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A penny for the thoughts of Mikel Arteta, who it seems can’t do right for doing wrong. Widely derided all season for the largely risk-averse, belt-and-braces approach to football matches that has his team perched atop the Premier League, the Arsenal head coach defied expectations and went comparatively gung-ho for Sunday’s potential season-definer against Manchester City. To nobody’s great surprise, his team went and got beaten. Having shipped no end of criticism for the unwatchable style of football that had served his side so well until quite recently, Arteta must be bemused by the amount of condescending praise his team is getting for a performance in defeat that finally shifted the momentum in this year’s title race firmly in Manchester City’s favour. Pep Guardiola’s in-form freestylers are still three points behind Arsenal but if their Wednesday night rout-in-hand of Burnley at Turf Moor goes as most expect, they will leapfrog the leaders to go clear on goal difference of +1,057.
While there are still folk out there who claim it would be unfair to label a team that has led the title race for more than 200 days only to surrender a nine-point lead and end up finishing second for the fourth time in a row as massive bottle jobs, there is still a lot of football to be played and the notion that both teams are going to win all their remaining games seems fanciful. However, if Arsenal do end up pulling off their most impressive Devon Loch tribute act to date, it will be nothing short of a total humiliation, given how much self-righteous scorn their noisier fans heaped upon anyone who had the audacity to question the team’s mental fortitude before a ball was kicked this season. While it has not gone unnoticed that many of the same fans are already getting their excuses about knack, fatigue, financial chicanery and anti-Arsenal refereeing agendas in early, this title race is far from over and there’s every possibility they won’t be needed come season’s end.
