Arteta’s ChatGPT Guardiola-ism is down but history beckons for Gunners

The quadruple and treble dreams may be dead but Arsenal are now just four games from achieving an unprecedented nonruple.

DOUBLE DREAM: Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta during a training session at the Sobha Realty Training Centre, London Colney.  John Walton/PA Wire.

And then there were two. As the clock ticked down at St Mary’s Stadium on Saturday night even the stray yellow balloons on the pitch had begun to take on a weirdly mocking quality.

The balloons were almost too much, like metaphors-for-hire in an arthouse film, popping up in shot every time Arsenal tried to transform another spell of mechanical pressure into creative, incisive football. Your dreams?