There is a particular quality of light on a December afternoon in North London — pale, thin, fading even as the second half begins — that lends a certain drama to proceedings regardless of what is actually happening on the pitch. On this occasion, what was happening on the pitch was rather wonderful. Arsenal won, Arsenal climbed to second in the table, and for the first time in longer than we care to admit, we find ourselves daring to believe.
The performance
We were excellent. Not merely efficient, not simply professional, but genuinely, thrillingly excellent. The kind of performance that makes you turn to the person next to you and say nothing at all, because the grin on your face is doing all the talking. The ball moved with purpose and precision, finding pockets of space that lesser sides would never have identified, let alone exploited.
Mesut Ozil was, once again, the conductor of the orchestra. There is a passage of play in the first half that I keep replaying in my mind: a dropped shoulder, a weight of pass that was so perfect it seemed to bend the laws of physics, and suddenly the space was there and the chance was created and the ball was in the net. Ozil has been operating at a level this season that renders superlatives inadequate. He doesn’t just find space — he seems to create it from nothing, like a magician pulling silk scarves from an empty hat.
Around him, the supporting cast played their parts with conviction. Santi Cazorla’s absence continues to be felt in certain passages — we miss his ability to carry the ball through the press — but the squad has adapted with a maturity that speaks well of Wenger’s coaching. The defence was solid without being spectacular, which at this stage of the season is precisely what is required.
Second in the table
Second. The word sits there, modest and unassuming, and yet it carries a weight that every Arsenal supporter can feel. We are second in the Premier League in December. Leicester City — and who would have predicted that sentence twelve months ago — sit above us, but the traditional powers are behind. This is real. This is happening.
I have been an Arsenal supporter long enough to know that hope is the most dangerous emotion in football. It is the thing that lifts you up so that the fall hurts more. And yet I cannot help myself. Not this time.
The 2015/16 season has a different feel to it. I wrote something similar in the spring of 2014 when we reached Wembley, and I was right then — we won the FA Cup and ended the drought. There is a quiet confidence about this squad that was absent in previous title challenges. Fewer moments of panic. Fewer individual errors gifting opponents cheap goals. A resilience that we have so often lacked.
Ozil’s extraordinary form
I want to dwell on Ozil a moment longer, because what he is doing this season deserves to be properly acknowledged. His assist numbers are extraordinary — he is on course to challenge, perhaps even surpass, Thierry Henry’s Premier League record. But the statistics, impressive as they are, tell only part of the story.
Watch him off the ball. Watch the constant movement, the subtle adjustments of position, the way he drifts into channels that defenders haven’t thought to protect. There is an intelligence to his play that borders on the telepathic. He seems to know where the ball will be before it arrives, and he seems to know where his teammates will run before they have decided themselves.
This is the Ozil we were promised when he signed from Real Madrid. The Ozil that the cynics said would never adapt to the Premier League. Well, he has adapted, and then some. If we are to mount a serious title challenge — and that is precisely what this is — he will be at the heart of it.
Can we dare to dream?
The question hangs in the air like breath on a cold afternoon. Can Arsenal win the league? The honest answer is that I don’t know. Nobody does. The Premier League is the most unpredictable domestic competition in world football, and this season more than most. Leicester’s astonishing run could continue. Manchester City could find their rhythm. Chelsea, surely, cannot be as bad as they have been.
But here is what I do know: we are in the conversation. We are not making up the numbers, not settling for fourth place as though it were some kind of trophy in itself. We are competing at the sharp end of the table, and as we showed back in 1989, sometimes being in the conversation at the right time is all you need.
Three points. Second in the table. The December light fades, and the floodlights take over, and we walk away from the ground with something we haven’t felt in a very long time. Something dangerous. Something wonderful. Something that feels an awful lot like belief.
It is, of course, far too early to get carried away. But then again, what is football for if not getting carried away?