Arsenal might have been better off hearing from Roy Keane rather than Mikel Arteta

There was, when you think about it, a small bit of symmetry between the two main Super Sporting Sunday telly events, the blues in one corner, the success-starved reds in t’other.

“It’s 21 years since ye last won an All Ireland!” That was Liam Sheedy reminding Dónal Óg Cusack not to lose the run of his Cork self ahead of that meeting with Tipp in Thurles.

“It’s 22 years since you last won the Premier League!” That was Sky’s David Jones reminding Patrick Vieira of the invincible days, Patrick nodding wistfully.

And Dónal Óg, perhaps unwittingly, because he was considerably more focused on events at Semple Stadium than those at the Etihad, accurately described the unpredictability of tussles between both sets of rivals. “It’s like Forrest Gump and the box of chocolates, boy, you’re never sure what you’re going to get.”

Granted, the Thurles game wasn’t going to decide the outcome of the championship, and neither, really, was the one over in Manchester, even if Sky had us thinking the Premier League trophy would be presented at the end of it. And even if Arsenal had won, their devotees are now so fatalistic, they’d have been forecasting home defeats by Fulham and Burnley in the run-in.

Some of us might have lost our appetite for football after, say, transferring out Morgan Gibbs-White from our fantasy team on the eve of him scoring the first hat-trick of his entire career, but this one, as Peter Drury put it, was “the game to which a season has built”. Big and unmissable, in other words.

Since seeing their team lose somewhat calamitously to Bournemouth the previous weekend, Arsenal fans had been having pictures of bottles WhatsApped to them every four minutes, but, yes, catastrophic as that setback was, our Roy pointed out prematch that they were still on top of the actual table. And for all the talk of the title race now being in Manchester City’s hands, it was in Arsenal’s too. If they could avoid defeat on Sunday.

And for all the doubts about Roy’s managerial skills down the days, you’d a notion he and that take of his might have been a more stirring message to the Arsenal dressingroom before the game than that which Mikel Arteta might have offered. Arteta, who has appeared to be on the verge of a 19th nervous breakdown for much of the season, and has been hell-bent on sucking the joy out of his team, most probably told them: “LOSE AND WE DIE!” You know, motivational stuff such as that.

Now, there have been those who have suggested the standard of the Premier League this season has been utterly dire, largely because Manchester United are, somehow, in third place, but this skirmish between City and Arsenal has been, undeniably, entertaining.

As was the first half of Sunday’s game. Rayan Cherki’s dancing feet? Very lovely – 1-0 City. “Puuuurrrrr,” Gary Neville purred. Arsenal’s equaliser, when Kai Havertz charged down Gianluigi Donnarumma’s attempted clearance? It elicited one of those Gary squeals that possibly prompted Ofcom to demand an on-air apology from Sky Sports, so indecent did it sound. It also called a halt to the home fans’ crooning. “We shall not, we shall not be moved, just like a team that’s gonna win the ….. oh heck.”

“From the truly sublime to the ridiculous,” said Drury, while Pep Guardiola dug his nails into his face once more and Mikel came mightily close to smiling.

Second half. Erling Haaland, need it be said, scored the goal that decided the game, even if he has the worst hairdo in the history of association football, one that makes him look like the bass player in Whitesnake.

But we need to talk about Bernardo Silva.

“They may chisel something on his gravestone in 100 years from now: ‘He was always there’,” said Drury when the little Portuguese lad emerged from the blue to be the last line of defence and averted a very possible Arsenal goal. And then he beat Viktor Gyökeres in the air, despite being about 7½ft smaller. “Did Bernardo Silva just beat Gyökeres in the air?” Gary asked, his jaw resting on the Etihad pitch. He had indeed. As football-playing goes, he’s decent.

“Panic on the streets of London,” read the banner draped across a stand in the Etihad come full-time. Even if you were the cruellest, you wouldn’t be sending bottles to your Arsenal-loving pals after Sunday. They’re suffering enough. Heaven knows they’re miserable now.

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