A scene on Hornsey Road in north London, a year or so back, said a lot about what Mikel Arteta has restored to Arsenal.
He had made a slightly early departure from the Emirates after the 2-0 win over Leicester City and when the lights turned to red, his Audi was briefly besieged by autograph-hunters and supporters of all ages, essentially wanting to tell him: ‘Thank you. You’ve brought us joy.’
The smile on his face reflected the mood of an afternoon in which his young, substantially English side had displayed something frequently overlooked in football. Contentment.
‘They are having a good time together,’ Arteta had said before leaving the ground that day. ‘If that is not the case, we as coaches should go somewhere else as we are doing something wrong.’
Those words encapsulate the joie de vivre we have seen in his young team and their wonderful football this season, though that seems to have been forgotten in the days since Arsenal’s draw at West Ham, which has fuelled gleeful talk of the team ‘bottling it’.
Arsenal dropped points in the title race on Sunday after throwing away a 2-0 lead at West Ham
Bukayo Saka (No 7) missed a penalty for the Gunners in their 2-2 draw at the London Stadium
Mikel Arteta though has performed miracles to get Arsenal competing at the top of the table
No one expects those of a Tottenham Hotspur disposition to show anything less than delight at the sight of Arsenal sacrificing 2-0 leads at Liverpool and West Ham.
But where, in the delight some are taking in this, is the acknowledgement of how Arsenal have brought a beautiful unpredictability to what would otherwise have been a season of one-dimensional Manchester City domination?
Sentiment is harder than ever to find in football these days, when social media feeds off negativity and ridicule and there is a sea of GIFs with which to mock and sneer.
There was a particularly vicious strand of that on Sunday night. And the social media bashing continued on Tuesday with some manufactured fury over players ignoring Sunday’s mascot.
But Arsenal’s season has been one of the great Premier League achievements of recent years — whatever the outcome.
They have been sending out the second youngest average starting XI in the division — behind bottom club Southampton — and giving young British players the stage. They have brought us Bukayo Saka, playing with such joy. He has become one of British football’s jewels.
Erling Haaland will surely win the Player of the Year prize next month but for me it’s Saka — a player whose development in plain sight these past few years has been a delight to behold. He has known more taunts than many.
The ‘you let your country down’ which rings around some stadiums is brutal. More evidence of the times we are in. But he has prevailed, despite everything.
Despite his missed spot-kick, Saka’s development at the Gunners has been a delight to behold
Saka is set to be one of Arsenal’s biggest stars for years to come and has been key this season
Just 18 months ago, Saka was playing in an Arsenal squad which was valued at £616milion, earned an average of £104,000 a week, and yet had managed just 35 goals in 27 matches.
Arteta needed bold management to deliver the club from that madness. It has been an extraordinary rescue, though observers seem far keener to discuss his touchline behaviour than the creation of a hugely successful team. He has actually toned down that behaviour this season.
Mail Sport’s Ian Herbert says Arsenal’s season is one of the great top-flight achievements of recent years
Arteta has not been able to reach for the most coveted players on the transfer market as Pep Guardiola has done, when bringing Haaland, Jack Grealish, Riyad Mahrez and others to the Etihad. City have Julian Alvarez, one of the stars of the World Cup sitting on the bench if they need extra firepower. Arsenal have Eddie Nketiah who, with the greatest respect, is not in the same class.
City have a galaxy of world-class defenders, while Arsenal have one. City bought Kalvin Phillips, who has not even been needed. Arsenal bought Jorginho, a player past his best. It’s a miracle this team are anywhere near the top of the table, given how thin their squad is.
Arsenal fans will want no one declaring that second place would be an extraordinary accomplishment for them because they are top of the league and intend to stay there.
But in the Sky Sports debate after the West Ham game on Sunday, you gave thanks for the wisdom and sanity of Gary Neville, pointing out what an immense achievement this season has been for the club, while Roy Keane was offering the bleak assessment that not to win the title from here would be ‘a disaster’.
You won’t get sentiment from Keane, for whom football is black and white, but consider this about Arsenal’s points total of 74. In the 27 years since the Premier League became a 20-team division, only two sides — Manchester United in 2011-12 and Liverpool in 2018-19 — did not go on to win the title with that tally or more after 31 games. (City collected the title on both occasions). There has been a lack of composure at moments in the past few weeks — but what an accomplishment.
Without Arsenal we would have seen Manchester City stroll to yet another Premier League title
Arsenal can visit Manchester City later in April with the title destination still in their hands
It is in their own hands from here. Win Friday night’s home match against Southampton and they will go to the Etihad next Wednesday in the knowledge that a draw would keep them in the driving seat.
The game at Newcastle on May 7 could be more pivotal. But there’s also Chelsea. And Brighton. And a Nottingham Forest who will be fighting for their lives on May 20. Arsenal have a steeper mountain to climb than City between now and May 28 and they will ascend it in the knowledge that the Etihad machine is fully fired.
Strange to say for a team at the top but Arsenal are still the underdogs here; the ones looking to deconstruct the predictable one-dimensional narrative about power and money in football. What an extraordinary story it would be if they can bring it home. And what an extraordinary achievement even if they don’t.
The Ashes is unrivalled for influence
In a reception room at Stockport County’s ground on Friday night, a local cricket club celebrated its centenary.
The event befitted this landmark, with Matthew Hoggard, the guest speaker, talking with modesty and self-effacement about his life in the sport and how clubs like Stockport Trinity are the game’s lifeblood. Hoggard started out at Pudsey Congs, in the Bradford League.
Matthew Hoggard (left) was one of England’s stars of a thrilling Ashes series back in 2005
But it was something the club’s chairman, Richard Higginbotham, said which struck a chord.
Amid Trinity’s ebbs and flows, it was the Ashes summer of 2005 which brought in a generation of young players, inspired by England’s heroics.
Many have emailed about my observation last week, criticising this summer’s Ashes being crow-barred into 41 days to make way for the Hundred. Diminish the Ashes at your peril.
Dutch duo made a big impression
Frans Thijssen will be among the guests at the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year awards next month, as the first overseas outfield player to have won the prize.
Ipswich manager Bobby Robson bought Thijssen and Arnold Muhren with the proceeds of Brian Talbot’s sale to Arsenal and still had £100,000 left to ‘put into the bank’, as he once put it.
Arnold Muhren (left) and Frans Thijssen are pictured in the Ipswich dressing room in 1981
The Dutch pair, Robson later reflected, were ‘marvellous architects of the way we played. They brought a different dimension, a different way of playing’.
Asked to select his all-time top XI of foreigners to have played in the Football League or Premier League, for the excellent book England, Their England, written by my colleague Nick Harris 20 years ago, Robson selected Thijssen ahead of Muhren.
But Muhren made it into the all-time team, selected by a panel of 20, and Thijssen didn’t.
There’s more about their influence in the book Game Changers, by Tom van Hulsen. Wonderful players from a different age.
sports lottery
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Sports Event Casino Handicap Description
| PK | 0 | It means not giving in to each other, and winning 1 point wins all. |
| 0-50 | 0/0.5 | Indicates that when the handicap team is tied with the transferee team, the team betting on the handicap loses 50%. |
| 0 loss | 0.5 | Indicates that when the handicap team is tied with the transferee team, the team betting on the handicap loses. |
| 1+50 | 0.5/1 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 1 point, the team betting on the handicap wins 50% and wins all 2 points. |
| 1 level | 1 | Indicates that when the handicap team wins the handicap team by 1 point, the two teams will tie and win by 2 points. |
| 1-50 | 1/1.5 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 1 point, the team betting on the handicap loses 50% and wins all 2 points. |
| 1 loss | 1.5 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 1 point, the team betting on the handicap loses all and wins by 2 points. |
| 2+50 | 1.5/2 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 2 points, the team betting on the handicap wins 50% and wins all 3 points. |
| 2 flat | 2 | Indicates that when the handicap team wins the handicap team by 2 points, the two teams will tie and win all 3 points. |
| 2 losses | 2/2.5 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 2 points, the team betting on the handicap loses 50% and wins all 3 points. |
| 3+50 | 2.5 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 2 points, the team betting on the handicap loses all and wins all 3 points. |
| 3 losses | 2.5/3 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 3 points, the team betting on the handicap wins 50%, and all 4 points win. |
| 3 levels | 3 | Indicates that when the handicap team wins the handicap team by 3 points, the two teams will tie and win all 4 points. |
| 3-50 | 3/3.5 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 3 points, the team betting on the handicap loses 50% and wins all 4 points. |
| 3 losses | 3.5 | When the handicap team wins the handicap team by 3 points, the team betting on the handicap loses all and wins all 4 points. |
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