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2 hours ago
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There’s a great moment towards the end of the otherwise non-great Rocky III, when Clubber Lang is asked by a straw-hatted, bowtie-twirling US sports reporter for a prediction before his imminent title fight. There’s a pause as Clubber looks down, lets the mask of showmanship drop, and just says the word “pain”.
You can say that again. Let’s face it, this was always going to hurt, whichever way the latest note in the conjoined title‑relegation stagger fell. Just as it was always likely, the destination of the Premier League title would come down to staring at a referee staring at a screen to decide the minutiae of an arm wrestle at a corner.
Careers, lives, hopes and hundreds of millions of pounds shall ride on the decoding of a raised forearm, on a review of a referral of a decision from Darren England, our Darren England (unless specifically stated otherwise: it is always Darren England) to Chris Kavanagh. As themes and imagery for the season go, this was perfect. Who writes your scripts? And is there any chance of maybe getting someone else in at any point?
So it came to pass, with 94 minutes gone at the London Stadium and Arsenal 1-0 up on West Ham, that this multibillion stage boiled down to a referee standing in front of a screen, hands stiff at his sides, like a man about to be executed by firing squad on matter of noble principle.
The moment stretched out: 17 (count ’em) repetitions across two and a half minutes. Kavanagh unmoved and strangely tender in the middle of all that heat and noise. West Ham’s fans leaning across the advert boards in front of him. A gallery of players at his back. The ground suddenly hushed as he turned and said: “After review, West Ham’s No 19 commits a foul …” At which point the words disappeared into a rising roar. Previous title deciders had AGÜERO and “It’s up for grabs now.” Generation digital mess gets: “And my final decision is ...”
Nobody cared in the away end as Arsenal’s fans seethed and leapt and fell over one another. In that moment West Ham’s apparent equalising goal was cancelled. The final whistle left them in the bottom three with two games to play. Arsenal’s 1-0 victory means they must now beat Burnley at home and a Crystal Palace team in standby mode to win the title.
And everyone, everywhere, gets to appreciate the astonishing dramatic irony of Arsenal, kings of the set-piece wrestle, being saved by the notion that, in fact, that kind of behaviour really isn’t the done thing.
Was it the right decision? Callum Wilson had put the ball in the net after a multi-player bundle. The issue was the trailing arm of Pablo, which extended across David Raya’s throat and clavicle area as he reached to punch the ball.
Your view of whether this was a foul or legitimate contact will depend, beyond club colours, on whether words such as “soft” are part of the lexicon (strictly, they’re not). But it was on balance a foul, even if that balance is 55-45. To be fair to a referee doing a ridiculously high pressure job on some very fine details, Kavanagh-England got it right, earned their moment of flourish at the death.
Was it an obvious error, though? Did it actually meet the threshold for referral? These are huge and, indeed, hugely tedious questions that thankfully don’t have to be answered now. The bigger question is: should it have even come to this for Mikel Arteta, who strayed very close here not just to two dropped points but what might otherwise have been a day of deeply bruising tactical overthink?
The game had been 0-0 until the 83rd minute, when Leandro Trossard scored Arsenal’s goal. At which point Arteta celebrated by doing something close to a mid-air splits, head thrown back, hitch-kicking his way down the touchline. Understandably so, as Arteta had in some ways done this to himself.
Stratford had been a chilly, grey early summer place at kick‑off. The West Ham managerial rectangle is vast, taking in the ghost of the running track, and Arteta was out right by the touchline from the start, in tight grey trousers and slinky black quarter-zip, a tiny figure alone in all that vast space, like a Lego man on the moon.
And for a while Arsenal had this game by the throat. They had eight shots in the opening 20 minutes. At which point an injury to Ben White’s knee led to a strange rejig, with Declan Rice moving to right-back, Myles Lewis‑Skelly staying in midfield.
This was a mistake from Arteta. West Ham found themselves suddenly in the game, touching the ball, feeling better, the crowd roused. It is always very hard to reset and regas at times such as this, like trying to put the bubbles back in your bottle of water.
At half-time Arteta did the right thing, fixing the error, bringing on Cristhian Mosquera and shifting Rice into the middle again. And it felt fitting, in the end, that Rice should play the pass that led to Martin Ødegaard’s little jink and pass for the goal. Rice deserved it. He kept going, played three positions, was booed all afternoon, must have felt all the talk of big players and stepping up at his back. Well, he did here.
And in the end victory was probably deserved, whatever your verdict on the VAR. Arsenal have stopped conceding goals since the loss at Manchester City. Rice was right about that too. It is now so close they can taste it. All that seems certain: there will be more pain yet to come.
