The best way out of a corner? A corner, it turns out. Nobody knows how much the dead-ball goal bonus is in Nicolas Jover’s contract. Or indeed, if it exists at all. Although it would definitely explain why Arsenal’s set-piece coach leaps up with such thigh-quivering excitement at every opportunity, presumably seeing the potential rewards whizzing by in front of his eyes, like the conveyor belt in a 1970s gameshow, a corner sofa, a speed boat, an enormous wheel of cheese.
But whatever it is, it isn’t enough. Or so it must have felt for Arsenal’s fans watching another step in this most gruelling of title pursuits, another night of football as pain, sport as trauma, leavened only by the sight with 35 minutes gone of Kai Havertz floating in the soft evening air, as light as a reed, all alone suddenly in front of the Burnley goal as the ball veered gently into his orbit, one of those moments where the day just seems to stop.
