I don’t want to look past the North London Derby before it’s even been played, but we do have to acknowledge the elephant on the room. We stand a decent chance at winning our remaining matches, finishing on 89 points, and…finishing second to Man City. Would such an outcome amount to failure? Would we have once again bottled our best chance at winning the Prem—on the twentieth anniversary of our last league title, no less? It’s getting hard to resist such conclusions, especially when we consider that we controlled our fate just a few precious weeks ago.

Given the circumstances, yes, it might end up feeling like we’ve yet again let a gilt-edged chance slip through our fingers. Back in 2015-16, the usual contenders—Chelsea, Man U, Man City, Liverpool—staggered through indfiferent seasons. None of them earned more than 70 points, and Leicester of all clubs won the league with just 81 points. We hardly acquitted ourselves, finishing on just 71 points, ten points adrift of the top but at least one above our hosts on Sunday.

Whatever happens on Sunday, we have to know that we once again find ourselves depending on others to lend us a hand if we’re to somehow the Prem. Brighton were not up to the task, no surprise given the players they’ve sold over the last few years and the absurd number of injuries they’ve carried over the last few weeks. Should we win out, we’d still need some other opponent—at least one—to take points off of Man CIty. Would we have to rate this season a failure if we did win out only to finish in second?

There’s surely a certain percentage of our own fan-base that chose to support the Arsenal thanks to the halcyon days of two decades ago. The Invincibles—Bergkamp, Henry, Vieira—surely inspired legions of fans, but they may also have bred an unsustainable level of expectations, especially after we committed to financing the Emirates only to see Abramovich and Mansour upend the transfer market. That’s another story for another day.

In front of us, we’re confronting not one but two of the best squads the Prem has ever seen, and, in the last two seasons, we’ve gone toe-to-toe, chin-to-chin with both. Last season’s “bottle-job” is a sore point because of how much time we spent top of the league. We crumbled, but there were important injuries that sapped our strength in the run-in. This time through, we’d progressed to the Champions League quarterfinals while climbing to the top of the Prem table once again. That we find ourselves hoping against hope for help from others might feel like grasping at straws, but what else are we to do against a financial juggernaut that seems to hold all of the cards?

Let’s look at what we’re up against. Only two clubs field a younger starting formation than ours: Chelsea and Burnely. We’re still callow and wet behind the ears, and, somehow, we’re still in the thick of a campaign to win the Prem. Man City, by contrast, deploy the 13th oldest squad, one replete with silverware-winning experience. To a man, they know what they’re doing. We’re Zelda, still fumbling our way through an unlit map, knowing in the abstract what we’re supposed to do but having almost no experience in actually doing it. Yes, there are players such as Partey, Jorginho, Havertz, and Jesus who have come through the crucible, but that’s not quite the same as having an entire squad (not to mention a bench or an entire organisation) that knows what it takes to win a title.

It’s not just the players. Mikel Arteta has managed a top-flight club for the grand total of approximately 4.5 years, having been appointed back in December 2019. Here he is, matching wits with two of Europe’s most-accomplished (and well-financed) managers of the decade. Guardiola and Klopp aren’t just seasoned, experienced managers at the highest levels of competition; they’re also accustomed to acquiring the best talent available. Yes, we’ve stumbled against inferior opponents, but our record against those two speaks for itself. Against Man City, we’ve won the Community Shield , won at home, and drawn away. Against LIverpool, we’ve won at home and drawn away in the Prem and lost at home in the FA Cup. On that balance, we’d emerge the victors.

The cold-, hard reality is that Prem winners aren’t coronated on the basis of a small, cherry-picked set of results. The coronation comes as the consequence of whoever claims the most points across 38 results. Should we finish on 89 points but find ourselves short of silverware, we shouldn’t hang our heads in shame. Yes, losing at home to VIlla was consequenstial, but we have to feel like we’re still in the ascendancy. Our young squad and our young manager are both still learning and evolving and maturing.

Should we stumble on Sunday, or, should we succeed on Sunday and through the rest of this run-in only to finish yet again behind Man City, the outcome should still stand as validation of the progress we’ve made. We’re no longer fighting tooth and nail for a fourth-place spot. We’re trading blows—and landing most of ours—with the best that the world has ever seen.

In short, if anything, our reach exceeds our grasp. In other words, it should beggar belief that we would even find ourselves in a position to bicker and argue over where we stand or what this season will mean. We stand on a preciplce of success such as we haven’t seen in a generation. Yes, if we finish the season without silverware, I’ll be sorely disappointed. We’ve come to close and we’ve come so far. To fall short would be a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s something else to suggest that our season has been a failure. There would be a fair few nihilists who would burn the whole thing down.

They conflate the destination with the journey. Speaking only for myself, I have loved just about every minute of this season. Yes, December was painful. Yes, it would break my heart to see us finish the season empty-handed yet again. Then again, we’ve been playing beautiful, even dominant football. We’re plumbing the depths of our potential, We’re in our ascendancy. If this season is a season too soon, it still stands as a beacon of what’s to come.