OLIVER HOLT: Even if Arsenal win nothing they would be insane to bow to the angry AFTV mob and sack Mikel Arteta. The Gunners boss is so near to success, why rip it up now?

Arsenal sit at the top of the Premier League, three points clear of Manchester City, at least until Wednesday night when Pep Guardiola’s surging team may indeed catch and overtake them after they play Burnley at Turf Moor.

Arsenal are also in the final four of the Champions League , the last remaining English representative. At the end of the month, they will embark upon their semi-final against Atletico Madrid for the right to face Paris Saint-Germain or Bayern Munich in the final in Budapest.

It has been quite a season until now. Arsenal have faltered in the last few weeks and on Sunday, they lost against a City team that mixed flashes of genius with youthful exuberance and with the ageless and inspirational class of Bernardo Silva .

Arsenal played well against City, though. They went for it. They gave it everything. They did not freeze. They played better than they have done for some time and, with a bit of luck, they might have had a draw. City’s superior finishing, compared to Arsenal’s profligacy, was the difference.

The title race isn’t over, even though City have the advantage psychologically and many have now anointed them champions just as many, like me, anointed Arsenal champions when they were playing so imperiously earlier in the season. If Arsenal can play like they played at the Etihad on Sunday, the title race is close to 50-50.

In those circumstances, it feels strange and grimly predictable that there is a growing cohort of Arsenal supporters, the AFTV angry mob and the like, who want to see their manager, Mikel Arteta , sacked if their team comes second to City in the Premier League and falls short in the Champions League.

Mikel Arteta is so close to getting Arsenal over the line that it makes no sense for the club to turn against him

It feels like there will be a fully-fledged 'Arteta Out' movement should a couple more results go against the Gunners

It does not take long for disappointment to curdle into outrage in English football today and it is not hard to discern a simmering hostility towards Arteta that feels as if it is about to boil over into a fully-fledged 'Arteta Out' movement should a couple more results go against the Gunners.

Let’s say Arsenal come out of this season with nothing. Let’s say they finish runners-up in the league for the fourth season in succession. Sure, it would be brutally disappointing but would it really serve the club’s best interests to get rid of the manager who has turned Arsenal into contenders again?

Do that and Arsenal go back to square one. Get a new manager and that means upheaval and change. It means a raft of new players, it means time. And who out there is better than Arteta?

It is easy to say that Arteta is not as good as Guardiola but the truth is that nobody is as good as Guardiola. So every rival of City has to suck that up and find a way around it. Is there anybody else that would be an improvement on Arteta? Xabi Alonso? Maybe, but maybe not. Andoni Iraola? Maybe, maybe not. Luis Enrique? Maybe, but he is unlikely to leave PSG.

The better option is to stick with Arteta. The better option, even if Arsenal come up short this season, is to go again with Arteta. The better option is to improve again, just as they have improved this season compared to last season. The better option is to think they are so close to getting over the line, so why rip it all up now?

‘You work towards a goal,’ the superstar NBA player Giannis Antetokounmpo said after his Milwaukee Bucks fell to a shock elimination by the Miami Heat in the first round of the NBA play-offs in 2023. ‘It’s not a failure; it’s steps to success.

‘There's always steps to it. Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships; the other nine years was a failure? That's what you're telling me? There's no failure in sports. You know, there's good days, bad days.

‘Some days you are able to be successful, some days you're not. Some days, it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. And that's what sports is about. You don't always win; some other team’s gonna win. And this year, somebody else is gonna win. Simple as that.’

Arsenal are in the last four of the Champions League - as well as top of the Premier League table - thanks to Kai Havertz's goal against Sporting Lisbon

Arsenal have had a brilliant season so far. They have had the kind of season that 90 other teams in the top four divisions would give anything for

Some have decried that as wrong-think gobbledegook that is merely attempting to disguise failure. Others have applauded it. What remains is this: Arsenal should throw everything that they have behind Arteta for the last five games of the Premier League season. There is all to play for.

They have had a brilliant season so far. They have had the kind of season that 90 other teams in the top four divisions would give anything for. They are now in a five-game shootout to win the league.

They should throw everything they have, too, behind Arteta’s attempt to win the first Champions League title in Arsenal’s long and fabled history. Arteta is taking steps to success. The worst thing the club could do at the end of the season is to turn away from him.

Haaland's moral edge over Gabriel

For an ugly incident, Gabriel’s ‘headbutt’ on Erling Haaland has left a lot of people looking good.

I still think the Arsenal centre-half was lucky to escape a red card but the reality is that it was not really a headbutt at all. Gabriel’s forehead did not separate from Haaland’s forehead at any point. It was more of a scrape than a butt. Yosser Hughes would have been ashamed of it.

Most of all, Haaland deserves credit for his reaction. Maybe we have reached a sad pass when we are praising a footballer for not falling over but Haaland bucked the trend by staying on his feet.

Most players would have hit the deck like a sack of potatoes and performed a few forward rolls for good measure when Gabriel did what he did. But Haaland, son of the robust former Leeds United player Alf-Inge, was not hurt and so he did not go down.

Gabriel’s forehead did not separate from Erling Haaland’s forehead at any point. It was more of a scrape than a butt

‘I think that’s a red card,’ Haaland said afterwards. ‘If I go down, like any other guy would do, it’s a red card, but I will never do this. My father taught me to stay on your feet'

‘I think that’s a red card,’ Haaland said afterwards. ‘If I go down, like any other guy would do, it’s a red card, but I will never do this. My father taught me to stay on your feet and don’t be a... I cannot say the word, but it begins with a “p”.’

Haaland’s stance may well have saved Gabriel from a three-match ban in the title run-in but his act of old-fashioned defiance will help to define his legacy as a City legend.

‘You never put me down, Ray,’ Jake LaMotta says to Sugar Ray Robinson in Raging Bull . Haaland may have just established a psychological edge, even a moral edge, over his rival for the next time they meet.

Rahm wins, nobody cares

Jon Rahm won LIV Golf Mexico City by six shots on Sunday. I had barely heard of any of the three golfers who trailed him home, which is nothing for me to be proud about but does say something about the calibre of the doomed tour.

Rahm won. Nobody cares. The sooner they put the misbegotten, cash-guzzling, career-ruining, Saudi plaything out of its misery, the better.