Arsenal competed in Europe's premier club competition – the UEFA Champions League – for the first time since its rebrand in 1992, but failed to progress past the group stage.

In the transfer window, Arsenal purchased several players, including Swedish midfielder Freddie Ljungberg and Argentine Nelson Vivas.

Ian Wright – the club's all-time top goalscorer, left in the summer to play for West Ham United.

Striker Nwankwo Kanu joined Arsenal in January 1999.

Arsenal made an indifferent start to their league campaign with four consecutive draws from their first five matches.

After defeat to Aston Villa in December 1998, the team embarked on a 19 match unbeaten run to steadily climb up the league table.

A 6-1 win against Middlesbrough in April 1999 moved Arsenal to the top of the table for the first time in the season and victory against Tottenham Hotspur put the team three points clear as main challenger United drew with Liverpool.

Both Arsenal and Manchester United went into the final two games of the league season on the same number of points, but the latter's defeat to Leeds United all but ended their chances of retaining the title.

30 different players represented Arsenal in five competitions and there were 14 different goalscorers.

Arsenal's top goalscorer was Nicolas Anelka, who scored 19 goals in 45 appearances.

Player statistics

No.	Pos.	Name	Premier League		FA Cup		League Cup		Charity Shield		Champions League		Total
No.	Pos.	Name	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
1	GK	David Seaman	32	0	5	0	0	0	1	0	6	0	44	0
2	DF	Lee Dixon	36	0	5	0	0	0	1	0	5	0	48	0
3	DF	Nigel Winterburn	30	0	6	0	5	0	1	0	5	0	42	0
4	MF	Patrick Vieira	34	3	5 (1)	0	0	0	1	0	3	0	43	4
5	DF	Steve Bould	14 (5)	0	3 (1)	0	0	0	-1	0	2 (1)	0	19 (8)	0
6	DF	Tony Adams	26	1	5	0	0	0	1	0	4	1	36	2
7	DF	Nelson Vivas	10 (13)	0	4 (2)	0	2	1	0	0	2 (3)	0	18 (18)	1
8	MF	Freddie Ljungberg	10 (6)	1	2 (1)	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	14 (7)	1
9	FW	Nicolas Anelka	34 (1)	17	5	0	0	0	1	1	5	1	44 (1)	19
10	FW	Dennis Bergkamp	28 (1)	12	6	3	1	0	1	0	3	1	40 (1)	16
11	MF	Marc Overmars	37	6	6 (1)	4	0	0	1	1	4	1	48 (1)	12
12	FW	Christopher Wreh	3 (9)	0	0	0	2	0	-1	1	3	0	8 (10)	1
13	GK	Alex Manninger	6	0	2	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	10	0
14	DF	Martin Keown	34	1	4	0	0	0	1	0	5	1	44	1
15	MF	Ray Parlour	35	6	7	0	0	0	1	0	4	0	47	6
16	MF	Stephen Hughes	4 (10)	1	2 (2)	0	2	0	-1	0	2 (2)	1	10 (15)	2
17	MF	Emmanuel Petit	26 (1)	4	3	2	0	0	1	0	3	0	33 (1)	6
18	DF	Gilles Grimandi	3 (5)	0	1 (1)	0	2	0	-1	0	1 (1)	0	7 (8)	0
19	MF	Rémi Garde	6 (4)	0	2 (2)	0	2	0	0	0	3 (2)	0	13 (8)	0
20	DF	Matthew Upson	-5	0	1	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	4 (5)	0
21	MF	Luís Boa Morte	2 (6)	0	1	1	2	0	-1	0	2 (1)	1	5 (7)	2
22	DF	David Grondin	1	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	1	0	4	0
23	MF	Alberto Méndez	0	0	1	0	1 (1)	0	0	0	1	1	3 (1)	1
25	FW	Nwankwo Kanu	5 (7)	6	-5	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	5 (12)	8
26	FW	Fabián Caballero	-1	0	-1	0	-1	0	0	0	0	0	-3	0
27	FW	Kaba Diawara	2 (10)	0	1 (2)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3 (12)	0
28	MF	Michael Black	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	-1	0	-1	0
29	DF	Jason Crowe	0	0	0	0	-1	0	0	0	0	0	-1	0
30	MF	Paolo Vernazza	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0
32	FW	Omer Riza	0	0	0	0	-1	0	0	0	0	0	-1	0