You don’t have to cast your mind back far to recall the sort of beatings we used to take at the hands of Manchester City.
In fact, in the oil money era, we became a bit of a whipping boy for City, regularly coming away from the Etihad on the end of ignominious defeats as we tried – and failed – to match them. It was a fixture I think most Arsenal fans came to dread.
No more.
Under Mikel Arteta the improvement in this fixture has been gradual but unmistakable. Now, we can compete, now we can conquer. And no fixture in our recent history has better summed this up than Sunday at the Emirates as we as last delivered on years of promise and progress.
No just that, we delivered the sort of humiliation City once handed out to us with ease. Putting five goals past the champions was glorious and cathartic, a monkey off our backs. Best of all, it was fully deserved.
Though the two sides tussled and traded blows in the first half, it was the Gunners who found another gear after the break, powering past a battered and demoralised City. This was a side that, even last year, could recover a two-goal deficit in relative comfort. This season, they can scarcely stay in a game.
Of course, this apparent collapse in their form and fortunes would have been of much greater use to us two years ago when they were our only challenger in the Premier League title race but there’s little we can do about that particular piece of bad luck.
Instead, we can focus on this victory as a launching pad for the rest of the campaign. There are lots of tough games to come and a mountainous deficit to overcome if we’re to stand any chance of pushing Liverpool into March and April. Unlikely though that remains, we can only hope we’re able to draw enough momentum and inspiration from this win to make that possible.
As to the game itself, there were heroes all over the pitch for Arsenal. For me, the selfless work of Leandro Trossard stood out as he probed and prodded at City on the wing. He’s not especially noted for that sort of busy, aggressive work but he did his duty manfully all afternoon and it was his persistence that kept the pressure on a struggling City defence, a defence shorn of the sort of technical security which has been the bedrock of its brilliance for so long.
Kudos must also go to David Raya. It would be wrong to say he was untroubled by City, who remained a potent attacking force even if their defensive abilities have faded. On three or four occasions he was called upon to keep the Gunners in control and he did that superbly. A performance to remember for the Spaniard.
And there were stand-out performances also for Thomas Partey and Declan Rice, who were simply masterful in the middle, outplaying a lightweight City midfield that was unable to cope with the sheer physicality of the hosts. Nowhere on the pitch did the reversal in fortunes of the two sides feel better summed up.
And a final word on the subject for Miles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri, two young men who haven’t yet seen their 19th birthdays. Despite their tender years and staggering lack of experience, both have stepped into this Arsenal side like Premier League veterans. A goal for each of our young stars was the jewel in the crown of a properly regal performance.
While, ultimately, this result probably won’t turn the tide of the title race this season, it has set down a marker. Call it a watershed moment, if you will. For years we’ve struggled to truly best City, who have looked down on us with the sort of arrogance you’d expect from serial champions assessing a pretender to their throne. No more.
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