What might concentrate on the back of Arsenal's minds today is that Erling Haaland really had a point.
When the Manchester City striker left the stage at the end of the Evisceration of the Arsenal of his team in the Emirates on Sunday, the badge said in his arm that marks him as a winner of the Premier League title. Twice.
Insignificant? Yes. Desperate? After such mauling, maybe a little.
But he was relevant the same because, as much as we admire Arsenal for his ambition, his energy, his growing belief and his undisputed talent talent, they are not a team of winners.
No now, not yet. They win great games but, more than five years after the reign of Mikel Arteta, they are not a team that wins great trophies.
And this is the challenge before them now. We know the direction in which Pep Guardiola and his city team are traveling. Arsenal can rejoice in that, since they have suffered in the hands of the champions in recent years.
Erling Haaland reminded Arsenal a simple fact even after he was at the end of a hammer
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Myles Lewis -Skelly is a fantastic talent, but should Haaland's mickey get?
Twice they have been directed by the title of the Premier League, but twice they have ended up shattered by the wheels of the Trilla de Abu Dhabi.
But now there must be more than this for Arsenal. There must be trophies. They have three to play for the next four months and it seems that they must simply find a way to win one of them.
Individual victories mean something. They develop trust, belief and unity. They strengthen ties inside and serve to build an aura. You hit a team like City 5-1 and people look at you differently.
However, ultimately, the challenges for all the best teams are greater than that, they are more rounded.
Arsenal, for example, is in Newcastle tomorrow night seeking to cancel a 2-0 deficit of the first leg of a Capao Cup semifinal against Eddie Howe's team.
Newcastle has just lost at home against Fulham in the Premier League and on the accessory before that in Tyneside they sent four to Bournemouth.
Then there is a vulnerability to choose there. There is the opportunity to meet Sunday's great victory and start. The victories of the statement tend to lose their authority when it fails to support them.
The Arteta Arsenal team is an emotional group and is an emotional coach. It is part of what they are and can work. The equipment can run at the end of the energy it provides.
Arsenal made a great statement in the victory against Manchester City
Haaland had only nine touches in the Emirates, but one of them was the draw of the city
Likewise, there must always be a middle ground between that and a stability of the heart and the mind. Has Arsenal fallen the wrong side of that line in the past? Possibly so. Finding that balance remains a challenge for them.
On Sunday in the Emirates he was flooded with Malchechado and City had caused much of him before. Haaland encouraged Arteta, once a city coach, of course, to 'stay humble' after the teams attracted 2-2 in Manchester last September.
Seeing the young Myles Lewis-Skelly on the periphery of that argument, he asked: “Who the hell are you?” He was unnecessary and was condescending.
So the victory of the weekend was undoubtedly as the recovery of all that. Arsenal had waited for a while for the time and they gave their opinion. The city has become accustomed to coming to the Emirates and having things in its own way.
Not anymore. Arsenal had boiled and enjoyed it thoroughly. Very correct.
Lewis-Skelly's part was interesting and fundamental. The goal he scored in the second half was fundamental for victory and the first for a teenager who, along with his scorer partner Ethan Nwaneri, has reached the ranks in the club.
Arsenal is proud of both. Lewis-Skelly, who is already involved in a controversy of a red card in Wolves a week earlier, decided to mark his strike imitating one of Haaland's goal celebrations.
Emirates loved their teammates. Choosing celebrating his first senior goal by taking Mickey out of a guy who scored 250 of them and has a Premier League, Champions League and Fa Cup Treble in his name was a bold movement.
Arsenal is not out of it in the Caabao Cup despite losing the first leg 2-0 against Newcastle
The FA 2020 Cup is still the only main arsenal trophy under Mikel Arteta
If it was correct, perhaps it is clarified over time, but Arteta hinted after the game that may be preferable for his players to concentrate on the challenges that are coming, instead of getting involved in the mockery of the pattern of a powerful and historical rival.
“It is reduced to players, but they know my opinion,” said Arteta.
'We have to focus on us and leave anything else that happens. We have been in football for a long time. Just leave it. Nothing to be done.
He felt as a timely intervention of Arteta, a coach who knows that City will return at some point and also feels the power and quality of a Liverpool team that has a six -point advantage at the top of the league with a game in the game in the hand.
With Liverpool in mind, it is difficult to imagine that Arne Slot players are dragged to something as personal and aggravating as what we witness on Sunday.
Large teams can be unpleasant. You can say that it is a prerequisite. But being as emotionally invested as Arsenal sometimes appears is something completely different.
Arteta may feel that her emotionally inverted style works for her particular group of players
Spanish would be wise to worry less about what the outside world thinks about your team
Arteta may feel that it works for your private group. The Spanish would be wise to worry less about what the outside world thinks and says and cares only about the dynamics at stake.
Even so, you may want to relieve Lewis-Skelly back to earth gently. The great Brian Clough would undoubtedly have asked him to play for reservations this week, but those days have gone and may be the best.
As the dust settled in the Emirates on Sunday, it certainly felt as if the Arsenal season went to boil at the right time. They are still a fabulously talented soccer team and now they will feel that they have proven to be a point.
And maybe they have done it. The problem is that it is only in early February and the really important battles have not yet developed.