NEVER MIND THE glory, Arsenal need to somehow come out on top in the Premier League title race to sustain the spirit of a club pushed to the brink.
Should they beat Bournemouth at home in the early kick off today the Gunners will go into the final week of the season at the top of the table.
Yet the likelihood is that they still won’t be champions.
Manchester City are at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the evening fixture and with another game in hand – away to a Tottenham Hotspur side who have rediscovered that famed Spursy Spirit – they will almost certainly win their remaining four matches to finish on 91 points.
The maximum Arsenal can reach is 89 – five more than last season and the same total as City when they claimed their third championship in a row.
Arsenal should get to that total in their three remaining games. After today it’s Manchester United away followed by Everton at home, but it still might not be enough.
How much more can they realistically do to overthrow City?
Physically, mentally, and financially, they are close to the brink.
For all of Pep Guardiola’s genius as a coach and manager, another brutal facet of his reign as poster boy for the Abu-Dhabi backed superpower is how he brings rivals to their breaking point and maintains the drive to dominate once they crumble.
Domestically, at least.
In his 14 completed seasons as a senior manager with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City, Guardiola has delivered 11 titles.
He’s on the verge of making it 12 in 15 this month – all the while those 115 charges of financial wrongdoing from the Premier League linger in the background.
Guardiola can become the first manager in English football to win four successive titles.
Alex Ferguson won three on the spin twice among his tally of 13 with Manchester United.
Fleeting, sporadic success is not something the greats indulge in.
So who could blame Mikel Arteta if he turns around and decides he doesn’t need the hassle or the stress of trying to be perfect just to win one title?
The Bayern Munich job is available and that’s normally an easy post to fill given it all but guarantees a Bundesliga crown, but even the rise of Bayer Leverkusen under his childhood friend Xabi Alonso – another Pep disciple – means that’s a task fraught with increased danger.
Will they ever lose a game again while the Spaniard is in charge?
Barcelona – where Arteta developed as a player in La Masia – were in the market for a new manager until Xavi had a change of heart and opted to remain at Camp Nou.
Real Madrid have a vibrant, thrilling squad that could well end this season as La Liga and European champions.
They have years together in front of them so it’s no wonder they seem to be having a Benjamin Button effect on 64-year-old Carlo Ancelotti.
Arteta was backed in last summer’s transfer window to the tune of €230 million in order to try and overtake City and it looks as though they will be pipped at the final hurdle.
They are on course to win more games than last season, draw and lose fewer, not to mention score more and concede fewer goals.
On every metric they have improved, and at that level finding the difference is what ultimately delivers the biggest prize.
Yet only a dramatic slip – well, a draw – from Guardiola’s men at this stage would hand Arsenal the initiative.
City could well score fewer goals and concede more than last season yet such is their productivity still come out on top.
For Arsenal, ordinarily you would not heap this level of importance and pressure on a group of players delivering a title at a point when they are still being moulded by Arteta and only became serious contenders last year.
A central defensive partnership of William Saliba and Gabriel, 23 and 26 respectively, provides a solid framework to work from in the future.
Declan Rice and captain Martin Odegaard are both 25. Bukayo Saka is just 22. Gabriel Martinelli turns 23 next month along with Kai Havertz who will be 24.
The age profile, not to mention quality, should place them on an upward trajectory.
But City’s power and seemingly effortless ability to regenerate takes a different kind of toll on even the best players’ capabilities.
Similarly, Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool fell agonisingly short on a couple of occasions with 97 and 92 points in 2018/19 and 2021/22 respectively, but did break the stranglehold with a title in the Covid-19 season of 2019/20.
Even before the disruption they were streets ahead of a City side that finally seemed to show a human frailty that Guardiola had been able to avoid since his first season in England back in 2016/17.
The consistency and resilience Arsenal have shown this season will be difficult to sustain.
There is also the added question of how long you give Arteta to scale the mountain given he is about to conclude his fourth full season.
Of the 11 managers who have won the Premier League, Ferguson was in charge for the longest time before delivering the title – seven years.
Kenny Dalglish was just shy of four when he led Blackburn Rovers to the summit in 1995.
Arsene Wenger did it in his second campaign (1997/98), Jose Mourinho won back to back titles with Chelsea in first spell from 2004 to 06 and then again in 2015. Carlo Ancelotti also delivered a title in his first season at Stamford Bridge in 2009/10, so too Antonio Conte in 2016/17.
Before Guardiola, Robert Mancini won City’s first Premier League title in his second full season (2011/12) while Manuel Pellegrini followed the lead of Mourinho and Ancelotti by proving an instant success a decade ago.
The Chilean left at the end of the season in which Claudio Ranieri led Leicester City to their historic triumph in 2016 – also a one-season wonder.
That was the summer Guardiola arrived and the landscape changed.
Klopp was already at Anfield by October 2015 and it wouldn’t be until 2020 he got over the line.
Proof, if needed, that patience can pay off.
Arsenal have arrived at a similar stage and success now should only infuse Arteta and his players with the confidence that more can follow despite Guardiola’s relenteless City machine.
