Gunners’ numbers are off the charts – and they still may fall short

The contrast said almost as much as the numbers on the table. In the final minutes of Arsenal’s win at Manchester United, Mikel Arteta was “nervous”.

How couldn’t he be? This was the title. This was the last chance. It was not a pretty victory, as the manager also admitted, but that’s almost predictable at this point. You don’t go as deep into a title race like this without enduring wins that are just about getting through it. That meant the feeling in the dressing room afterwards was one of relief, and release.

“They’re all buzzing in there,” Arteta said. “We really wanted to live the moment.” It marks a contrast with virtually every Arsenal season in this generation.

This squad go to the last day of the season with the title still alive.

They haven’t been so close since 2004 when they, of course, won it, but even that wasn’t this. That’s because Arsene Wenger’s invincibles were so good they inevitably had it wrapped up early.

This is something else, that Arsenal haven’t felt since 1998-’99. Arteta’s squad have surpassed that team 25 years ago and not just because they have already won eight more points with a game to go. That Arsenal lost their penultimate game of the league, away to Leeds United, to decisively cede the advantage to Manchester United.

This Arsenal beat United in their second-last fixture, to put pressure back on Manchester City for tonight at Tottenham Hotspur. It is still the Gunners needing a favour as they go up against a treble team, sure, but from a totally different vantage point.

It also makes the next few days a different experience for almost everyone at the club. There are few left who will remember that week in 1998-’99 – or indeed 1988-’89 – but they will doubtless be consulted. The old stories are perfect to alleviate the pressure. That is one thing that Arteta has been conscious of throughout this challenge. As suffocating as a week like this can feel, the Spaniard wants his players to enjoy it, to feel it.

“That’s part of our journey, to have a big chance of winning the Premier League,” he explained. “We wanted to experience that. We’re going to have a normal preparation week to try to be in the best space to compete and beat Everton and then live the occasion as well.”

There is of course another element. One that the Arsenal manager is unlikely to ever address given that he was Manchester City’s assistant manager before this.

That is the sense that Arsenal are up against the near-impossible. It is now likely that Arteta’s side will get to 89 points and that still won’t be enough to win the title. There was a hint of defiance about that subject in the manager’s comments after the United victory.

He spoke of how they had “no margin for error since January–we have to keep winning and winning and winning in any context”. That’s pretty much what they have managed, bar one defeat to Aston Villa. In the 17 games since the turn of the year, Arsenal have won 15 and drawn one, a draw at the Etihad that so few have managed. They have had to be close to perfect and pretty much have been. That run has contributed to 27 league wins this season, which is a club record. Arteta was keen to bring that up, too.

“It’s the most in the history of this club in 130 years,” the manager said. “That’s not progress, that’s history.” This was a line that stood out in the manager’s post-game press conference. .

There’s also a deeper truth. Arteta is right that it’s history, but not in the way people think. Put bluntly, and as Liverpool repeatedly found, it is absurd that a team can get that many wins and that many points and not win the title.

It has been a growing issue, stemming from the Premier League’s financial disparity, for over two decades but City have taken it to extremes. Even if Pep Guardiola’s side won’t get to the 100, 98 or 93-point marks of previous title victories, the challenge of just keeping up with them in any context is immense.

Teams really have to push themselves and it is exceptionally difficult to sustain, as Jurgen Klopp has found. The German’s departure also touches on how this is a point worth stressing: to just keep up with City until the final day is a massive achievement. That is essentially what Arteta was getting at.

Others will point to that defeat against Villa or the expenditure as reasons they should have won this title but they’re wrong. One defeat in the last 17 games shouldn’t knock a team out of contention.

It has already been remarked that, for all the pace of this run-in, it hasn’t so far felt entertaining. That is because of the knowledge that City are highly unlikely to slip up. But they still need to go and win their final two games. Tonight’s game will be strange given the emotional context. It all plays into how distinctive this week will be. Arsenal need to just feel it and not really think about any of that.

They shouldn’t even really think about City. They’ve done their part and it is an achievement on its own terms. That is a significant contrast with the two decades that have gone before. You only have to look at the numbers on the table. (© The Independent)