Everything coming up Arsenal as title and relegation battles reshaped on night of drama | OneFootball

This was a night that felt like a naughty treat with the two title contenders playing at the same time.

It will in all likelihood happen only twice more during this Premier League season. When they play each other on April 19, and on the final day of the season.

The first of those will retain material consequence; whether that holds true for the final day is much harder to say after a night Arsenal could scarcely have scripted better.

They’ve already celebrated St Totteringham’s Day at a hilariously early juncture; tonight they played their part in a night that brings the unthinkable double of an Arsenal title being joined by a Tottenham relegation into ever sharper focus.

For the second game in a row, Arsenal were significantly short of their best but emerged with the necessary from an intensely difficult occasion. This was often an ugly performance but it’s a beautiful night. The 4-1 win at Tottenham was funny and undeniably restorative, but what has happened since has told us far more about Arsenal’s title chances.

They ground their way past Chelsea, and have done it again tonight at Brighton in a bitty, scrappy game. On another night, Bukayo Saka’s early goal would not have been enough. Brighton had their chances, and could have had a penalty on the stroke of half-time.

Arsenal were wobbled and rattled, especially in a fine Brighton spell at the start of the second half. But they got over the line. Until that Chelsea game, it was something they had been struggling with in recent weeks. They were winning a fair share of games in effortless, swatting-flies fashion, but dropping points absolutely everywhere else.

It couldn’t last, and hasn’t. But the news got better and better for Arsenal around the country on one of those delicious occasions where scores from elsewhere feel as important or even more important than your own.

While Arsenal were working their way past a capable Brighton, Manchester City were falling over themselves in distinctly, well, Arsenal-coded fashion at home to relegation-addled Nottingham Forest.

Even here there is a sense of frustration for Arsenal. Because they are without doubt right that there would have been far more attention on the Gunners doing what City have done tonight than there will be on City. There would be a lot of the B-word flying around.

To lead twice in the second half at home against the fourth-worst team in the division and not win is not the stuff of title winners. And while they’ve clung to Arsenal’s coat-tails they have never truly felt like the most compelling title challengers. This is a distinctly non-vintage Man City. They are a clear second-best team in the country, in all interpretations of that both good and bad.

This is simply not one of those Pep Guardiola teams we’ve seen before. The ones who always find a way.

The simultaneous kick-off final-day vibe inevitably sends minds back to the pre-Guardiola before times and Aguerooooooo. Obviously nothing that happened tonight could ever have rivalled that, but the failure of a goalmouth scramble in the added time to added time to produce a City winner feels like a monumental moment at both ends of the table even with so much stagger left to unwind.

Murillo’s goalline clearance among it all may well have delivered Arsenal the title. It might also have kept Forest in the Premier League.

The rarity of the occasion and the fact a points swing took place means it feels certain that this was a night that will be looked back upon as a crucial staging post if – it’s still not quite when – Arsenal are crowned champions in May.

But this was also a night that saw seismic shifts in the Champions League chase thanks to an unravelling and weary Aston Villa taking a fearful home beating from Chelsea and Manchester United coming unstuck at 10-man Newcastle, but even more so at the foot of the table.

West Ham’s win at Fulham combined with what has to be considered a bonus point for Forest here – despite the way they were able to match a desperately disappointing City side and the fact they could themselves have collected all three had Ryan Yates’ unopposed injury-time header from a corner in injury time been directed 18 inches to the left – has completely reshaped the relegation battle once more.

Wolves are making magnificent late mischief but surely no more than that, while it still seems safe to say Burnley will join them. But the third place is up in the air like never before. There is now just a single point separating the Hammers and Forest from a freefalling Spurs team that is comfortably the worst team in the league in what now constitutes a significant body of 2026 form.

It really does seem like we’re guaranteed either a full-blooded relegation fight for the first time in years, or Spurs are going down. Because, extraordinary as it is, they are the only ones who look like they could disappear without a fight.

This week’s results have also dragged Leeds – for now just two points above Spurs, who still have a game in hand tomorrow night for what little that currently appears to be worth – right back into a quagmire they thought they might have escaped.

Arsenal were already big favourites for the Premier League title. Now they look more compelling than ever; avoid defeat at the Etihad next month and it’s hard to see how that situation turns around.

But what’s happening at the foot of the table is more extraordinary still. And we don’t think Arsenal will mind too much if we draw further attention to the fact that if tomorrow night’s game against Crystal Palace goes the way all logic suggests it should then Spurs will be favourites to join Burnley and Wolves in next season’s Championship.