Will Arsenal be another City fatality?

Arsenal outperformed all expectations and were at one point cruising towards their first Premier League title since 2004.

Mikel Arteta's men made their best-ever start to a league season, accuring 50 points from 19 games at the halfway point of the league – only six teams had garnered more at this stage of a campaign in English League history.

The Gunners even had an eight-point cushion over defending champions Manchester City till January 18.

However, as is the case with Arsenal often, they seemed to have pressed the self-destruct button at a critical juncture of the league, with just a five-point lead over Pep Guardiola's second-placed Manchester City, who have two games in hand and on Wednesday welcome Arsenal for the most crucial game in the title race for the ongoing season, touted as 'the final' by Arsenal's Gabirel Jesus.  

Apparently, Arsenal suffered defensively in recent games that led to their slump with relentless City breathing down their necks. Arsenal fans now worry that things could take turn for the worse after two consecutive matches where the team have given away a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2, despite seeming to be in complete control, followed by Friday night's shock 3-3 draw at home to bottom club Southampton -- which saw the Gunners draw for a third successive game.

Arsenal have conceded 1.43 goals per game since they beat Spurs in January compared to 0.78 per match up to that point. They have allowed more shots, an average of one more effort on target per game and the chances they have given up have been higher quality -- 0.14 xGA per shot faced on average compared to 0.11 in the first part of the campaign.

While at halfway point of the league Arsenal looked on course for finally ending their 19-year title drought, now they run the risk of being part of an unwanted record. Arsenal sit atop of the table with 75 points from 32 games while City have 70 points from 30 matches. Only 18 teams have previously ever earned 70 or more points after 30 games of a Premier League campaign. 15 of those have gone on to win the title, meaning whichever team between Arsenal and City end up in second place will be just the fourth team to do so in Premier League history having accrued 70 points or more after 30 games.

What could strike more fear into Arsenal fans' hearts is that the previous three teams who lost their way after gaining 70 points from first 30 games have all finished runners up to Man City: Man Utd 2011-12 (73 points), Liverpool 2018-19 (73 points) and Liverpool last season (72 points).

"We have to face them like a final. This is the most important game of the season for us. We have to manage ourselves to come back and be focused again. This is the Premier League, it's so difficult to win this competition," Arsenal forward Jesus remained optimistic ahead of the tour to his old club.

But the real question is, will the optimism be enough to compensate for all the lost points, especially in the last three games, for Arsenal?