If Arsenal do what, with each passing week, seems increasingly likely then this moment will resound through the years. The best title-winning campaigns all contain those flashes in time that set fate’s course: as Arsenal’s substitutes and coaching staff piled on to the pitch in delirium, the Emirates stands a blur of limbs and faces to an extent rarely seen, it was hard not to feel that Reiss Nelson had conjured one.
Arsenal could have felt faintly good about clawing parity from two goals down against a Bournemouth side that, against all odds, had led for most of the game. But in reality a draw was never going to satisfy: it would have tilted the balance and momentum back to Manchester City, cutting their lead to three points. When Martin Ødegaard stepped up to take their 17th corner, with the seventh minute of added time almost up, the truth was they needed something.
