Nottingham Forest 1-0 Arsenal: Taiwo Awoniyi’s early goal confirms Man City as Champions

There was no sign of Win, Arsenal’s chocolate Labrador, at the City Ground on Saturday night. Maybe he was on a choke chain somewhere. There was no sign of winning, nor the opposite of losing. At least not for Mikel Arteta’s team. They have registered just two in their last eight games. Seems like they gave their dog a bad name.

This 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in front of a frenzied crowd, deliriously happy to be rid of relegation, meant that a title race that once promised to end with a wail to the end. Faced with Manchester City’s ruthlessness, Arsenal just couldn’t keep up.

And so City and their manager Pep Guardiola finally got their third title in a row and their fifth in six years, without kicking a ball. The title was lost on the banks of the River Trent and Arsenal snuck off to lick their wounds, their withdrawal from greatness complete.

City’s game against Chelsea on Sunday will not be fraught with nerves or any sense of danger as it may have once been. It will be a coronation. It will be billed as soon as the first episode of the Treble is completed.

It will pay homage to a side that rivals Manchester United’s dominance in the Sir Alex Ferguson years. It will also be an investigation into whether anyone will get close to City in the foreseeable future and whether that is healthy for the English game.

It will be accompanied by reminders that City are facing 115 Premier League charges for breaching Financial Fair Play rules. City strongly denies those allegations. If found guilty, the legacy they are building will be tarnished.

City’s game against Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon will not be fraught with nerves or any sense of danger as it may have once been. It will be a coronation. It is billed when the first installment of the Treble is completed.

With Arsenal’s defeat, City became only the fifth English club to win three successive top-flight titles. Widely recognized as the leading coach in the world, Guardiola is only the second manager after Ferguson to do so.

There was a time when Arsenal threatened to dethrone the champions. By the middle of the season they had 50 points and at one point were eight points ahead of City. But in the end they were flattered to deceive. As City accelerated, Arsenal faded.

Arsenal have still had a wonderful season, a season that exceeded expectations, a season in which Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard in particular excelled. But it ends with a measly sense of anticlimax and what could have been. “It’s a sad day,” Arteta said after the game.

For Vorst, the opposite was true. This victory means they are safe with the remaining relegation places being contested by Leicester City, Leeds United and Everton. That performance is a triumph for their manager, Steve Cooper, who has done such a fantastic job this season, and it’s a triumph for their owner, Evangelos Marinakis, who stayed with Cooper when other clubs sacked their bosses in panic.

Marinakis endured torture in the management box here, but as the final whistle blew a tremendous roar rose from this stadium and rolled over the River Trent and far beyond to signal that another season will be spent in the Premier League .

Cooper eloquently said after the game that he knew he would have to learn to “suffer” this season, that he knew that he would have to deal with more defeats than he was used to and that he would have to recover from them. He ensured survival amidst the chaos of the army of new signings arriving at the start of the season.

Forest and their fans celebrated exuberantly at the end. The players took a lap of honor on the field to celebrate their survival and danced and jumped to Freed From Desire. Their desire at least in this match was what separated them from Arsenal. Desire was something Arteta’s party seemed to have lost.

Somewhere in the north west, perhaps on the golf course at Mottram Hall in Cheshire, where Ferguson was told that Oldham had drawn with Aston Villa and that United had won the title thirty years ago, Guardiola is said to have learned of his latest triumph.

His players posted pictures of themselves watching the Forest-Arsenal game together and whooped with joy at the final whistle.

Guardiola and his team have more land to conquer. If this all came too soon for Arteta’s fledgling Arsenal side, then City is in their splendour. They can rest players for their remaining three league games and keep them fresh for the FA Cup final against United at Wembley on June 3 and the Champions League final against Internazionale in Istanbul on June 10.

In any case, Arsenal will be able to look forward to playing next season in the Champions League. They should capitalize on what they have achieved and strengthen from a position of strength. When the disappointment of how it all ended wears off, they need to realize they have a chance here.

The atmosphere in the stadium was loud and expectant and in the opening stages Arsenal seemed surprised by the intensity of their opponents and the crowd. But ten minutes later, Arsenal regained their composure.

Odegaard misled his marker with a beautiful feint near Forest’s touchline and, as the ball was worked to Leandro Trossard, slipped a pass to Gabriel Jesus. Jesus shot at it, but Keylor Navas rushed out to smother his shot.

Midway through the half, however, Arsenal gave Forest the opener. Odegaard, usually so meticulous, played a loose pass straight to Morgan Gibbs-White and Gibbs-White moved into the retreating Arsenal defence.

Taiwo Awoniyi peeled away to the right, Gibbs-White chose the perfect moment to pass the ball to him and when Gabriel slid in to try and clear the ball he played it against Awoniyi and the ball rebounded off his leg and past Aaron Ramsdale in the net.

Arsenal dominated possession in the quest for an equaliser, but saw very little of it in the first half. But shortly after the break Forest was allowed to escape when the visitors thought they had won a penalty.

Jesus shot through to a through ball and ran into Joe Worrall, who pulled him back by the shoulder. Jesus went down theatrically, but umpire Anthony Taylor waved play on. Jesus was so outraged by the decision that his protests earned him a yellow card.

Fifteen minutes later, Forest almost went further ahead. A mistake by Ben White, fresh from his mauling by Kaoru Mitoma in Arsenal’s defeat to Brighton last week, saw Gibbs-White get on target, but when he tried to beat Ramsdale at the near post from a tight angle, his shot into the side nets.

Arsenal did everything they could to drag themselves back into the game, but they never made Forest uncomfortable. They were spent. Their season was over. Back in London, Win was getting used to losing. City celebrated in Manchester.