EPL: Arsenal victory will prove league can be ‘won’ not ‘bought’

Nothing against Manchester City or Erling Haaland, but wouldn’t it be blooming marvellous if Arsenal, and Eddie Nketiah, won the league?

Not out of resentment towards the present champions, who do nothing but aim to be fabulous, all of the time. City have set the bar for the rest — and credit for that.

Yet if Arsenal won the league with a young reserve operating as their lone striker for a significant part of the season, what would that say about our summer preconceptions?

It would say that we were wrong. That the league cannot, actually, be so easily purchased. Not wholly. Not with any guarantee.

Money helps, of course it does. Newcastle United were not title contenders before the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia came to toon.

And we know the Premier League table responds to money, to wage bills largely, because the bigger yours is, the more chance you have of finishing near the top.

Yet when Haaland was recruited by City, many declared the title race over before it had even begun. They were already the best team, they already had the best manager, and the biggest budget. Now they had added Europe’s best striker. It was a perfect storm of wealth and golden ability.

City had always signed good players but Haaland was arguably their first off-the-peg superstar. The club-record fee for Jack Grealish still only recruited a young man who was a big noise at Aston Villa, but was yet to kick a ball in the Champions League or win a regular place in his national side. Kevin De Bruyne had previously disappointed in English football.

Yaya Touré could be considered on the way down when he arrived, unwanted at Barcelona.

Haaland was different. Haaland was 22, already prolific in a top league and across top competitions, and would have walked into the team at any club in Europe, at just about any point in history.

They would have found room for him at Liverpool in the 1970s, at Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson or in any incarnation of Chelsea during the Roman Abramovich years.

City were different by then too. A project no longer, they had won the Premier League four times under Pep Guardiola, and reached a Champions League final. And now here was Haaland. It was done. It was over. With 38 games to go, the Premier League crown was staying right where it was.

Yet here we are at the halfway stage, and it’s Arsenal’s title to lose. Arsenal with their City cast-offs, their Guardiola-lite coach. Arsenal with the youngest starting line-up in the competition. Arsenal with, for now at least, the anti-Haaland leading their line.

The 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur notwithstanding, Nketiah will have better days than Sunday, and he knows that. He worked tirelessly, he caused Tottenham’s defence a lot of problems and when he exited the field with a minute plus stoppage time to go, the warmth of the reception from Mikel Arteta showed he had done exactly what his manager expected. But he missed some good chances. Two, maybe three. A heavy touch here, a soft shot there.

One might argue had Haaland been Arsenal’s striker they would have been out of sight. Yet he isn’t. Nketiah is. And so far there is no suggestion that will change until Gabriel Jesus comes back from injury. And that’s marvellous too.

Arteta could have panicked and bullied his club into entering the January transfer market the moment the window opened.

He could have wavered after Arsenal drew a blank against Newcastle on January 3. He didn’t. With Jesus not due back until February, he is persevering with a player who, last season, was trusted to start only eight league games.

Nketiah is 23. He is inexperienced enough to still be a little star-struck in the company of Geoff Shreeves, the Sky Sports interviewer. This is the man Arteta was prepared to hang Arsenal’s title charge on, and it is working. It is United next week, with Nketiah; City in the FA Cup the week after, maybe with Nketiah too.

Yet if Arsenal survive this spell without their first-choice goalscorer, Jesus, what does it also say about our presumption that the answer to every crisis, every problem, lies outside the club? Arteta backed Nketiah because he knows Arsenal, how they play, what they are about.

He will be aware of what this season means to them, too, having been around the club since the age of 15. A new recruit may have taken weeks to adapt to Arsenal and English football, by which time Jesus would be nearing fitness anyway. So Nketiah was not only the loyal option, he was the pragmatic one also.

And in the week when Arsenal lost Mykhailo Mudryk to Chelsea it serves as an important reminder that, while money can certainly be a factor in success, it guarantees nothing. Arsenal have invested wisely. More importantly, however, under Arteta they have also found a philosophy, a set of standards, and a group of young players that embody both. Arsenal defended with enormous spirit on Sunday, but also never took a step backwards. In the first half Antonio Conte had no idea how to handle their forwards at all, particularly Bukayo Saka.

As for City, they can be a sensitive bunch, seeing conspiracies and partiality where often none exists. To avoid rancour, if Arsenal do win the league, then think of it like this. An Arsenal triumph would put into perspective what an achievement those four titles in five years were.

An Arsenal title would show the league isn’t merely bought, it is won, with fine football, fine coaching and, yes, outstanding recruitment too. But that’s not the same as buying it. For if winning the league was as simple as writing a cheque, City and Haaland would be the ones eight points clear on Monday morning.-THE TIMES