That was my favourite victory of the year because it was exactly the sort of game the narrative gods thought they could control.
They couldn’t.
The injury-ravaged bully boys of Brentford came to our house to rough us up and put some perspective on our title run.
They took a wild swing, grazed our cheek, and fell over the pool table.
The footballing gods had the cheek to weigh in and stack the cast against us. They put a referee in charge from Liverpool and they had Paul Tierney in the VAR room after his shocking mistake for Liverpool against Forest. You couldn’t make it up, only divine intervention plays these sorts of games.
Even worse, our superstar signing David Raya was out of contention because he’s on loan from Brentford. We took a nice early lead from a Declan Rice beauty of a header, served up by Benny Blanco. Everything about the goal was world-class. Who knew Declan had final third attributes as good as that"
The game was rough, but Arsenal were fully in control. Then, just before halftime, disaster struck. Gabriel laid off a standard ball to Aaron Ramsdale in his 6-yard area; he didn’t read the run of Wissa; he took a touch, the Wissa tackle caught the clearance, an equaliser was the result. I felt horrible for Ramsdale, he’s rusty, that’s what happens, a true nightmare must have been unravelling in his head.
The second half was much more beastly. The ref was allowing the game to flow like glass through a straw. Every tac...