There is an old film, released just before the Second World War, called The Four Feathers. It is a story about cowardice and redemption.
It follows a soldier who is given the four feathers by his friends because of his refusal to serve and who returns each one of them through acts of daring and courage.
The Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, came to this title showdown with the equivalent of the four feathers, desperate to hand them back, desperate to ram the taunts of all those who had accused him and his team of being bottlers and chokers back down their throats by beating their title rivals.
This game was about the might of Manchester City and the psychological power they hold over Arsenal. It was about the psychological power that Pep Guardiola holds over his old apprentice, Arteta, as well.
It was about Arsenal’s attempts to break free of those bonds. It was, most of all, about Arsenal’s attempts to break free of the identity that has been foisted upon them.
They could not do it. They came desperately close. They fought back from behind once. They hit the post twice. Kai Havertz missed a glorious late, late chance to score an equaliser that would have given them the point they needed to retain the advantage in the title race. Misses like that cost teams titles.
That was why Arteta fell to his knees in his technical area when Havertz directed his header over the bar. That was why he turned away in despair when Havertz missed an earlier chance he should have scored. He knew how expensive that kind of mercy is against a team as accomplished as City.
And City were just too good. They were just too good, just too resilient, just too brilliant, just too experienced. They know how to win titles and Erling Haaland, who grabbed the second half winner, knows how to take chances. After this tumultuous, magnificent 2-1 victory, they will be favourites to win a fifth Premier League crown in six years.
They have almost reeled Arsenal in now. What was once a nine-point lead is now only three and if City beat Burnley on Wednesday night at Turf Moor, they will go top of the table and even if they have a more difficult run-in than Arsenal, once they get in front, they will be hard to stop.
And so, when the final whistle went, some of the Arsenal players fell to their knees and the City players looked to the skies in thanks. And at one end of the ground, the City fans unfurled a banner. It said simply: ‘Panic on the Streets of London.’
The first sign of Arsenal nerves came inside four minutes. Four city forwards stood in a predators’ line as Gabriel stood over a goal-kick. Arsenal wanted to play the ball out. City wanted to lay down an early marker that they could not.
Gabriel tapped the ball to David Raya and, as the City fans bayed, Raya took a heavy first touch. Erling Haaland was on it in a flash but Raya just had time to hack it into touch. The City fans smelled blood.
A minute later, City nearly took the lead. Rayan Cherki’s bouncing shot was heading for the far corner of the goal until Gabriel leaned towards it, his left arm held by his side, and deflected it with his upper arm on to the post. The ball bounced back into the grateful arms of Gianluigi Donnarumma. Referee Anthony Taylor rejected claims for a penalty.
Erling Haaland kept his composure to score the winner in what could prove the season’s defining moment
A City ball into the box was only half-cleared. Matheus Nunes beat Eberechi to the ball and it fell to Cherki. Cherki ran at Gabriel and jinked past him on to his left foot, turned away from Declan Rice and slid a precise shot past William Saliba and Raya into the far corner. It was a sumptuous goal. It was a goal worthy of deciding a title.
Cherki celebrated long and hard in front of the Arsenal fans at that end of the Etihad. All seemed lost for the visitors already. To concede so early to such a brilliant goal was the stuff of their nightmares. But 107 seconds later, Arsenal were level.
Nunes took a throw-in back to Donnarumma. Donnarumma controlled it deliberately and carefully with his left foot. He took too long and as he tried to hit it upfield, Havertz bore down on him, and deflected the clearance into the roof of the net.
City were stunned. But the game barely broke its stride. City launched a counter-attack, Haaland strode forward into open spaces in the Arsenal half and played the ball through to Antoine Semenyo, sprinting through on the overlap. Then Semenyo slipped. The game, finally, took a breath.
City fans unveiled a banner at the final whistle suggesting they have the edge over Arsenal
Arsenal acquitted themselves well for the rest of the half. They were indebted to a fine block by Piero Hincapie to deny Antoine Semenyo but they asked City questions at the back, too. They deserved to go in at half-time level.
City looked as if they were stepping up a gear at the start of the second half. Two minutes in, Haaland hit the outside of the post after a goalmouth melee and Semenyo miscontrolled a ball when he was clean through.
Arsenal thought they had forced a turning point in the game when Havertz was put through and fell under Abdukodir Khusanov’s challenge. Arsenal wanted a red card but the referee and VAR saw nothing wrong with the City defender’s intervention.
But Arsenal should have taken the lead a few minutes later. Odegaard broke forward and slid the ball into the path of Havertz. Havertz only had Donnarumma to beat but he allowed the ball to run slightly wide and when he did shoot, the City keeper blocked the ball with his body. Second half substitute Gabriel Martinelli tried to ram home the rebound but Donnarumma saved that, too.
Arsenal went close again minutes later. Eze made space on the edge of the box and sidestepped Khusanov. He caressed the ball with the inside of his left foot and curled it towards goal. It seemed to be heading for the bottom corner but it bounced off the inside of the post and away to safety.
City sucked it up and, midway through the half, they hit back. Nico O’Reilly rampaged down the left, exchanged passes and then crossed into the box. Rodri’s run distracted two Arsenal defenders and the ball ran on to Haaland. It was slightly behind him but he adjusted his body and, as he fell, he hooked the ball into the net.
Haaland did not go down when Gabriel butted him and the Arsenal man escaped a red card
Arsenal did not wilt. Odegaard floated a free kick to the back post where Gabriel ghosted in unmarked. His header bounced off the hip of O’Reilly and hit Donnarumma’s left hand post before it was hacked to safety.
Eight minutes from time, there was a flashpoint. Gabriel and Haaland had been engaged in a fierce, unflinching battle all match. Gabriel had tussled with him so robustly he had torn his shirt to ribbons at one point.
Now they came together again. They fell into each other. They pushed each other and then they went forehead to forehead. Suddenly, Gabriel made a butting motion. Haaland, to his credit, made nothing of it. If he had gone down, Gabriel would have got a red card. As it was, both men were shown a yellow.
Arsenal got away with that but they could not force the equaliser. Substitute Leandro Trossard played a beautiful late cross in for Havertz but he could not quite keep it down and in that moment, Arsenal knew the game was lost.
Arteta will have to keep those feathers in his pocket for a little while longer.
