Up in the Emirates Stadium directors’ box, Josh Kroenke must have been asking himself whether any of this is sustainable. The son of Arsenal’s owner, Stan, was paying their employees a visit and saw the latest iteration of what has, with eye-popping speed, become a scarily familiar script.
This was a raw, wild, sometimes genuinely unpleasant evening that only became so because Unai Emery’s team, two goals up after nine minutes and threatening more, switched off and threw it all away. If that was the entire story then perhaps Kroenke could limit himself to frustration that nowadays their box-office appeal lies almost solely in their uncanny capacity to create doubt from serenity. But what he saw in the 61st minute would trouble any decision maker and suggest that it will take an almighty turnaround to heave relationships back to normal from here.