Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta will surely eventually get Premier League glory for Gunners: ‘This is the level’

LONDON — They came with conviction and despite everything that the last day could have tested them, they left with greater certainty than they arrived. That, as Mikel Arteta explained, is the secret sauce around these parts.

“All this is happening because you started to believe,” he told the Emirates Stadium, as the painful afterglow of title dreams had faded. That belief is a fragile asset, especially in the face of an opponent of the power of Manchester City. The 90 minutes spent by Arsenal supporters would be enough to test anyone’s belief: the agonizing wait for their own winner, the false dawn of the second West Ham goal that never came.

And yet this is a club of fanatics. A fan base too. At halftime the title was further out of reach than at the start of the day, but still they danced along in honor of Kai Havertz, still donned their Tomas Soucek shirts and urged their team to take no win . 28 of the season, goal No. 91. These are numbers to convince you that this belief is not blind.

The number of true believers seems to be growing in number. Come Sunday morning you could barely move more than a meter anywhere in the capital (well, maybe not N17) without seeing a red shirt. Hundreds must have flocked to the pubs and restaurants along Holloway Road, knowing they wouldn’t get a ticket. They just wanted to be there when the moment came.

Even though they knew they shouldn’t, even though many said otherwise, they had come to the capital more out of faith than hope. You noticed this immediately the moment news first filtered through of Phil Foden’s immediate opening at the Etihad. It wasn’t long before the thunder at the Etihad brought clouds to North London. A collective gulp that you could almost hear. A creeping silence that infected those in red.

However, there was a more pressing problem that needed to be addressed. Jordan Pickford was a few weeks early into international tournament mode, with England No. 1 denying Gabriel Martinelli with a solid glove moments after his instinctive elbow had parried a deflection from Seamus Coleman. James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite both made crucial tackles as openings opened up for Arsenal.

Everton’s attacking sides made Arsenal do so well that Sean Dyche’s teams did so well. Fitness permitting, Dominic Calvert-Lewin could prove a handful even for Gabriel and William Saliba, smashing the post in one half and drawing a smart save from David Raya in the second. It may not have helped Arsenal’s centre-backs that their shield in midfield appears to have lost whatever little burst he had. Ben White should have done more to cushion Everton’s burst higher up the pitch, but Thomas Partey could only get close enough to Dwight McNeil to foul him.

When Idrissa Gana Gueye’s free kick deflected onto the head of Declan Rice, the hero of so many hours on the way to the last, the Emirates were overwhelmed with the feeling that this would be the cruellest end. Then, in an instant, hope returned. Takehiro Tomiyasu’s equalizer mixed with news of Mohamed Kudus dragging West Ham back into the match at the Etihad. Perhaps the news came in too spread out. Whatever the explanation, there was a moment when some in the crowd honestly believed the Irons still had one.

It would not be the last false dawn of the afternoon. For 44 minutes, Arsenal toiled in front of an Everton defense that blocked more shots than Victor Wembanyama. Then came the shouts from the crowd: “It’s 3-2.” Arsenal couldn’t just call it a day knowing that a win at City was inevitable. Skeptics will rightly complain about the VAR experience for matchday fans, but the brief delay while Michael Oliver controlled Gabriel Jesus’ handball gave the Emirates time to hear of an intervention at Stockley Park further north. Tomas Soucek, the boyhood Gooner who grew up idolizing Tomas Rosicky, might have gotten a little carried away with his wrist-first finish.

Arsenal never quite got close enough on Sunday to the club whose fourth straight title may be built on 115 allegations of breaching Premier League rules, allegations that City dispute. The enormity of what they had witnessed seemed to hit their players like an anvil at the final whistle. Kai Havertz was in tears. Oleksandr Zinchenko lay on the ground. Gabriel Jesus crouched over him, trying to comfort one of the many team-mates left utterly bereft even in the aftermath of yet another Arsenal victory. These two former champions have learned the cruel way over the past two years what it was like for those who followed in their wake. For a while it seemed that doing so much – reaching the 89-point mark that City set for them last season, scoring more, conceding less, becoming champions until 2024 – would be to no avail, could break players and perhaps even supporters.

Then you discovered how Arteta ‘shook the tree’ with this club in the first place, how he pulled out of a seemingly terminal spiral in the winter of 2020 and turned Arsenal into a more formidable force, twelve months after the so-called ‘bottling’. the title.

“All this is happening because you started to believe,” he told the Emirati congregation. “You started to be patient, you started to understand what we were trying to do and all the credit goes to these great players and the incredible staff.

“I think now is the time to take a break, think, reflect and please, keep pushing and keep inspiring this team. Don’t be satisfied, because we want much more than that, and we will get it.”

You had no choice but to buy what he was selling. After all, Pep Guardiola’s assistant knows the standards that kept Manchester City at the top for the fourth year in a row, a seventh in eight years, better than most. When he talks about “every performance index being at the highest level we have ever seen”, he may be providing a useful reminder that Arsenal became the first team since the first year of the Guardiola project to expect a better goal difference then City achieved.

“I was there when we reached 100 points,” said Arteta. “I know what it takes. This is the level. No one has to explain it to me, I have been there for four years, every day. I know what we have to do if we want to achieve that.”

Despite all that knowledge of what City can be, Arteta is convinced Arsenal can do better. “We will win. When? I don’t know, but if we keep knocking and being this close, it will happen eventually.”

If days like today can’t shake that belief, nothing will.