It may have only taken a disastrous four days to undo much of a season’s good work. Arsenal could have sealed a place in next year’s Champions League on Thursday. Two games, two defeats and a six-point swing to Tottenham later and the Europa League beckons instead. Their longest journey this campaign proved among the depressing, a deserved defeat to Newcastle leaving Arsenal reliant on a hapless Norwich team for a favour on Sunday if they are to stand any chance of leapfrogging their neighbours.
Their exile from the European elite seems set to extend into a sixth season. They have grasped fifth place from the jaws of fourth. Instead of a breakthrough campaign, it looks like being a qualified success that, right now, can feel like a failure.
