- Arsenal’s 5-1 win over Manchester City reignited their ambitions for the title
- Mikel Arteta’s side has been built almost to exactly counteract City’s strengths
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Tottenham will always be the fierce derby day rival, and Liverpool are comfortably the best team in the world. There’s history with Manchester United and local bragging rights on the cards with Chelsea, but right now beating Manchester City means more to Arsenal fans than anything else.
Pep Guardiola’s side have long been the yardstick, short of which this Arsenal team have twice fallen agonisingly short of. The manifestation of precisely what they have not achieved in the last two years.
City are not at the peak of their powers, it’s true, but the psychological boost of not just toppling the soon-to-be deposed reigning champions, but absolutely battering them, is just what Arsenal need to somehow reign in runaway heirs apparent Liverpool.
Defeating City may not mathematically get them back on top of Liverpool, but make no mistake, it is the reminder they need that the season is not yet over.
Yet there’s more to it than that. Perhaps to his side’s detriment, there is an argument that taking down his former employers is precisely what Mikel Arteta built this side for.
There are echoes of the Man City side that tussled time and again with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in their set up, but with the deliberate stubbornness and physicality to counter the flamboyant artistry of Guardiola’s side in their pomp.
Then there is the more recent history. The utterly devastating late equaliser conceded to John Stones at the Etihad earlier this season took more than two points from Arsenal; it took genuine credible evidence that they can indeed go to the best in the land and go toe-to-toe, and come out on top.
It’s perhaps why Erling Haaland’s gorgeously cutting ‘Stay humble, eh?’ struck like sticks and stones back in September; there is still that sliver of doubt within this Arsenal side, a sliver that has grown with both recent surrenders of the Premier League crown. And that chip on each fan’s shoulder has grown all the heavier for it. Until Sunday.
The argument could be made that this intense focus has benefited Arsenal’s other rivals, but for Arsenal, beating Manchester City means more than three points.
You only had to watch the first 10 minutes of Sunday’s most recent instalment of what is becoming one of the league’s great grudge matches.
Less than two minutes in, Gabriel’s maniacal grin was thrust into Haaland’s face, the opportunity to rub salt in the wound latched upon with aplomb after the hosts’ lightning quick opener.
Sure, there is the prerequisite dash of one-upmanship that we want in individual battles on the grandest of stages, but it highlights just how much this one means to Arsenal down to an individual level.
There were certain passages of play in that second half that even reminded the eye of how City have asserted themselves as the best in the world in the last five years.
The defensive stance momentarily set aside, Arsenal showed a fluidity and dynamism to underline that they are more than just the set-piece specialists they are tauntingly labelled by their rivals. At times, they were beautifully, devastatingly enthralling to watch.
You saw the weight lifted off the Gunners in the second half, once they knew the three points were in the bag.
The realisation, the validation in fact, that they got from putting City to the sword seeped into the side and they played in the way that all fans know they can. Representation if it were needed of what boost this result gives Arsenal on a mental level.
Deprived of confidence, Kai Havertz cast that lack of faith aside. The two teenagers, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly – perhaps crucially both unscarred by the last two season – both contemptuously got themselves on the scoresheet.
Nwaneri’s strike in particular felt like a statement. Shrugging onto his left foot and sending one curling beyond Stefan Ortega – nobody does that to Man City, but perhaps Arsenal will from now on.
And a moment for Lewis-Skelly, the teenager reprieved in midweek, coming up against one of the most glittering arsenals in the game.
He didn’t just stand up to the challenge, but scored a staggering first Premier League goal, before hitting Haaland’s very own iconic celebration.
Simply, this ever-so impressive 18-year-old knows implicitly what it means to his club, on just his 10th league appearance.
It has been a frustrating season for Arsenal. Among many fans the fact that they have faltered in the one season that Sunday’s rivals have also fallen short is a harshly-felt irony, but there is no escaping the feeling of what could have been.
That sentiment has not been burned away with the incineration of Manchester City on Sunday, but those very flames will at least have reignited the hope and realisation that there are 14 games left in the season, and crucially, 15 for Liverpool.
Twice in a row now Arsenal have been reeled in at the last, the prey succumbing to the chasers, crumbling with history at their fingertips.
Arteta has built his side to replicate and counteract in equal measure the strengths of City. Could the art of hunting down the leaders prove to be be one of the greatest lessons he takes on board? There would be a wonderful irony to it.
The modern-day Bard, Peter Drury, said that Arsenal were ‘flying away’ from the champions after Havertz’s fourth. No doubt Sunday’s result will have reminded Arne Slot just where Arsenal’s intended destination is.
