Yes, well, of course that was going to happen. Ange Postecoglou has a particular manner on the touchline, a way of standing in the same spot for long periods of time, fists bunched in his pockets, a little hangdog and sad, like a long‑suffering dad at sports day.
As this slow-burn north London derby ticked down towards its inevitable endgame, as the sight of Arsenal’s set-piece coach leaping up at the edge of Postecoglou’s eyeline became ever more potent and ominous, there was a sense also of a man being chased down by the fates, like the doomed priest in The Omen, fate foretold by the shadow of the church spire sticking out of his back.
