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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta knows it will take time for his side to get to the level Manchester City are at. The Gunners’ faint Premier League title hopes went with a whimper after a 1-0 loss at Nottingham Forest handed City a fifth crown in six years. Arsenal were insatiable for most of the campaign, spending 248 days on top of the table, and held an eight-point lead over City in March, but an alarming slide has seen them win just two of their last eight games. That allowed them to be overtaken by Pep Guardiola’s relentless juggernaut, who have won 11 games in a row. The Spaniard says Arsenal have to find a way to compete with City but it will not be a quick fix. “This is my job, this is our job, and this is what this club deserves,” Arteta said. “It wasn’t enough. I know we’re not at that level, but we have to find a way. This is not enough. It’s not going to change in three months time. We need to be at that level but we need to find other ways to do it. “For example at Forest we needed to play much better. This is my responsibility. “That’s why we have to push for that to happen. That’s not going to happen if we don’t make a lot of right decisions and think smart and have the mentality every day to get to that level.” It wasn’t enough. I know we’re not at that level, but we have to find a way. This is not enough. It’s not going to change in three months time. We need to be at that level but we need to find other ways to do it Mikel Arteta While Arsenal had a definitive outcome for their aspirations, so did Forest as they secured their Premier League status against the odds. For large parts of the season, which began with more than 20 new signings, they looked destined to return straight back to the Championship, not least when they were on an 11-game winless run going into the end of April. Boss Steve Cooper steered them away from danger, thanks to 10 points from the last five games, and he is thankful to the fans, who have been vociferous in their support throughout the campaign. It looked possible that the Welshman could be sacked on two occasions during the campaign, but Forest fans voted with their feet and came out in unanimous support of their manager. And Cooper will never forget that. “My family and myself will be in debt to these supporters forever,” he said. “What they have given me this year in an era of people always wanting change and having no patience, our supporters have been the complete opposite. They have been the best with me in some difficult times. That takes some doing. “The whole sense of being part of something, being wanted and that sense of belonging is such a powerful feeling. Our supporters have set the standard for how to support a team.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Ruben Neves could leave Wolves as he chases Champions League football Newcastle boss Eddie Howe hails Callum Wilson’s form Bryan Mbeumo delighted to come to the fore in absence of Ivan Toney

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Mikel Arteta was asked to pick out the 'key moments' in which Arsenal's Premier League title bid fell apart following their 1-0 loss at Nottingham Forest.

Ruben Neves admits he wants to play in the Champions League and faces a hard decision over his Wolves future. The 26-year-old midfielder is expected to leave Molineux this summer after six years at the club. Neves, who has made 252 appearances and scored 30 goals, was given a standing ovation and left the pitch to embraces from his team-mates when he came off late in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Everton. It added to the belief he has played his last game at Molineux and the Portugal international has ambitions. He said: “I want to be here but I never hide that I want to play Champions League football. It’s a hard decision. Me and my family love it here, but in football you have to go for your main goals. “Nothing’s happened yet. If it was my last game here I really enjoyed it and I’m very thankful for the last six seasons.” Wolves were forced to settle for a draw after Yerry Mina’s leveller in the last minute of stoppage time cancelled out Hwang Hee-Chan’s opener. Referee David Coote played nine minutes of added time and Neves questioned him on it. He told PLP: “The only thing I can say is the nine minutes (of stoppage time). I asked the ref why. He said they’ve been asked to play exact times. I don’t know why they haven’t been doing it all season. “If you want to do it, you need to do it all season and not only in the last two games. “We’ve had some games here where they (only) gave four or five minutes. They said we’re the Premier League, not the World Cup. Now they are trying to be the World Cup.” The draw left Everton two points above the bottom three, before Leeds’ game at West Ham on Sunday. I want to be here but I never hide that I want to play Champions League football. It’s a hard decision. Me and my family love it here, but in football you have to go for your main goals Ruben Neves “We’ve been trying to build a mentality and I think that’s been evident in a lot of games,” said boss Sean Dyche. “Sometimes it’s got away from us, as have the details, but the mentality has been right and it was firm again today. The never-say-die, relentless attitude I like from my teams. “The players are beginning to understand it and deliver it more and more. I said to them at half-time ‘lads, big players, big performances are not always about tactics.'” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Newcastle boss Eddie Howe hails Callum Wilson’s form Bryan Mbeumo delighted to come to the fore in absence of Ivan Toney US PGA leader Brooks Koepka vows to avoid a repeat of Masters collapse

By the time the Premier League trophy is handed over to Pep Guardiola again, the English game will have something it has never seen before. It has made many within the sport unsure how to feel. That goes beyond a staggering level of domination, which ensured Manchester City only felt the prospect of defeat for a mere 10 minutes for the final third of the season, something that should raise questions about the competitive health of the Premier League. City are after all only the fifth club to win three English titles in a row. They are also the third club to win five in six. They are however the first English team to do it with such a suffocating sense of dominance. They are also the first English champions to face charges from the very competition they have just won, that – if proven – could yet see the club stripped of previous titles and even expelled from the league. That is a historic landmark, even if the length of time until its conclusion is as uncertain as the outcome. For now, it leaves a caveat and a question about all this success that may see the perception of the club’s entire era completely changed. Teams to win three titles in a row Huddersfield Town 1923-26 Arsenal 1932-35 Liverpool 1982-84 Manchester United 1998-2001 Manchester United 2006-09 Manchester City 2020-23 Teams to win five titles in six seasons Liverpool 1978-84 Manchester United 1995-2001 Back in February when the Premier League understatedly released such a jaw-dropping announcement, Guardiola already realised so much about his team had to change. The City manager denies that the charges served as motivation. You could understand why he doesn’t want that to become a central part of the story right now. It was nevertheless a period when so many strands of the season came together, as well as the team. The most common account put forward is that the players came together for a clear-the-air meeting after the 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest, and decided enough was enough. That match represents the last time they dropped points before winning the title. There was a frightening new focus about the team. If Arsenal had a “hunger” that previously concerned Guardiola, his team responded with a new ravenousness. Many sources feel it was impossible that the charges didn’t influence this, that the squad played on a sense of righteously proving they could do it on the pitch. Those at City would point to pure football reasons, of the type that are given exaggerated weight in the moments of glory; that see Erling Haaland’s diet mentioned more than the ownership. The squad had already been reshaped by getting rid of Joao Cancelo, a decision that represented a message to anyone content to be “happy flowers”, as Guardiola so memorably put it. This restored focus to their outlook. Guardiola then restored focus to their shape. Haaland naturally warrants focus in such a season, especially since his potency has come to personify City’s overbearing new power. Except, rather than a boot stamping on the face of football forever, it is a Nike Phantom GX sidefooting the ball into the net forever. It’s remarkable to think now that, amid Haaland’s most productive spell, he also represented the closest City have had to a “problem”. Although the Norwegian had scored 69 per cent of his total Premier League goals with 25 by the end of January, it was clear to the manager and almost everyone else that he wasn’t fully in tune with the team. Haaland often had so few touches that it was as if he was separate to the other 10 players, in a way that seemed to go against Guardiola’s principles. The Catalan is after all one of the game’s great ideologues, but this was one area where he was willing to bend. Guardiola had been seeking to add more attributes to the Norwegian’s general game, humorously calling him “Haaland!” rather than by his first name, in the way he does with other players. The manager soon realised it was better to just go with his best player’s best strengths. It also gives Guardiola some satisfaction he went back to his own roots. The Catalan recreated the defensive “box” that Johan Cruyff devised in the Barcelona team that won the club’s first European Cup in 1992, and that Guardiola himself played at the tip of. It at once solved so many issues in the team, while allowing Haaland to move in the way he needed to without the cost of more space opening up elsewhere. John Stones has excelled. City, put bluntly, became close to perfect. They became something unstoppable. They finally put up “the run” that everyone had felt would eventually come, and Arsenal would have no answer to. That was precisely what happened. City won 13 of 14 games, the exception being that 1-1 draw against Forest that preceded 11 straight victories. The most momentous of those was the 4-1 over Arsenal, but to cast it as a title showdown would be as much of an illusion as the idea that there was ever a race at all. The truth is that City just reached the pace they were always going to reach when a team close to trebles for half a decade has a goal machine added under a genius. That April victory made it 7-2 over two games against the runners-up, Mikel Arteta’s side just blown away along with everyone else. Arsenal have been fairly criticised for the way they have “collapsed”, as it’s clear the pressure got to their players. But how couldn’t it? They were up against a team who considered an 81-point return in 2020 their “bad season”. In even matching that, a feat that is one of Arsenal’s highest ever Premier League hauls, Arteta’s young side have performed to their outer limits. It was almost inevitable they would buckle as the realisation grew any slip would be fatal. This is one element that really separates City: that ability to sustain it. It’s very difficult for almost anyone else. And it’s not even like City have gone to the ludicrous levels of 2018 or 2019. Their current return of 85 points from 35 games, and a forecast of 94, would leave them in the mid-range of their own performance level under Guardiola. That is how much this project has distorted the game. Just pointing to winning runs doesn’t sufficiently explain the nature of these titles any more. Much more telling is the manner of those victories. The figures are almost as overwhelming as Haaland’s 36 league goals. In those last 14 league games, City have spent just 10 minutes losing. That was the brief period between Mohamed Salah’s goal for Liverpool at Eastlands and Julio Alvarez’s equaliser. City won that match 4-1. It was one of four three-goal-plus wins over Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea, to go with the same in Europe against Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. That was close to their default position in that final unbeaten run. Accumulated minutes of scoreline states in City’s last 14 games One goal behind, 10 minutes (0.8%) Level score, 446 (35.4%) One goal ahead, 346 (27.5%) Two goals ahead, 241 (19.1%) Three goals ahead, 191 (15.2%) Four-plus goals ahead, 32 (2.5%) In those 14 games, which represent over a third of the season, City spent almost 50 times as long winning by two goals as they did actually losing. Any sense of sporting struggle was a distant memory. This is what is most galling about this, and why this season represents such a threshold, while posing greater questions for football. City have brutalised the very idea of sporting competition. There’s been no tension. There’s been no drama. That has meant there haven’t been any real memorable moments, beyond some great goals and the repeated image of Haaland and De Bruyne tearing at goal. Guardiola and the players would of course argue about how hard they work, but the consequence has been that the results of so many matches have been so predictable. It can’t even be said it’s a one-off. It is anything but. Since the summer of 2017, when Guardiola benefitted from an expenditure of over £200m that helped first shape his squad, City have claimed 543 of 675 available points. That amounts to over 80 per cent over six seasons. Needless to say, no one has ever done this over this stretch of time. This is one crucial reason why there hasn’t been too much will around the game to discuss their greatness or Guardiola’s genius, despite profound respect for the coach and the players. It doesn’t feel like sport should. There is a growing backlash, and a willingness to point out the exact nature of the Abu Dhabi project. As one prominent figure put it, “they have ruined our league, and we still have Newcastle United and maybe Manchester United to come”. This is the story that an increasing number of people around football are now demanding be told, beyond the more simplistic old-fashioned narratives about fine champions or managerial genius. Such a view is entirely consistent with the reality that Guardiola is one of the greatest managers of all time, maybe the greatest ever. But he isn’t separate to all of this, his brilliance just lifting City up. He is a key part of it, as well as the final part of it. The club was first of all able to afford him. Guardiola’s wages are not cheap. They were then able to afford to persuade him. That involved almost wholesale appointment of the hierarchy that gave him his break at Barcelona, as well as the perfect sporting infrastructure, constructed to his specific preferences. This is what happens when you give a genius these pristine laboratory conditions. It has eroded the likelihood for human failure that actually enriches sport. This is what happens when you give him the greatest goalscorer in the world, who also has the potential to be the greatest ever in terms of numbers. Fitting Haaland into a record-breaking team was quite the “problem” to have. Lo and behold, Guardiola managed to do it. City managed to convince the Norwegian to come. There have been moments this season when the £51m figure has been talked of as some sort of bargain, as if it was brilliant negotiation to pull it off. The reality was the club met a clause and were then willing to pay the immense agent fees. This points to one other element that isn’t afforded enough attention in all the discussion around this project. It is not that City always spend the most. It is that there is no financial risk. The state has limitless funds. That is quite a safety net. And this is all happening, it must be remembered, with Financial Fair Play. Imagine what would be happening if such restrictions didn’t exist. That’s also why figures within football are as eager for the outcome of the FFP case as many rival supporters. Some have discussed the idea of clubs chasing damages if the charges are proven. There is a genuine anger within the Premier League, which spiked again on Thursday with the report that the involvement of Murray Rosen KC as chair of the disciplinary commission had been challenged due the fact he is an Arsenal fan. A common view within the legal side of football is that this was “a disgrace”. For the moment, though, it’s all futile. Only a handful of people actually know how the case is proceeding. Nobody can say how long it will take, and it could go into years. City’s hierarchy are meanwhile just as adamant they are innocent. The outcome will be one of the most significant moments in English football history, not least because it will reframe this entire period regardless of what the decision is. This is symbolic of what the sport has become, since almost everything that happens on the pitch is explained by what happens off it. This is why an article marking the English champions goes into so many other issues beyond the excellence of Haaland, the elegance of De Bruyne or the quality of Stones. That’s without even getting into the questions about what Abu Dhabi are using the club for, or the concerns raised by human rights groups. The reality is all of City’s success is ultimately explained by the fact they are a state project. It says much that three successive titles – a feat that has been historically rare – hasn’t been lauded as that much of a landmark. There’s still more to come, maybe for a long time. This City have been so dominant they have eliminated core concepts of sport. They may well have removed the very unpredictability the Premier League sells itself on. Read More Manchester City win fifth Premier League in six seasons after Arsenal falter Pep Guardiola’s five decisions that won Man City the Premier League

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