Arsenal cross their most tough check after breathless VAR drama: OLIVER HOLT on the second that might outline the season, how the Gunners almost misplaced their heads and what Pep Guardiola would have product of all of it

On Saturday night at the Etihad, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola had raised his arms and crossed one wrist in front of the other, the symbol that identifies a West Ham supporter. ‘Come on you Irons,’ he said with a wicked grin as he rose from his chair and left the room, glancing back as laughter followed him to the door.

He needed West Ham to do him and City a huge favour at the London Stadium early on Sunday evening. He needed West Ham to get at least a point against Arsenal to give City hope. He needed Arsenal to crack and falter. This was it. He knew it. Arsenal knew it. And West Ham, fighting for their lives against relegation knew it, too.

In the dying seconds of the six minutes added on at the end, with Arsenal clinging to a 1-0 lead they had only earned in the 83rd minute, a new drama unfolded that made it seem as if the gods had listened to Guardiola’s imprecations.

In the midst of the usual wrestling match that corners have become this season, Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya spilled the ball and, after a brief melee, Callum Wilson rifled it over the line.

Referee Chris Kavanagh gave the goal. Arsenal were stunned, West Ham exultant. The title was in City’s hands again. Arsenal had blown it. It was all up for grabs again. But if the Gods had listened to Guardiola, VAR had not.

Replays showed that West Ham substitute Pablo had his arm across Raya’s throat as Jarrod Bowen’s cross flew into the area. VAR reviewed the referee’s decision. It was, it was immediately obvious, the biggest call in the cursed and reviled history of the VAR system in this country.

There was an interminable delay. The drama, the knowledge of the repercussions this decision would have for both sides, gripped your throat and made it hard to breathe. After a season of struggle, everything had come down to this. Success and failure, triumph and despair, crystallised in one moment. ‘This is an earthquake of a moment,’ Gary Neville said on Sky Sports, and he was right.

The referee, Chris Kavanagh, went to the touchline to look at the screen. He pored over the replays for an age as the players gathered around him. Pablo fouled Raya. That much was clear. But there were other fouls, too. The Arsenal box was anarchy. They almost always are these days.

Who knows what is a foul and what is not any more? Who knows what will be penalised and what will not? Who knows when leeway will be given and when it will not? The entire system has been allowed to devolve into semi-unregulated chaos.

Eventually, Mr Kavanagh walked back to the pitch and made his announcement. He said that the West Ham number 19 (Pablo) had fouled the Arsenal goalkeeper. The equaliser was overturned. It felt like the moment Arsenal won the title.

And that was it. The final whistle sounded soon afterwards and some of the Arsenal players fell to the floor in relief, disbelief and emotional exhaustion. They still have to play Burnley at home and Crystal Palace away but this was their most difficult task. If they win that last pair of games, they will be champions of England for the first time in 22 years.

Afterwards, West Ham manager Nuno Espirito Santo cut through the controversy with a thoughtful and impossibly dignified analysis of what had happened in those final seconds and how it had been allowed to happen in the first place.

‘There is a lack of consistency in the decisions,’ Nuno said. ‘It is almost like a wrestling situation out there. No one understands what is a foul. The referees confuse themselves. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. Everybody is trying to see what is the frontier of what is a foul and what is not. Everybody is confused. It is not up to us to judge. It is up to them to solve.’

Arsenal had almost contrived to throw it all away even before the dramatic denouement. Mikel Arteta had made a mess of his substitutions and the superiority Arsenal had enjoyed in the first half had disappeared after the break. There were times it felt they had lost their nerve and their composure. The Curse of Pep appeared to have done its work. And then, at the very last, Arsenal were delivered from their doom.

Arsenal should have put the game out of reach in the first half. They should have taken the lead in the ninth minute when Leandro Trossard played a sumptuous pass with the outside of his right boot in behind the West Ham defence and into the path of Riccardo Calafiori.

Calafiori was clean through on Mads Hermansen and the ball was begging to be hit with his right foot. But Calafiori wanted to use his left foot and that gave Konstantinos Mavropanos time to get back and block the shot when it finally came.

That was just a prelude to another burst of Arsenal chances. Declan Rice struck a deep corner to the back post where Trossard met it unmarked and powered a header towards goal. Hermansen conjured a superb reaction save to claw it out. The ball bobbled around in the air and when it fell to Trossard again, his second header cannoned off the post.

Midway through the half, Mavropanos came to West Ham’s rescue again. Rice curled in a free kick with pace and whip to the near post where Calafiori got to it first and glanced it goalwards. Hermansen was beaten but Mavropanos, again, flung himself in the path of the ball and kept it out with his right boot.

The West Ham crowd had had little to cheer but they finally came to life when Crysencio Summerville went on a run down the left and broke through a couple of tackles. Ben White came off worse in one of them, which looked suspiciously close to a stamp. White had to be replaced by Martin Zubimendi. Rice moved to right back.

Summerville was providing West Ham with their only glimmers of hope. He turned away from Myles Lewis-Skelly beautifully on half-way before scuffing a shot wide. Then he clattered into Gabriel, which earned him more cheers. And a yellow card.

But his efforts had roused the crowd and the rest of his team and West Ham began to threaten. As the clock ticked over into added time at the end of the first half, Wan-Bissaka broke free down the right and clipped a cross into the box. Taty Castellanos met it with a flying header and it was destined for the bottom corner until Raya launched himself to his right and made a wonderful save to push it wide.

It was obvious by then that the decision to move Rice to right-back had backfired badly. Arsenal had lost control of midfield. Arteta had a decision to make at half-time. The bold thing would have been to substitute Zubimendi and bring Cristhian Mosquera on but that was not the option Arteta chose.

When the teams ran out for the second half, Mosquera was indeed among the Arsenal players but it was not Zubimendi who had been sacrificed. It was Calafiori. That felt harsh on Calafiori, who had made such a big impact in attacking positions for Arsenal in the first half. Lewis-Skelly moved to left back, which deprived Arsenal of his verve in midfield.

It felt like the wrong move immediately but it took Arteta and his staff another 23 minutes to realise it. They finally did what they should have done at half-time and accepted that Zubimendi in midfield just wasn’t working. They substituted the substitute and replaced him with Kai Havertz.

Arsenal appealed for a penalty when they claimed that a loose ball had hit Pablo’s hand as he lay on the floor in the box but even by today’s standards, it would have been a harsh to penalise the West Ham substitute. Referee Chris Kavanagh waved the appeals away.

At the other end, West Ham missed a golden chance to take the lead when Mateus Fernandes skipped away from a lunging challenge from Gabriel in the box and found himself with only Raya to beat. It seemed certain to score but he hit his shot right at the goalkeeper, who blocked it with his body.

Everything seemed to be falling apart for Arsenal. They started to lose their heads. They could feel the league slipping away from their grasp again. Frustration began to get the better of them. Saka and Mosquera were booked for fouls in quick succession.

And then, seven minutes from time, Arsenal got the goal they and their fans had been craving. Martin Odegaard jinked his way into the box and then turned and laid the ball back for Trossard. Trossard hit it first time and it took a deflection off Tomas Soucek and sped into the net.

Odegaard fell to his knees in the box in relief and exultation. Trossard ran towards the Arsenal fans in the stand behind the goal, who rushed down the aisles to celebrate with him and the rest of the players.

But it was still not over. Bowen’s corner deep into added time caused chaos in the box, Wilson rifled the ball home and the stadium erupted. Then came the intervention of VAR and Mr Kavanagh. If Arsenal do crawl over the line in this race, it will be remembered as the moment they won the league.