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Bournemouth at home. Manchester United away. Everton at home. What a tantalising remaining three fixtures — win them all and Arsenal are probably Premier League champions, for the first time in 20 years.
Probably. Maybe it’s wrong to tempt fate like this. Arsenal fans might not want to hear it. It is, after all, the hope that kills you.
The title is still in Manchester City’s hands. They have a game in hand and a clean sweep will seal a sixth title in seven seasons.
Still, it feels as though Arsenal have come through one of those weeks in which if ever a title charge was going to careen off the rails it was this one, concluding it with two wins, six points and eight goals scored against two London rivals.
They were the sorts of games that are layered in complexity, where anything is possible and unpredictability and chaos can trump form. You only have to look at Liverpool and that shock defeat to Everton that all but extinguished their title hopes as evidence.
Arsenal had looked wobbly after a draw with Bayern Munich followed by two defeats — to Aston Villa then the Bundesliga side which knocked them out of the Champions League — and then a trip to Wolverhampton Wanderers for a match people thought could cause a stumble to turn into a fall just before the finish line. It was tight, but they came through it.
Next they hosted Chelsea, who have had a poor season but could still have harnessed that pressure on Arsenal to win, could have needled the anxiety of the home crowd and utilised the occasion to their advantage. Instead, Arsenal took the lead within five minutes and were three ahead before the hour.
Then to Sunday, when it felt like anything could happen against Spurs, free scoring throughout the season but also prone to fall apart in 90 minutes. What actually happened was Arsenal were three ahead by half-time — already enough to weather the storm of a second-half comeback. There were a nervy final five minutes — plus six of stoppage time — the kind of nerves induced by the opposition goalkeeper coming up for corners intent on blowing up your title chances. But Arsenal came through, the way champions come through when it matters.
And so to the four games they can’t control and the three they can.
Can City really withstand the heat and win 12 points against Wolves, Fulham, Spurs and West Ham? Even one draw will hand the advantage to Arsenal, who have a superior goal difference.
Can City hold up at the end of a long season featuring a run to the Champions League quarter-finals, a run to the FA Cup final, a mid-season trip to Saudi Arabia to win the Club World Cup, that has come after a long season featuring a Treble?
A season that has included five more games — 450 minutes plus many more of stoppage time — than Arsenal.
For Arsenal’s fresher legs, Bournemouth, at the Emirates Stadium, should be relatively straightforward. Aston Villa recently made light work of them, and they lost to Luton Town.
Manchester United represent the final major hurdle. They have had a woeful season, but it is a fixture that will again be laced with the uncertainty of the occasion. Old Trafford will rekindle the ghosts of an old rivalry from the days when the two clubs ruled English football and Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger went to battle for the Premier League crown over many years.
Overcome those two and it is Everton at home on the final day. If it is in Arsenal’s hands by then, the trophy will surely be in their hands by the end of the afternoon.
Everton have already been steered to safety by Sean Dyche and those players, wanting to put this season behind them, will lack that nervous intensity that would have come with needing a result to avoid relegation.
The prospect is tantalising.
This is an extract of The Score. Sign up here to receive the newsletter every Monday morning this season for Daniel Storey’s verdict on all 20 Premier League clubs
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