Nico O’Reilly’s fearless quality exposes collapsing Arsenal’s title credentials | Barney Ronay

O’Reilly is an excellent City story, the entirely wholesome face of this project club, an anchor player in an entity that has, in so many other ways, been transformed. It felt like a good thing here that English football’s biggest game should have at its heart the only academy player in either starting XI, and a tactically complex English player too, engineered into his current role by the dominant coach of the age.

There has been some classic fretfulness over what O’Reilly actually does. Should he end up somewhere more visible, more head prefect-ish, more central? But what he’s doing is a position. This is what football is now. Romping left‑side creator. Deep lying flank-gallop creator. This was also another game where O’Reilly confirmed what was already clear, that he is England’s best left-back, a genuine weapon in that role and a serial winner of defensive duels.

His run on 58 minutes made the winning goal, ferrying the ball 40 yards upfield, gambolling like a fawn, socks down, through suddenly very empty spaces, then feeding the ball to Jérémy Doku. He found Haaland, who simultaneously wrestled Gabriel away from the ball, while in the same movement spanking it low into the corner.

And so: what does it all mean? The third element at the end of the game was the sight of Mikel Arteta striding across the pitch, a strangely tender figure in the middle of all that noise and heat, upright and purposeful, in a way that made you cringe slightly and think: “Oh dear, dad’s going to do something embarrassing here.” But Arteta simply shook the referee’s hand politely, walked off without looking crushed or out of control, and somehow rescued something of the day in the process.

The question must be asked, if only as it already has been asked, and will now dominate the all‑powerful banter-sphere. Nine points to three points and about to find themselves off the top for the first time since October. Have Arsenal choked? The answer to which is, not here. This was two good teams playing with freedom, one of them taking their chances. Moments before the winning goal Eberechi Eze pinged the foot of a post. Kai Havertz might have scored with a header at the death that would have changed the narrative. But he didn’t. And that failure starts to spread back up the arm.

There’s no way to sugarcoat this. Arsenal have fallen apart. The collapse didn’t come here. In fact the level of performance here almost makes it worse. Where was this energy when the collapse did come against Bournemouth, a home game where a win could have rescued this defeat? How else to interpret losing four out of six from March into April, and in the process your grip on three domestic trophies? Bad luck?

The other side is that City are simply a better, more varied, more expertly managed team. Guardiola likes being the relaxed guy, the cool guy, football-dad. Here he was in country-gent style, finely cut slacks, roll neck, brown leather lace-ups, like a 1930s intellectual on his way to a Salzburg coffee house. City are on an imperious run since the losses to Real Madrid, have settled just as their opponents have frozen. It feels entirely improbable they might let it slip now.