Every season, there is one moment, one game, one result, when the team that eventually finishes as Premier League champions knows it is going to be their year.
Sometimes it is a last-minute victory, an unexpected falter from an opponent, or a goal for the ages. Sergio Aguero’s winner for Manchester City in 2012, for example, or, “Where do you want your statue, Vincent Kompany?” — a wonder goal from the club captain, and a wonder line from Sky Sports’ Gary Neville, during another of City’s modern-day triumphs.
And now? If they are truthful, most City fans might not even have thought it was still worthy of discussion going into a weekend that began with Arsenal, holding a seemingly impregnable nine-point lead, preparing for a home game against Bournemouth, 13th at the start of play.
But then everything started to unravel for Mikel Arteta’s side in a way that should encourage the team directly in Arsenal’s wing mirrors to believe that maybe they can be caught, after all.
Where cool heads were needed, Arsenal’s players looked jumpy and apprehensive, lacking the clarity of thought that is usually the mark of champions-in-waiting. When the team needed a lift from their supporters, there was a palpable sense of anxiety that seemed to pollute the players’ collective mindset. Or was it the other way around?
When cool finishing was needed, there was Viktor Gyokeres. It is 22 years since Arsenal last won the league, and they must be absolutely sick of being reminded about it. On the evidence of a demoralising 2-1 defeat, it is weighing them down like a rucksack filled with rocks.
Can City take advantage? Maybe it is too early, and too kneejerk, to imagine the top-of-the-table showdown against Arsenal next weekend being another of those season-defining occasions for the most dominant Premier League team of the last 15 years.
Arsenal’s home defeat by Bournemouth leaves the door open for Manchester City (Glyn Kirk/Getty Images)
Before then, City have to take care of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. And even if they win both fixtures, they would still be three points behind Arsenal with a game in hand. Even if they win that extra game, the goal difference is currently six in favour of the team at the top of the table. Let’s be clear: the odds are still very much in favour of Arsenal.
And yet, the bottom line here is that Arsenal have become the first team to blink since this staring contest moved into April. It was, in Arteta’s words, a “tough one … a big punch in the face … a painful day, for sure.”
Everyone knew what the follow-up question would be, given that the constant backdrop to this title race is that Arsenal have finished as runners-up in each of the last three seasons. The lesson of history, after all, challenges the idea that Arsenal, top of the league since September 14, have the force of personality to go from nearly men to champions. In 2022-23, for example, Arsenal blew an eight-point lead at the 29-game mark. In two of their three near-misses, they have allowed City to catch and overhaul them.
So, is the pressure affecting them? “I don’t know if it is that,” countered Arteta. “We’ve been coping with a lot of pressure since the beginning of the season. Today was more of a surprise. I’ve seen some actions that are very far from the level we have shown (previously). That really shocks the system. We asked for a lot from our crowd. Today we didn’t respond to those standards, we have to apologise, take it on the chin and move on.”
These are words that will greatly encourage the team in second place, and so was Arteta’s admission that his players would have to “be very honest with ourselves” when it came to analysing their shortcomings. It was unusual for Arsenal’s manager to be so critical of his team’s performance and brought back memories of their 2-2 draw at Wolverhampton Wanderers in February.
Eberechi Eze after Arsenal’s draw at Wolves in February (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
To give him his due, Arteta’s complaints on that freezing night at Molineux did get the response he wanted. On that occasion, he had seen his players give away a two-goal lead and concede a 94th-minute equaliser against the team at the bottom of the league.
The soundtrack for the night, courtesy of the home crowd, was the now-familiar chorus of schadenfreude – “second again, ole, ole, ole” – and Arteta talked about his side having to “take the hits, because today we deserve them”. His team’s response was, in part, exactly what he wanted: four successive wins in the league (albeit that sequence of results was followed by going out of the FA Cup to second-tier Southampton and losing the Carabao Cup final to City).
Two months since the ordeal at Wolves, however, it must be startling for Arsenal fans that the title race has been reinvigorated in a way that very few people expected when City were held to back-to-back draws against Nottingham Forest and West Ham United, two of the teams who are trying not to be relegated into the Championship.
That was only last month and shows that City have flaws of their own. Late-season anxiety, however, is not usually one of them. Nor do City lack title-winning experience. And the same applies to their home crowd, whose backing is often questioned but rarely during these end-of-season exchanges.
The title race, in short, is back on. Arsenal are faltering and if this is Guardiola’s last season in English football, as many people suspect, it is not out of the question that Project Pep will get its happy ending, after all.