On the weekend of the London Marathon, Arsenal’s title crawl continued, with all the fluency of a fridge-carrying charity runner. The closing laps of this race really are going to be a slog.
What would have been a procession had they taken just four more points from draws against Nottingham Forest, Brentford and Wolves, or the defeat by Bournemouth this month, now feels like a stagger for the line.
The good news for Mikel Arteta is that there are only four league games to play, not 14. It is a small enough number to negotiate through grit, grimace… and hydration sachets. For right now, his players are parched.
On full-time against Newcastle, a 1-0 win that needed a ninth-minute beauty from Eberechi Eze and 81 minutes of unsightly toil, those in red collapsed to the turf in equal relief and exhaustion. Some lay on their backs, others on their knees, including substitute Gabriel Martinelli, who had been on the pitch for just 40 minutes. That is not a criticism, but it is a telling vignette for how draining this has become.
Throw in a Champions League semi-final trip to Atletico Madrid this week – the ultimate test of mind and body against a Diego Simeone side who could give Lightning the running robot a race – and the odds of breaking the tape domestically lengthen further. Yes, they are league leaders once more, but they do not look like champions in waiting.
Sunday’s newsstands projected triumphant headlines on account of the table – ‘Eze Top’ chief among them – yet to be inside the Emirates Stadium on Saturday night did not feel so celebratory.
Arsenal needed a beauty from Eberechi Eze to beat Newcastle on Saturday evening
Martin Odegaard (pictured) and his team-mates looked drained after full-time at the Emirates
This, you suspect, is a crowd waiting for Arsenal to lose the title, not win it, a fatalism born of three straight second-placed finishes. A misplaced Martin Zubimendi pass in the second half carried a consequence beyond its mere inaccuracy, drawing a collective growl bordering on savage.
There was encouragement and noise when their team needed it – boy did they need it here – and on the whole those in the stands played their part. You always sense, however, that this fanbase is carrying the weight of expectation and anticipation just as much as their players. To lighten the load they sigh and gripe, especially when Zubimendi goes astray.
The Spaniard, though, was not the biggest concern in midfield. Declan Rice, alongside him, played tired. There was not the influence a title-chasing side needs from its best player in the centre of park. The game took place around him, not through him.
Thomas Tuchel was in attendance and he should be worried, especially given Rice has at least six more of these endurance trials to go before he reports for World Cup duty. By then, he could be reduced still further by the emotional and physical trauma of the coming weeks, irrespective of Arsenal’s fate. Eze was also forced off with a knock but should be OK for Madrid.
Noni Madeuke, another England international, played more confused than tired, unsure as to how his pace could get the better of Dan Burn, a 33-year-old centre back deputising at left back.
The winger looked as low on confidence as some of his team-mates did energy. Come the end, Newcastle had bettered Arsenal for shots, possession and XG, and this was their fifth defeat on the spin.
But for all of these issues Arteta must confront, the one that will unsettle him most is what happens at the top end of the pitch during this closing month. Kai Havertz is injured, again. Without the German, it’s back to Plan B, who they thought was Plan A, Viktor Gyokeres.
As one Premier League chief remarked to me last week, the Gyokeres we have seen at Arsenal is the same slightly clunky forward who top-flight clubs allowed to leave for Sporting Lisbon three years ago when he was under their noses at Coventry City.
The stat-padding of 97 goals from 102 games in Portugal meant that he returned as Arsenal’s £55million marquee signing last summer, but his battlefield promotion back into Arteta’s XI was never part of the manager’s masterplan for silver.
Noni Madueke played more confused than tired on Arsenal’s right-hand side
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With 12 Premier League goals, three of them penalties, the Swede was supposed to see out the season as supporting cast, not leading man. The loss of Havertz will be felt.
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But Arteta, to his credit, did not ask for sympathy or offer excuse on Saturday evening. He met questions as to his side’s labour with humour and a creativity absent on the pitch. He will know that this is no time to exhibit the same apprehension. He might not believe it, but he has to conduct himself with absolute conviction.
Because just like he said that any football man would know Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope should have been sent off for a foul on Gyokeres, any football man would also have left the Emirates believing they had seen this season’s runners-up, despite the victory.
And should Arsenal finish second, it would not be the failure some will have you believe. This is a 20-runner race, not two. They are getting closer, so close we are perhaps forgetting they could be six points clear by the time Manchester City next play.
This season is not done, as Rice said last week, but there is an inescapable sense that fridge-carrying Arsenal have run cold just as the race begins to burn.
