There was no sign of Win, Arsenal’s chocolate Labrador, at the City Ground on Saturday evening. Maybe he was on a choke chain somewhere. There was no sign of win, the opposite of lose, either. Not for Mikel Arteta’s team anyway. They have only recorded two of those in their last eight games. It appears they have given their dog a bad name.
This 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in front of an uproarious crowd, deliriously happy at being delivered from relegation, meant that a title race that once promised to go down to the wire ended with a whimper. Faced with the relentlessness of Manchester City, Arsenal simply could not keep up.
And so, in the end, City and their manager Pep Guardiola were handed their third title in a row, and their fifth in six years, without kicking a ball. The title was lost on the banks of the River Trent and Arsenal slunk away to lick their wounds, their retreat from greatness complete.
City’s game against Chelsea on Sunday will not be laden with nerves or any sense of jeopardy, as it might once have been. It will be a coronation. It is already being billed as the first instalment of the Treble completed.
It will be a homage to a side that is matching the domination of Manchester United in the Sir Alex Ferguson years. It will be an examination, too, of whether anyone is going to get close to City in the foreseeable future and whether that is healthy for the English game.
Taiwo Awoniyi’s goal made Manchester City the Premier League Champions this year, and kept Nottingham Forest safe
Mikel Arteta’s side were unable to get past a resilient defensive performance by Steve Cooper’s Nottingham Forest
Manchester City unveiled a banner at the Etihad which read ‘3-in-a-row’ after another Premier League title was secured
It will be accompanied by reminders that City are facing 115 Premier League charges alleging that they breached Financial Fair Play rules. City deny those charges strenuously. If they are found guilty, the legacy they are building will be tainted.
City’s game against Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon will not be laden with nerves or any sense of jeopardy, as it might once have been. It will be a coronation. It will be billed as the first instalment of the Treble completed.
With Arsenal’s defeat, City became only the fifth English club to lift three consecutive top-flight titles. Guardiola, widely recognised as the leading coach in the world, is the second manager, after Ferguson, to achieve that.
There was a time when Arsenal threatened to dethrone the champions. They had 50 points at the half way mark of the season and held an eight-point lead over City at one stage. But, in the end, they flattered to deceive. When City accelerated, Arsenal faded.
Arsenal have still had a wonderful season, a season that exceeded their expectations, a season when Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard, in particular, excelled. But it is ending with a cloying sense of anti-climax and what might have been. ‘It is a sad day,’ Arteta said after the match.
The opposite was true for Forest. This triumph means they are safe and that the remaining relegation places will be contested by Leicester City, Leeds United and Everton. That achievement is a triumph for their manager, Steve Cooper, who has done such a superb job this season and it is a triumph for their owner, Evangelos Marinakis, who stuck with Cooper when other clubs were panicked into sacking their bosses.
Marinakis went through tortures in the directors’ box here but when the final whistle went a great roar rose up from this stadium and rolled across the River Trent and far beyond to signal another season to be spent in the Premier League.
Cooper talked eloquently after the match about knowing he would have to learn to ‘suffer’ this season, about how he knew he would have to learn to cope with more defeats than he has been used to and bounce back from them. He fashioned survival from amidst the chaos of the army of new signings that arrived at the start of the season.
Ryan Yates celebrating at the full-time whistle, with safety confirmed for the valiant hosts
Awoniyi broke quickly and tempted Aaron Ramsdale out of the goal, before putting the ball over him and into the net
Resolute defending from the home side left Arsenal unable to penetrate their defensive unit on a heart-breaking afternoon
The north London side’s 19-year wait for a Premier League title will continue after letting slip a sizeable margin at the top
Forest and their fans celebrated wildly at the end. The players did a lap of honour on the pitch to celebrate survival and danced and cavorted to Freed From Desire. Their desire in this match at least, was what separated them from Arsenal. Desire was something Arteta’s side appeared to have lost.
Somewhere in the north west, perhaps on the golf course at Mottram Hall in Cheshire where Ferguson was told Oldham had drawn with Aston Villa and so United had won the title 30 years ago, Guardiola would have learned of his latest triumph.
His players posted pictures of themselves watching the Forest-Arsenal game together and whooping with joy at the final whistle.
Guardiola and his team still have more lands to conquer. If this all came too early for Arteta’s young Arsenal team, City are in their pomp. They can rest players for their remaining three league games and keep them fresh for the FA Cup Final against United at Wembley on June 3 and the Champions League Final against Internazionale in Istanbul on June 10.
Arsenal will at least be able to look forward to playing in the Champions League next season. They must capitalise on what they have achieved and strengthen from a position of strength. When the disappointment of how it all ended fades, they must realise they have an opportunity here.
The atmosphere inside the stadium was loud and expectant and in the opening stages, Arsenal seemed taken aback by the intensity of their opponents and the crowd. But ten minutes in, Arsenal rediscovered their composure.
Odegaard tricked his marker with a beautiful feint near the Forest touchline and when the ball was worked to Leandro Trossard, he slipped a pass through to Gabriel Jesus. Jesus darted on to it but Keylor Navas rushed out to smother his shot.
Midway through the half, though, Arsenal gifted Forest the opener. Odegaard, usually so meticulous, played a loose pass straight to Morgan Gibbs-White and Gibbs-White advanced on the retreating Arsenal defence.
Taiwo Awoniyi peeled away to the right, Gibbs-White chose the perfect moment to play the ball to him and when Gabriel slid in to try to clear the ball, he played it against Awoniyi and the ball rebounded off his leg and past Aaron Ramsdale into the net.
It was an evening of ecstasy for Nottingham Forest and Steve Cooper who beat the drop with the crucial victory at home
Pep Guardiola’s side celebrated a third successive Premier League crown as Gabriel Jesus and Arsenal saw their title bid crumble before their eyes
Erling Haaland’s record-breaking debut season in the English top-flight will end with a crown and a potential Treble
Arsenal dominated possession in the quest for an equaliser but had precious little to show for it in the first half. But soon after the interval, Forest were lucky to escape when the visitors thought they had won a penalty.
Jesus ghosted on to a through ball and ran across Joe Worrall, who yanked him back by the shoulder. Jesus went theatrically to ground but referee Anthony Taylor waved play on. Jesus was so incensed by the decision that his protests earned him a yellow card.
A quarter of an hour later, Forest nearly went further ahead. A mistake from Ben White, fresh from his mauling by Kaoru Mitoma in Arsenal’s defeat to Brighton last week, let Gibbs-White in on goal but when he tried to beat Ramsdale at the near post from a tight angle, he dragged his shot into the side-netting.
Arsenal did everything they could to drag themselves back into the match but they never discomforted Forest. They were spent. Their season was done. Back in London, Win was getting used to losing. Up in Manchester, City were celebrating.
