"Now they're going to believe us." Arsenal fans are rightly daring to think that things have lined up for them this year. This is their time and it feels like it.
A truly special team was serenaded and supported viciously by one of the great home crowds for one of the great Premier League games. To move back to where they had started the day, five points clear and with a game in hand, is reason to celebrate alone.
They did it knowing that Erling Haaland's juggernaut may of just got going in the way that Manchester City do. People have been saying and waiting for Pep Guardiola's men to go on 'one of those runs' but it might not matter. Arsenal are doing it themselves. 50 points from 19 games, a staggering achievement and yet the real success is yet to be realised.
READ MORE: Every word Mikel Arteta said on Eddie Nketiah's form, title hopes and Jakub Kiwior transfer
Every new test is being passed. Halfway through the season and the only team Arsenal had played and lost to they have now beaten. They've won ugly, won well and have shown all the facets of a team that has it all. Marcus Rashford had put Manchester United ahead out of nowhere with a fierce long range strike but Eddie Nketiah responded for the Gunners.
Then, the second half went berserk. Buyako Saka matched Rashford's strike with an equally brilliant goal of his own, cutting in from the right Arjen Robben style but Lisandro Martinez headed level shortly after.
The Gunners then huffed, puffed and threw all they could at Erik ten Hag's team and finally got their reward in the last minute, Nketiah flicking in and surviving a VAR scare to receive one of the biggest roars heard in recent times.
Here's how the national media reacted to a brilliant 3-2 win over Manchester United.
Neil Squires writes: "Are Arsenal Premier League champion material? With each passing game that question of being answered more and more strongly in the affirmative. Yesterday’s dramatic victory over Manchester United, secured by Eddie Nketiah’s winner 47 seconds from the end of normal time, was another box ticked in their season-long audition.
"Their late siege proved impossible for United to withstand as the 23-year-old struck for the second time in a fabulous game to settle the issue and restore Arsenal’s advantage at the top to five points. Late winners - as the watching Sir Alex Ferguson would testify - can turn title races.
"The theory that the loss of Gabriel Jesus to injury would puncture Arsenal’s tyres is proving unfounded. In Nketiah they have found a home-grown hero more than capable of stepping into the Brazilian’s boots.
"They had to come from behind to do it yesterday after Marcus Rashford’s brilliant opener for United and then come again after Lisandro Martinez equalised with half an hour left but they finished like a tempest and eventually found a way."
Jonathan Liew writes: "Sunday in London and all you can see is fumes: hot breath on cold air and vape smoke and dope smoke and steam rising from sweaty heads and a hype they can finally believe in. Of course Eddie Nketiah is delighted and of course Oleksandr Zinchenko is delighted, but have you ever in your life seen such happy unused substitutes? Sunday in London and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in the back row pressed against the stained glass, or so close you can grasp the hem of the preacher’s garment. Everyone in this congregation gets saved in the end.
"The post-Christmas Emirates is a different place to what it was pre-Christmas. There’s a swagger and an arrogance here now, the sweet spot where old certainties meet new stirrings. And they no longer ask, they demand. Even the sticky periods are waited out with measured impatience rather than dull dread. OK, Marcus Rashford. Nice header, Lisandro Martínez. But what time do we actually win?
"Ninety minutes this time, and yet it felt as inevitable and inexorable as the kiss at the end of a romantic movie. It felt inevitable from the moment Erik ten Hag produced Fred from the bench with 20 minutes left and informed the world that Manchester United would be happy with a draw. Fred played well, and on the whole so did United, but it was a fatal tell. There was a kind of compliance there, a submission to circumstances, a reminder that United have not yet developed the trait that marks out most champion teams: the ability to take, and take brazenly, the thing that you do not deserve."
Karl Matchett writes: "Arsenal had to come from behind to beat Manchester United 3-2 in the Premier League on Sunday.
"The Gunners had enjoyed the better start but Marcus Rashford powered United in front just past the quarter of an hour mark, lashing in from distance. Their lead didn’t last long though as a fine move by the hosts saw United opened up down the Gunners’ left wing, with Granit Xhaka’s cross headed in at the far post by Eddie Nketiah.
"After the break it was very much the same type of end-to-end action, with Bukayo Saka putting the hosts in front with a whipped finish into the bottom corner.
"That lead also lasted only minutes as Lisandro Martinez looped in a header, but the Gunners pushed for the victory in the closing stages and it was Nketiah who netted in the last minute to give his side the points."
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