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Arsenal’s Title Dreams Dashed Despite Last-Day Win Over Everton
Arsenal's hopes of winning the Premier League for the first time in twenty years were shattered when Manchester City defeated West Ham to win the title, making their 2-1 victory over Everton meaningless.
In order to miraculously win the title, Mikel Arteta's team needed to defeat Everton at the Emirates Stadium and hope that City would either draw or lose in Manchester.
But after champions City defeated West Ham 3-1, the Gunners had to make do with second place.
Late in the first half, Idrissa Gueye gave Everton the lead, but Takehiro Tomiyasu swiftly pulled one back.
City was already well on its way to winning the championship when Kai Havertz scored the game-winning goal for Arsenal in the 89th minute.
Anticipating a title-winning team, Arsenal supporters had strolled along the sun-kissed Holloway Road into the Emirates more in hope than expectation.
A gesture towards the favour demanded from their London rivals situated 200 miles north, a few even donned West Ham shirts instead of those belonging to their own clubs.
Before kickoff, the crowd sang the club's hymn, "North London Forever," in a boisterous manner that intensified the atmosphere.
There was quiet in the stands.
Even without the injured star Bukayo Saka, Arsenal should have taken the lead early on when Tomiyasu missed a close-range header.
But as soon as word spread that Phil Foden had scored City's first goal in the second minute, the excitement collapsed.
The sold-out 60,000 spectators fell into a despondent silence, but Arsenal tried their best to regroup.
The Everton supporters insulted the Arsenal supporters with chants of "You nearly won the league" after Foden's second goal in the eighteenth minute silenced the home crowd.
As Declan Rice leaped to block Gueye's free kick, the ball took a nasty deflection off his head and looped past the wrong-footed David Raya of Arsenal into the far corner, giving Everton the lead.
To their credit, the Gunners showed no signs of giving up and equalised three minutes later through a superb finish by Tomiyasu, who met Martin Odegaard's ball from well inside the box and flew past Jordan Pickford.
When they learned that Mohammed Kudus had cut the deficit for West Ham late in the first half, Arsenal supporters put up a furious yell.
They were rejoicing for a little while when a spurious story that West Ham had equalised went viral.
Arsenal was four points behind City in the "as it stands" table at halftime, having been pulled in an instant from hopelessness to optimism.
As Arsenal's players huddled together in anticipation of one more charge in the second half, Havertz squandered two opportunities to offer them hope, first nodding wide and then heading against the crossbar.
There was stillness in the Emirates bleachers after City's goal in the 59th minute through Rodri.
And Arsenal had already accepted that their prospects of winning the title were over until Havertz scored a late goal.