversation if you are, for example, a Chelsea supporter, a Tottenham supporter, or a West Ham supporter who happens to share a postcode with the Arsenal faithful. The proximity argument, that London is blue and white and claret and various other colours that are emphatically not red and white, adds a territorial texture to every “next year” conversation that doesn’t exist for supporters in other cities.

The full philosophical exploration of this dynamic is available in the piece on London being blue and white, and what trolling Arsenal looks like from rival perspectives, but the short version is this: when an Arsenal fan says “next year is our year,” the London rival fan can simply gesture at the city around them. The city that has hosted Chelsea’s Champions League wins. The city that produced generations of managers who found ways to win things. The city that has, for twenty years, watched Arsenal come close and then adjust the definition of close.

This is not tribal cruelty. It is geography. You didn’t choose it. You simply live here, and next year, like every year, the city will be whatever colour the trophy dictates. The Arsenal fan knows this. The comeback is simply to remind them that the map hasn’t changed since 2004.

What to Do When the Comebacks Don’t Land

Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, the Arsenal fan has heard all of this before. They are a seasoned practitioner. They have been trolled by better. They will absorb your precision interrogatives, file your historical parallels, and return your tactical observations with a shrug so refined it appears rehearsed. This is not a failure on your part. This is evolution. The Arsenal fan who cannot be dented verbally has adapted to their environment, like a species that has learned to survive extraordinary annual disappointment through sheer cellular stubbornness.

For this fan, the only response is patience. Give them the bottle of Quad Juice. Tell them the “Bottling It Since 1886” label is an heirloom piece. Suggest they put it on the shelf next to their 2023 runners-up merchandise and their 2024 “moral champions” framed print. Tell them that when the year finally arrives, and it will, eventually, in the thermodynamic heat death of the universe if nothing else, the sparkler included with every bottle will be right there, ready, having waited as long as the process required.

The gift outlasts the argument. The bottle survives the WhatsApp group. And somewhere, in the quiet of a North London living room in a future May that has not yet arrived, an Arsenal fan will open it, see “Trust the Process. Drink the Collapse” embossed on the label, and feel something complicated and true about the nature of loyalty and time.

Or they’ll just drink the grape juice. It’s 100% premium. It’s actually quite good. Even that feels, somehow, appropriately on the nose.

Trust the process. Drink the collapse.
— Bukayo Sako-rner, Chief Set-Piece Sommelier, Quad Juice

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Quad Juice?

Quad Juice is a 750ml bottle of 100% premium, alcohol-free grape juice presented in full Bordeaux bottle format with a bespoke ‘Bottling It Since 1886’ label that gently references Arsenal’s annual May tradition of not winning the league. It ships with a complimentary bottle-service sparkler. It is the gift that keeps on giving, especially in May.

Why does ‘Next Year Is Our Year’ deserve a comeback listicle?

Because it has been said continuously since 2004 and deserves, at minimum, a documented response. Twenty years of optimism with no trophy to show for it is not a belief system, it’s a lifestyle, and lifestyles deserve commentary.

What is the best single comeback to ‘Next Year Is Our Year’?

Producing a bottle of Quad Juice and saying ‘I’ve got the celebration sorted’ before handing it over. The label does the rest. No additional sentences required.

How do I use Quad Juice as a comeback device?

Buy a bottle and gift it to the Arsenal fan in your life in October or November, framed as pre-emptive celebration planning. Tell them the sparkler is included for when it happens. Let the May results do the editorial work.

Is ‘Next Year Is Our Year’ unique to Arsenal fans?

Technically no, fans of many clubs deploy deferred optimism. However, Arsenal’s version is distinctive for its combination of genuine proximity to the title (they keep coming close) and the precise two-decade gap since they actually won it. This specific flavour of almost is largely proprietary.

What year did Arsenal last win the Premier League?

2003–04, the Invincible season. Facebook had just launched, the iPhone was three years away, and Thierry Henry was doing things that felt entirely possible. It has been a while.

How many European Cups has Arsenal won?

Zero. None. The number is not rounding down from a small positive. The answer is simply zero. They have a UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup from 1994 which is technically a thing that happened.

Can I use these comebacks in a WhatsApp group?

Absolutely, and the precision interrogatives work particularly well in group chats where the read receipts are visible and silence speaks volumes. For a full tactical briefing on the digital battlefield, see our guide on winning WhatsApp arguments with Arsenal fans.

Are these comebacks mean-spirited?

They are precise. There is a difference. Mean-spirited implies malice; these comebacks simply apply logical consistency to a statement that hasn’t updated its evidence base in twenty years. We prefer to call it fact-checking with banter.

What does the Quad Juice label say exactly?

‘Bottling It Since 1886’, a reference to Arsenal’s founding year and their ongoing relationship with the concept of almost. The label is formatted as a vintage Bordeaux and is entirely serious in its presentation, which is the whole point.

Is the sparkler included with Quad Juice actually usable?

Yes. Every bottle ships with a genuine complimentary bottle-service sparkler, ready for the celebration. Whether that celebration ever arrives is, as the label notes, a matter of trusting the process.

What’s the best setting to deploy the ‘Hypothetically, what would winning feel like?’ comeback?

A long train journey or a pub with at least an hour remaining. This is not a quick comeback, it is an interrogation that requires space to breathe. Do not deploy at a bar where you may need to leave quickly.

Does ‘Trust the Process’ have a defined endpoint?

According to available data, no. It is a temporal framework with no specified delivery date, which is either visionary or extremely convenient depending on your perspective and current league position.

How do I troll on Twitter or X without getting banned?

With care and precision. The full tactical guide on trolling football Twitter without getting banned covers platform-specific rules, escalation thresholds, and the art of the reply that looks like a compliment.

What is the correct amount of time to wait before sending back a screenshot of someone’s ‘Next Year’ prediction?

May. Always May. The third week, specifically, once the mathematical certainty has arrived. Sending it earlier is premature; sending it later suggests you’ve lost interest, which is worse than sending it.

Can I give Quad Juice as a birthday gift even if the Arsenal fan’s birthday isn’t in May?

Absolutely, the label is a year-round statement of historical fact, not a seasonal decoration. A birthday in November with Quad Juice on the table simply gives it eleven months to mature before the relevant events occur.

Why is ‘inverted fullbacks will be crucial’ an effective comeback?

Because it is simultaneously accurate, tactically meaningless, and delivered in the exact register of a Sky Sports co-commentator. The Arsenal fan cannot disagree with it, cannot agree with it substantively, and cannot explain why it is funny. This is the ideal conversational outcome.

Is this article intended for any specific rival fanbase?

It is universal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester City, Liverpool, and even mid-table fans who’ve been hearing ‘next year’ since the children in their families were toddlers. The comebacks transcend tribal allegiance. The bottle of Quad Juice remains on point for all of them.

What’s the recommended approach for surviving North London pub banter in person?

Preparation, patience, and a firm understanding of which lines to hold. The full briefing is in our guide on surviving pub football banter as a rival fan in North London, essential reading before entering any establishment with red-and-white memorabilia on the walls.

How much does Quad Juice cost?

£19.99 per bottle including the sparkler and the full Bordeaux presentation. For a trophy-grade novelty gift that lands every single May for the foreseeable future, that is exceptional value per deployment.

Does Quad Juice ship internationally?

For current shipping details, check the product page directly, but the sentiment travels everywhere Arsenal fans do, which is, unfortunately for you, most of the world.

If the Arsenal fan opens the Quad Juice in victory, does that ruin the joke?

On the contrary, if Arsenal win the league, they will have earned a bottle of premium grape juice and a sparkler. The joke was never that they’d never win. The joke is that you’ll have been waiting, bottle in hand, since 1886.