Opinion – Is it happening again to Arsenal?

For months the storyline has felt pre-written: Manchester City, steered by a manager and a battle-hardened core who relish the spring-time squeeze, stalking an Arsenal side dogged by a reputation for wilting when the calendar flips to April. Saturday’s 0-0 draw at home to the division’s bottom club—one that arrived with ten points and a solitary league win all season—has stripped away the last layer of denial.

From the opening whistle the Gunners played not to lose rather than to win, their body language heavy with the memory of previous collapses. Even the club’s most relentlessly optimistic supporters now concede the plot feels eerily familiar: a promising position eroded by nerves, City pouncing, and the Premier League trophy slipping back towards Manchester.

The mathematics once appeared to offer insulation. After City’s breath-taking victory at Anfield—Bernardo Silva admitted they were “probably out of contention” with ten minutes remaining—Arsenal still held a cushion. Yet the psychological swing from that comeback was predictable: belief surged through the champions, while Mikel Arteta’s men looked ever more haunted. City have not even taken the field in the league since, yet know that maximum points from here would secure yet another title.

Arsenal’s dwindling advantage has already followed the same rhetorical pattern that preceded previous heartbreaks: “We have a seven-point lead,” became “five,” will soon become “three,” and will inevitably shrink to “we only need a result at the Etihad,” before the familiar consolation prize—at least we ran them close.

The pattern is no longer deniable. The same script, the same creeping anxiety, the same final reel. Unless something shifts dramatically, the question is not whether history will repeat, but simply how soon the closing credits will roll.