In the end, it felt like a reminder to the whole of English football, not just Arsenal, that this is Manchester City’s era and you better come equipped if you really have aspirations about trying to remove Pep Guardiola’s grip, finger by finger, from the Premier League trophy.

Arsenal have had a good stab at it this season, of course. They have given everything in their attempts to change the colour of the ribbons. Without Mikel Arteta’s side, the 2022-23 Premier League would have been a procession, a near-formality for the champions.

Yet the reality for Arsenal has just become clearer and it is the same one that faces any team that fancies having a crack at the title. This is City’s era, full stop. It has been that way for some time and, almost certainly, it will remain that way as long as Guardiola is on the touchline and the money men of Abu Dhabi occupy the executive seats.

That, more than anything, must be the scariest part for City’s rivals, given it needed something almost implausibly brilliant from Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool on the only occasion in the past five years the trophy did not go end up in east Manchester.

Liverpool won the league that time with 99 points. The year before, they managed 97 yet came up short. It was the highest number attained by any club in England’s top division without securing a league title in the process. Arsenal can reach 90 points over the next month and, again, it might not be enough.

The numbers are mind-boggling, given that 90 would equal the haul of the greatest-ever Arsenal side: the team known as the Invincibles, who went unbeaten throughout the entire 2003-04 league season. This Arsenal team have already accumulated as many points as Arsene Wenger’s title-winning side from 2001-02. Their next win will match the total accrued by the club’s 1997-98 double winners.

But the levels have changed in recent years. The bar has been raised — and it all comes back to the modern City.

All of which conjured up one question in particular during last night’s 4-1 win over Arsenal, the latest demonstration of Kevin De Bruyne’s brilliance and the almost freakish statistics of Erling Haaland, superstar. And that question is: Who stops this, who can possibly halt the City juggernaut?

Newcastle United, with their Saudi Arabian ownership, might like to think it will be them one day. Not any day soon, though. It could take years before the team from St James’ Park have fully taken advantage of their new position among the super-rich.

Manchester United will always have haughty ambitions and, if this season’s title race is heading City’s way, maybe Arsenal can take some form of encouragement from the way Liverpool responded after the same happened to them in 2019. Klopp and his players used the disappointment as fuel in their title-winning season a year later.

At the same time, let’s not forget that over the previous five seasons City finished, on average, 27.8 points above Arsenal and 22.6 ahead of Manchester United. The numbers are astonishing. Until this season, there is only Liverpool who have managed to stay within 10 points of Guardiola’s team in any single title race.

Against that kind of backdrop, there are only two possible scenarios that might get in the way of City turning their domination of English football into something with even greater substance.

The first is that Guardiola’s wanderlust will return and he will decide that his current City contract, which runs until 2025, is his last. One theory is that winning the European Cup, maybe even emulating Manchester United’s 1999 treble, will mean he has accomplished everything he set out to do in Manchester and leave him wondering if there are new adventures to be had elsewhere.

Don’t bank on it, though. There have been lots of theories about Guardiola, and how long he will stay, during his seven years at City and usually it finishes with him extending his terms. He likes it there. There is an opportunity for him to create a dynasty.

If their latest freewheeling win is the prelude to another successful title defence, and a third in a row, Guardiola will have moved level with Sir Matt Busby, who won five league championships with Manchester United. Only two managers in post-war football have won more. One is Bob Paisley, with six for Liverpool. The other is Sir Alex Ferguson, with 13 at Old Trafford.

The other scenario goes back to the long and complex investigation into what, if proven, might be termed the biggest financial scandal there has been since the Premier League’s formation.

Nobody can be sure what will happen in relation to the charges that are facing City, only that there are lots of them.

They are accused of more than 100 alleged rule breaches, from 2009 to 2018, including falsely reporting income and salaries and failing to cooperate with a four-year inquiry.

This has been the background to City’s 2022-23 season and it looks like being their first championship since they were accused of building this empire through, in part, cheating. It could be years yet before the lawyers actually face off. Until then, it creates a difficult sub-plot for these nights when City look magnificent and their fans, like all fans, just want to bask in the joys that football can bring.

And let’s be clear about this: Arsenal have been brilliant this season. They have surprised everyone, perhaps even themselves, with their long run at the top of the table. Whatever is said and written about them over the coming days and weeks, this group of players have shown character all season.

Unfortunately for them and their fans, it doesn’t look like it is going to be enough and, barring something improbable, it will not be easy for them to shake off the disappointment. Arteta and his players may have to grow accustomed to the accusation that they lost their nerve. Or, in football parlance, bottled it. “Did they freeze?” he was asked after the match last night. “Were they scared?”

It is the obvious angle when, in the space of 17 days, they have surrendered a two-goal lead at Liverpool, done the same at West Ham and slugged out a wild, eccentric 3-3 draw at home to bottom-of-the-table Southampton.

Yet perhaps we should cut them a bit of slack, too. For a team of alleged chokers, this was Arsenal’s first defeat since February 15. Unfortunately for them, the last one also came against City, in the form of a 3-1 defeat in north London. Realistically, no team can expect to win the league if they lose twice to the side carrying Guardiola’s stamp.

Arsenal have won against Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur this season. Yet they have lost 12 on the bounce to City. They just don’t worry Guardiola’s team in the same way Liverpool did when Klopp’s teams were chasing titles.

And so, six minutes in, Haaland fixed his sights on a high, dropping ball that had been sent forward by John Stones from his own defence. The Norwegian’s sureness of touch, with Rob Holding pressed against his back, showed a footballer playing at the point of maximum expression. De Bruyne was running through the middle and what, if you are an Arsenal fan, goes through your mind in those moments?

OH Kevin De Bruyne!

A great takedown from Erling Haaland who passes to De Bruyne for a stunning run and finish! pic.twitter.com/Ex4pyouHVJ

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 26, 2023

Alarm, presumably.

These are the nights when De Bruyne, in Guardiola’s words, can seem unstoppable. His shot was true because, with De Bruyne, he seems to never snatch at chances. He epitomises City’s seen-it-all-before brilliance. And, boy, he loves the big nights, under the floodlights. De Bruyne, more than anyone, succeeded in making the rest of the night feel like an ordeal for Arsenal players.

Arteta did his best afterwards to remind everyone that, however wildly this victory was celebrated by the crowd, his team were still squatting defiantly near the top of the league and that he has been in football long enough to know that strange things could happen in City’s remaining fixtures.

He had to say this, of course. Nobody really believed it, though. The bottom line is that Arsenal’s lead has been whittled down to two points and the team in second place, who have just whacked them 4-1, still have a couple of games in hand. The momentum has shifted dramatically and Arsenal have been reminded that City, on Guardiola’s watch, might be an even bigger challenge than their rivals from these parts during the peak Wenger years.

Arsenal know what it is like to win the league at Old Trafford. They know what it is like to win the league at White Hart Lane. They still sing about both occasions. But winning the league at the Etihad? This is the era of City and, as David Moyes once said during his time with Everton, sometimes it can feel like going into a gunfight armed with only a knife.

(Top photo: Isaac Parkin – MCFC/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)