This is the first point in the season when Arsenal have been odds on for the title and Spurs odds on for relegation. It may be the first time in many decades. Enjoy the moment.

Utd and Spurs being unhappy is something to enjoy.

Leeds with a masterclass in how not to counterattack

Oh look, the dudes who make fun of Mikel Arteta are losing at home to Leeds and being olé-d in the midst of their 40-game dead season.

Ah, the little insane centre back is at it again.

Mourinho currently has Benfica on course for an unbeaten season, yet is in 3rd place.

We’ve won 2 of our last 9 PL games refereed by Anthony Taylor, but lost none.

Rice and Zubimendi have played more minutes this season than every single Man City player. Zubi has 400 minutes more than Donnarumma.

It’s a fair criticism that we lack technical attacking players, but that didn’t really seem like the problem against Bournemouth. Our players weren’t generally trying and failing to make things happen. They looked more scared to play forward. That’s a confidence thing.

Being an Arsenal optimist vs being a Bayesian

Yikes. 7-2 in City’s favour from The Athletic’s predictors. Still, they didn’t predict us to be top at this point in the first place.

The Etihad game in both seasons is gameweek 33. Then, we’d just drawn at home to Southampton. Horribly similar. I guess it’s at least a chance to change history…

The parallels with 22/23 right now are crazy. Nervy home games against south coast teams, loss of forwards, right back with terribly timed persistent injury problems, City finally playing well for the first time in the season after a tactical shift, and we head into the Etihad game threadbare.

It should be noted that Rory, in possibly the form of his life, having already won the Masters, still absolutely messed up his tee shot on the 18th, but managed to compose himself and make the par he needed. High level sport is massively psychological. We can still do it.

It’s funny how with all the variance and randomness, it ultimately comes down to Arsenal lacking enough good attackers. A must-win home game and we had two opportunistically-signed Chelsea castoffs, a £6m guy from the Brazilian 4th division and a striker who cost the same as Man City’s right back.

That’s how you do it.

I'll say one thing vaguely optimistic. After the last match week, all the 'neutral' folk online were declaring it Arsenal's title. One set of fixtures later, it's in Man City's hands. Next week it will either be theirs or it will be ours again. There will be contingency and variance. 6 more to go.

Well, something good has happened today (aside from Spurs)

I fear we may have overindexed the ‘Eze in Spring’ thing and underindexed the ‘City in Spring’ thing.

City’s title odds have gone from 8/1 to 6/5 in the space of one matchweek.

Thank goodness for that. Great management. 💯

Sport is predicated on one ideal: fairness. Doping, of any sort, exists to undermine its essence. In the presence of doping, the clean athletes strive for a level that isn’t attainable within the existing rules. And the effort to meet these standards leads to injuries, mental fatigue, burnout.

Please excuse me. My pessimism has been temporarily vindicated by reality and I’m feeling a bit bitter and ranty.

I challenge anyone to watch the past few games of both teams and not conclude that City are far superior, in terms of ability, squad management and coaching. They have just clicked into gear when it matter most; buoyed by opportunity rather than paralysed by fear of loss.

Chelsea chose today’s game as an opportunity to discipline a player rather than to try to win a game. We’re back to those “just write off the City game” days.

The one season they were crap was the one in which we ended up with Sterling up front.

We had our chances to kill a potential challenge from City earlier in the season and we wasted the lost. Had another chance to get a proper advantage yesterday and wasted it. It’s all muscle memory for City from here. Arteta needs to surprise us all next weekend.

There we go. It’s up to an Etihad miracle to save us from here.

🥱

Still this.

I admit that City winning the rest of their games involves a certain amount of fortunate coin flips on their behalf. But I still fear it happening nonetheless.

I would like to see that Cole Palmer that everyone talks about today.

Again?!

1 out of 2. 1 to go.

👑

The only constant source of joy in life…

How’s that going?

City now 2-1. Amazing what one league result does.

I’ve rediscovered life outside football. It’s nice.

So, about those 115 charges…

Mikel Merino. Please come back.

First Arsenal lose, now I have to change the fking duvet cover. What a day.

The parallels with 22/23 are horrible right now. Facing City at the Etihad at the worst possible time. We hadn’t really been outplayed all season until the Carabao final, and now it’s 3 really poor defeats in 4 games, injuries and fitness issues over several of our key players, and off we go…

Is our squad overachieving this season, based on its quality? I genuinely don’t know how to feel right now. It’s hard to be so down on the team and yet frustrated that we’re only top of the league and a goal up in the CL quarterfinal.

How are we on the whole “it’s not the City of KDB/Gundogan/prime-Rodri” front? Still room for some optimism? Title odds still firmly in our favour. But as always, emotions always seem sensitive to momentum, and right now things don’t feel good.

Off to the Etihad…

3 defeats across all competitions in our first 49 matches this season. 3 defeats in 4 games since then. 2 defeats in the next week could be terminal. We can’t exactly blame the media for their narrative building.

“But can they do it at home to Bournemouth on a sunny Saturday afternoon?”

We know Arteta too well at this point. I don’t mean that as a criticism. But we know what to expect from here. It’s hard to see why this year will be different.

Well, that’s not a great start.