The best moment of this fun, boisterous, increasingly hallucinogenic afternoon for Arsenal’s supporters came with the game still in the balance, and with Manchester City yet to collapse like an inadequately constructed French meringue. It came, of course, from the prodigiously talented Myles Lewis‑Skelly. Although it wasn’t perhaps the obvious one.
With 62 minutes gone at the Emirates Stadium, Lewis‑Skelly took a sharp pass from Declan Rice and twirled inside with an easy kind of grace, one of those players who just seems to have that naturally intimate relationship with the ball.
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Lewis-Skelly is an interesting footballer in lots of ways. He isn’t actually a full-back, or wasn’t before he came into the first team. Then again, full-back is a mutable thing now, the whizziest, most postmodern position on the pitch, engine of tactical reinvention, new lines and angles. We’re all inverted false-flank innovators these days.
It says a lot about Lewis-Skelly’s intelligence and range of technical skills that he has been able to pick up that evolving role on the hoof. And not least to play as he did here, as a shield, cutting edge and overload in midfield against the coach who brought that innovation into the English league, as first glimpsed in the strange, loitering manoeuvres of Pablo Zabaleta, back when the world was still young, tackles were a thing and goalkeepers didn’t do stepovers.
Here Pep Guardiola cut an increasingly gloomy figure as the afternoon wore on, watching the game from deep within his thick grey woollen robes, and sat slumped on his bench looking like a sad dying Jedi by the time Ethan Nwaneri curled in an outrageous stoppage‑time goal to make it 5-1 to Arsenal.
That wasn’t the best moment, though. Neither was what Lewis‑Skelly did next, although this was a genuinely high‑end piece of skill, carrying the ball forward, switching the angle of his hips mid‑stride, then curling a shot on the run into the far corner of the City net.
The best moment was Lewis‑Skelly’s celebration. This was The Haaland, the lotus position plus deep-thought pose, Yoga‑Haaland, an outrageous piece of craphousery given the ongoing needle between his teammates and City’s superstar striker. Best of all it was a really good version of The Haaland, suggestive of someone who has actually planned and practised this, an 18-year-old full-back making a contingency for when he scores against the champions.
In reality this game always had a slight Joshua versus Fury vibe, a champion clash without any obvious belt on the line
Arsenal needed some edge. And here Lewis-Skelly was excellent all game, flooding into midfield alongside the excellent Rice and Thomas Partey. At one point he bodied Haaland out of the arc of the ball under a high cross (Lewis‑Skelly is six inches shorter, but there’s power in those bulging thighs). Here’s an interesting thing. Arsenal are yet to lose a league or Champions League game in which he has played.
By the end Arsenal’s fans were doing the Poznan (a sarcastic Poznan, which is still, sadly, a Poznan all the same). At which point, with teenagers scoring goals, revenge-banter arcs, and a total destruction of your rivals of the past two years, a sense of reality must intrude just a little.
There was always a slight air of escapism about all this, of a lost weekend playing the old tunes. If you’d told Arsenal’s fans after the 2-2 draw at the Etihad Stadium that they would win the return 5-1 to go nine points clear of City the assumption would have been, OK, someone book the giant cake with an Arsène Wenger lookalike inside. We’re into the victory lap here.
In reality this game always had a slight Joshua versus Fury vibe, a champion clash without any obvious belt on the line. And even here there was evidence of exactly why Arsenal aren’t running away with the league.
The Emirates Stadium was crisp and clear at kick-off, the sky a lovely power-blue wash above the lip of the stand. And Arsenal took the lead in the second minute through Martin Ødegaard after a low-comedy attempt to play out from the back. At which point there was a notable dropping of the revs.
For a while in that first half Ødegaard seemed to be playing a different game to his teammates, haring about with genuine urgency, like the last man standing in a zombie apocalypse movie. Arsenal didn’t have another shot for 23 minutes. They missed the odd glaring chance. Kai Havertz had some Kai Havertz moments in front of goal. This team have a ruthless manager, a ruthless setup, a ruthless on-field style. But somehow they still aren’t a ruthless team. At least, not when it comes to the final gloss.
Haaland equalised early in the second half. Thomas Partey made it 2-1. City duly collapsed. For Arsenal, the gap to Liverpool is six points. There really is nothing wrong with this team that a little more in the way of edge, an actual goal scorer couldn’t solve. Here they had an afternoon of catharsis. Shot through, perhaps, with a vague sense of regret.
