Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United and the battle to make a mockery of the ‘Champions’ League – The Warm-Up

Few stadiums feel like they are one big bounce from caving in like Selhurst Park. And the rickety pillars and uncomfortable seats were creaking big time as the supporters sprung up and down in unison to mark Wilfried Zaha’s third against Arsenal, a goal that confirmed Palace would be going top in the race to finish ninth.

Over in the opposition dugout, Mikel Arteta played his role perfectly. Arms folded. Face of thunder. Mentally rehearsing his “it’s unacceptable” speech for the press.

This was coming. They may have been on a very un-Arsenal-like run of good results but the points have shielded a team that is full of holes. Their main striker hasn’t scored from open play in over 18 hours (incidentally, over in Barcelona, their erstwhile captain, a man they let go for nothing, is banging them in under a manager Arteta not-so-secretly strives to be). Kieran Tierney’s injury means a weekly roulette with Nuno Tavares at left-back. Even Thomas Partey and Martin Odegaard, midfielders we were led to believe are world-class, dropped stinkers at Selhurst Park – and the former now also looks set for a spell on the sidelines.

Arsenal occupy a beautiful narrative, lurching from being worse than they actually are to being heralded as the Second Coming after a few above-average displays. So now, after a single 3-0 defeat on the road that still leaves the top-four fight in their own hands, we’re back to Armageddon at the Emirates.

Whoever finishes fourth out of Arsenal, Spurs and Man Utd – don’t get upset West Ham/Wolves fans, you know it won’t be you – will hardly be able to relate when the chaaaaaampions” is blaring round their stadium next season. All their trophy dreams have evaporated already this year: out of Europe before the meaty end (Arsenal didn’t even qualify, in an embarrassing caveat) and more domestic cup misery. There is nothing champions about any of them.

It’s so bleak that United legend Wayne Rooney is openly campaigning for his former side to miss out deliberately. “I think they’d want the season to stop now and forget about the Champions League, because they’re not going to compete next year in the Champions League if they qualify for it,” he said on MNF on Sky Sports. Imagine being so bad that even with a new manager and another transfer window with a blank chequebook, one of your best players – who won a title alongside Tom Cleverley, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling – has already written you off.

On paper, that great battlefield where football is never played, United are by far the best. Then again, they are beset by the biggest problems and their own fans – and now club legends – genuinely seem to hate them. Meanwhile, Arsenal have been the most consistent but have a proud history of doing slightly worse than the season before and while it’s Tottenham’s turn to have the momentum, we all know what happens when it dawns on them they can actually win something. Maybe we wrote off West Ham and Wolves too soon…

At least if Arsenal finish outside the top four, they can end the Arteta experiment and recruit the man who not only masterminded their downfall on Monday night, but was also the last captain to clutch a proper trophy (nope, FA Cups don’t count anymore) at the Emirates. Oh no wait, it was so long ago it was at Highbury.

AC Milan rocked their new fourth kit against Bologna last night and were rightly rewarded with a damaging goalless draw by the football gods.

You can’t wear a half-finished strip and expect to win the title. Various theories have been floated:

Whatever the excuse – after realising it wasn’t a joke, we now believe it’s a clever ploy to make their other kits look more appealing to potential customers – it really does look like fourth place in a junior school competition to design a strip. Please, for the love of God, don’t ever wear this again.

If you were born before 1995, you inevitably spent a good portion of your life willing 2D circles to do a thing on Football Manager. If you were born afterwards, it’s hard to explain just how delightful this is:

We know we sassed him earlier in this piece, but we're not really going to write off Phil Jones when we still have dreams of winning the Summer-Winter Olympics double despite being over 30, ravaged with long Covid and possessing the self-discipline of Lee Cattermole. Here’s the defender telling The Guardian why he will never give up and it's a great interview. However the biggest revelation: he’s played at TWO World Cups?? We must have missed those.

It’s only fitting that we throw back to Jones’ greatest moment. No, not neutralising the entire Real Madrid team in 2013. The tackle that revolutionised defending. And memes.

Two juicy matches on the Champions League menu tonight: Benfica v Liverpool and Man City v Atletico. Both kick-off at 20:00 BST and if you can’t watch it, settle in on the Eurosport app for live text commentary.