If any Premier League player should be allowed to let his hair down, it is Erling Haaland.
And it was one of the defining images of this defining night, the Norwegian’s golden mane trailing like flames from an engine as he joyously rampaged around a crackling Etihad, taking the acclaim as though he was some sort of Norse god.
The barnet had put the boys from North London to the sword. But not in his customary way, not in his clinical, one-touch finish way.
His goal after the Alice disbanding means the statistics continue to tick over impressively. That is number 49 across all competitions, 33 in the Premier League, which eclipses Mohamed Salah’s record for goals in a 38-game season - and Haaland could still have seven matches left to play.
And after the number of opportunities he missed in this one-sided contest, he will be wondering how he has not already raised his boot to acknowledge a half-century.
But this was a different type of Haaland performance and, in some ways, it might just have been his most impressive contribution in a Manchester City jersey. Quite simply, Haaland gave Arsenal the nightmares they probably expected, Rob Holding’s late goal surely no consolation to the defender after his torrid experience.
For a lot of the game, Haaland was unplayable. A portion of the credit must go to Pep Guardiola as it was quite obviously a tactical ploy to occasionally go long and direct to the centre-forward to beat Arsenal’s high press.
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That is exactly what happened for the first goal, Haaland coming a touch deep, creating the space behind the centre-halves for Kevin de Bruyne to cruise into. Haaland held off Holding, turned inside, set De Bruyne free and the Belgian’s brilliance did the rest.
It was the first of two assists provided for De Bruyne by Haaland, meaning that the striker has now been directly involved in 57 goals in 43 matches in all competitions this season - 15 more than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues.
Haaland and De Bruyne’s ten goal combinations (KDB has provided eight assists for the phenomenon) are the most by a Manchester City duo in a Premier League season.
And you get the feeling that the pair are just getting started, that they were adding a new dimension to their understanding during this dismantling of the league leaders.
It was not just his assists and his goal that made Haaland’s display so impressive. He was consistently creating space, not just for De Bruyne but for the rest of City’s midfield (and when we talk about City’s midfield, you could be talking about any number of players).
Put simply, he ran the Gunners ragged.
It was, of course, far from a one-man or, with a nod to De Bruyne, a two-man show. This is a City machine that is firing on all cylinders, a squad in frightening form, a formidable sum of all of its wonderful parts.
But now it has a talisman, a figurehead, a leader.
City have got their Samson.
