Arsenal ‘given title boost’ and Tottenham ‘terrify’ relegation rivals on glorious weekend of triumph

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·20 aprile 2026

Arsenal ‘given title boost’ and Tottenham ‘terrify’ relegation rivals on glorious weekend of triumph

Arsenal, Manchester City, the Premier League and the very sport of football itself have all answered every single one of their critics in 90 minutes of cathartic wonder at the Etihad.

And even Spurs are terrifying their rivals after stretching their winless run to 15 games.

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Verily, will the good news ever stop pouring forth on this glorious Monday morn?

We’re so back

One of the great tricks of journalism – and this is in absolutely no way restricted to football or sport – is to spend vast amounts of time establishing a #narrative and then, when the time is right, furiously tearing it down while shaking your head at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, dressing as a hot dog and vowing to find the guy who did this.

Cue Jeremy Cross in the Mirror.

Pulsating Man City vs Arsenal title showdown proves English football is back with a bang

It was a very good game of football. We enjoyed it a great deal. Far more than we thought we would. A pleasant surprise in every way. But can one match – however good, however large – really undo a whole season’s worth of evidence? Apparently yes, yes it can.

And to think, some people reckon the Premier League is boring. That was until the two best teams in the land got together, to gang up on the critics of English top-flight football.

Pretty sure they were both trying to win a vital game of football for their own reasons rather than gangimg up to give the critics one in the eye. Much as we like the idea of Erling Haaland and Gabriel choreographing their beef like a couple of gnarled, veteran wrestlers, we don’t think this is actually what happened.

And ‘some people reckon the Premier League is boring’? Quite a lot of people have reckoned that this season.

But really this is all just a bit cake-and-eat-it, and very straw man. Nobody is saying every single Premier League game this season has been boring, obviously.

There is a valid argument to be made that just because this Premier League season has been different, and set-pieces have held sway, and several of the big teams have been cack, and all the rest, that doesn’t mean it’s been boring.

John Cross, the better Cross, actually made this argument rather well on the Mirror’s own pages after Fabian Hurzeler’s huff following Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Brighton last month.

Arsenal are being painted as the villains for employing dark arts to win at Brighton and go seven points clear of Pep Guardiola’s City at the top. That is so disingenuous and so unfair because, actually, if Arsenal win it then it will be their first title in 22 years and the third different winner in as many seasons. City, Liverpool and then Arsenal. That would go a long way to proving that the Premier League is exciting and unpredictable because different teams can win it. There have been late goals, drama and, yes, set-pieces. But football has always been cyclical – and corners, grappling and long-throws is just the latest trend. Arsenal are better than everyone else at it – they have scored 31 goals from set-pieces this season – and that should not be a cause for criticism.

You can agree or disagree with any or all of that, but it’s a valid and consistent position.

But using one brilliant game that conspicuously wasn’t like the ones people have been complaining about as proof that those people were wrong doesn’t work in quite the same way, does it?

Putting on the kind of show which deserves to put such ridiculous claims to bed once and for all.

There it is. One game was brilliant, so stop moaning about the others. Even if they were boring, this one wasn’t and it’s the most recent game and therefore the only important one.

When these rivals clashed in the Carabao Cup final a few weeks ago, the game had been so dull it felt capable of sending a glass eye to sleep. But this reunion was the polar opposite. For once, a football game delivering what it had said on the tin beforehand. It was hard work just watching it all unfold, let alone being part of it.

Jeremy, we’re confused. ‘…the game had been so dull it felt capable of sending a glass eye to sleep’? And ‘for once’ here a big game had delivered on its promise? Are… are you one of the ‘some people’ who thought this season has been boring then? Surely not.

Because it proved the demise of our national sport has been exaggerated.

Yes, those men fashioned entirely from straw claiming football was dead are surely feeling sheepish indeed this morning, shuffling their straw feet and, straw heads bowed, fixing the gaze of their straw eyes firmly on the floor.

And even if it did leave us for a while, English football is definitely now back with a bang.

At least until the next big game ends 0-0.

Engage boosters

Mediawatch broadly agrees with the general thrust of Tom Canton’s ‘all is not lost’ response to Arsenal’s defeat at the Etihad for football.london. They absolutely did play well, they absolutely could have got something out of the game, and they absolutely were unrecognisable from the team that had limped to three straight domestic defeats in three different competitions over the last month or so.

There is definitely a world where yesterday went much worse for Arsenal. But, and we cannot stress this enough, this is still a universe where in the end it went badly.

We are really not sure losing to your only title rivals and thus ceding control of the title race can ever justify this headline.

Arsenal given Premier League title boost in spite of Man City defeat after major improvement

‘Tis a fine performance in defeat, but sure ‘tis no boost.

Weirdly, I feel encouraged and have more confidence than I did before the game began. I was resigned to being beaten handily because of the performances lately, especially the defeat to Bournemouth. I have never been so low about this team as I was when we were beaten by the Cherries, but this performance, and how Arsenal continued to push until the end, has made me think differently.

Leaving aside Mediawatch’s more general old-man-cloud-yelling concerns about the way so many journalists just write unapologetic fan blogs now, and while we’re pleased for Tom that he’s feeling less gloomy now it’s ended 2-1 than he did when he thought it would be 4-0 or somesuch, it does rather feel like the accurate headline here would really be ‘Tom Canton given Premier League title boost in spite of Man City defeat after major improvement’.

Terror Watch

To the other side of North London now, and a weekend where Tottenham somehow found new and even crueller ways to toy with their fans’ fragile emotions.

Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. And against Brighton, Spurs had it against Brighton right up until they didn’t. Brutal.

Yes, they were definitely much better than they have been pretty much all season. But, and this is important, they still didn’t actually win and are in even worse relegation trouble now than before the weekend began after big wins for Leeds and Nottingham Forest.

Yet, according to football.london:

Roberto De Zerbi uses new Tottenham tactic that will terrify relegation rivals

Mediawatch would humbly contend that neither Forest nor Leeds any longer care much what Spurs are doing at all and that whatever mild perturbation might be bubbling over the London Stadium at the sight of Spurs’ winless Premier League run extending to 15 matches ahead of their own chance to move four points clear tonight at Crystal Palace would stop some way short of terror.

What with Arsenal title boosts and Spurs striking terror into their rivals, we do have to ask if football.london are feeling okay? If you are being held against your will, blink twice and publish a piece about how well it’s all going for Chelsea right now.