However, a large part of it is down to Arsene Wenger.
The polite, quietly spoken Frenchman arrived at Highbury in August of 1996 to little fanfare, fresh from a stint in the Japanese League with Nagoya Grampus. Despite Barcelona hero Johan Cruyff being the reported favourite to take over, it was the Frenchman who became the coach.
The Evening Standard met the appointment with the headline "Arsene Who?" while club veterans were unsure of the signing.
"At first I thought, 'what does this Frenchman know about football?'" Captain Tony Adams remarked retrospectively on Wenger's appointment.
"He looks more like a schoolteacher. He's not going to be as good as George Graham. Does he even speak English properly?"
Adams was sort of right, Wenger's nickname "Le Professeur" highlights his pensive appearance as much as it does his thoughtful footballing approach but as far as comparisons with previous manager George Graham went, Wenger proved to be much different for both Arsenal and the entire league.
In the 1995-6 season, 8 from the 11 top scorers in the league were British while Manchester United, the title winners of that year, boasted only three-non British players in a squad of 31.
The football across the league also reflected that. The "classic" English stylistic discourse regarding direct, fast paced, physical football was alive and well in 1995 while the players themselves were probably the last generation to accurately subscribe to the "fan on the pitch" romanticism that was somewhat lost with the David Beckham-led mass celebrity culture in the sport a couple of years later.
Players ate badly and still drank heavily.
"We used to have eating contests on the way up to games," former Arsenal player Paul Merson confessed in a 2009 TV documentary.
"You know, who could finish the most pies on the coach to Newcastle or somewhere like that."
It wasn't just Merson. Arsenal's infamous "Tuesday Club" became news material when stories of hungover players at games and training began leaking out of the pubs and into newspapers, captain Tony Adams the centre of it all, flirting with alcoholism that threatened his career.
Arsene Wenger's arrival changed that, almost overnight. The introduction of diet, serious exercise and a no-alcohol rule were unpopular at first but with time became normal with the steady introduction of Wenger's "own" players who reflected his philosophy.
Before Wenger even signed with Arsenal he told the club a month in advance to sign Patrick Vieria, then a young French midfielder on the fringes at AC Milan. Despite playing only two games for the Rossoneri, Wenger had seen enough.
Vieria, who not only became the midfield lynchpin Arsenal were built around for nine years was a serious professional, shocked at tales of his English teammates' drinking exploits. Vieria's discipline came to embody Arsenal's style on the pitch, as he also became an example of the new mentality off it.
Two seasons later, Arsenal were league and FA Cup champions thanks to a vibrant brand of football never seen on English shores aside from occasional European Cup visits from Spanish and Italian sides.
Entertaining and controlled, Arsenal combined the tough defence George Graham instilled into the team prior to Wenger's arrival with the attacking flair preached by the new coach and practiced by a collection of exciting new players that were almost all unknown before their arrival.
Dennis Bergkamp, a slow Dutch forward not known for goals burdened by pressure at Inter in Serie A was picked up by Wenger and when combined with the 1999 signing of a struggling Juventus winger by the name of Thierry Henry, turned into the finest strike partnership in modern English football.
Nicolas Anelka played 10 league games for PSG before Wenger bought him and converted the moody striker into a near record fee three years later. Transfer windows came and went and more players arrived; Marc Overmars, Emmanuel Petit, Robert Pires, Freddie Ljunberg all came in, the majority of whom formed the backbone of a side that won another double in 2002.
Two years after that came the zenith; Arsenal's 2003-04 league triumph that came in the midst of a 49 game unbeaten streak, encompassing the entire season. Wenger had created one of the most memorable Premier League teams of all time, if not the most memorable. His rival Sir Alex Ferguson will be rightly praised for dynastic achievements, but for single-season, instant classic teams - Wenger's invincible's top that list as much as the 11 inspired Liverpool players against Milan in the second half of the 2005 Champions League final top the single-game memories.
Since that team, some of the glamour has faded. The exit of Vieria, Pires and Henry in consecutive seasons ended the Arsenal success story rather abruptly and those losses have been difficult to contend with while also competing with the money of new rivals Chelsea and Manchester City, who celebrated their new-found riches by enticing Arsenal's best players away from them. Robin Van Persie's 2012 exit was a path taken by Ashley Cole, Gael Clichy, Samir Nasri, Emmanuel Adebayor in previous years, as well as captain Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona.
Regardless, Wenger continued with his principles - developing players despite fans impatience and insistence to spend large amounts, remaining almost cryptically polite to journalists openly questioning his job security and continually churning out consistently spectacularly football despite calls to "play more direct" to win the trophies that have eluded the coach for nearly a decade.
The building of a new stadium that has now funded the purchase of record signing Mesut Ozil is arguably a direct result of Wenger - had the club not undergone the transformation it had under the Frenchman throughout the late 1990's the club may not have been as attractive to Stan Kroenke in 2011, nor would they been a safe bet to maintain success while having to pay the construction bills. Wenger was a huge contributor to both.
The changes that Wenger has brought to Arsenal; scouting of foreign talent, development of youth overseas, strict diet planning and possession based football has since been mimicked, aped by many Premier League sides since his arrival.
He and the club have been a blueprint for modern football - laying a successful platform and foundation for foreign coaches and players to succeed in England. Stars flocking to England thanks to the lucrative deals are as a result of coaches like Wenger(and Ferguson, of course) turning English football into something worth watching, something worth buying.
Many people owe their careers to Arsene Wenger from Tony Adams, who enjoyed a wildly successful twilight period that was seemingly destined to have a tragic ending to Henry and Bergkamp, whose stalling careers were both given life, as well as a strike partner.
Additionally perhaps, English football fans owe something to Arsene Wenger too. A notoriously cold, miserable little island packed to the rafters with hard-nosed, physical teams finally had a different style to watch, an odd name to see on the back of a shirt. English football has changed since those darker days 18 years ago, and all for the better too.
The Premier League is now a huge, money making, attractive juggernaut with more teams playing passing, youth driven football than ever before. It's part of the product now, part of the success.
All the while during these changes, a thin man has stood on the sideline of a football pitch looking pensive, as he has for 999 Arsenal games. Perhaps we all owe him a bit of gratitude.
