GUNS HAV DEFIANCE

Kai winner helps runners-up go out with heads held high

- ANDY DUNN

IT WAS a warm enough day in London for the Premier League to sanction a midhalf drinks break.

Arsenal's glum-faced players might as well have had a pint. If they did not know by the time they took a thirstquencher, they soon found out.

Inside 20 minutes, Phil Foden, it seemed, had reduced a final-day title tussle to a formality and everyone inside the Emirates knew it. Or assumed it.

And when Idrissa Gueye's (inset) freekick was pretty much headed into his own net by Declan Rice - technically, it goes down as a deflection - it was met with a collective shrug of resignation.

But you can add one more attribute to the list of qualities this Arsenal team possesses.

Defiance. Defiance that surfaced through Takehiro Tomiyasu's well-taken equaliser and which grew when news of the Mohammed Kudus' worldie in Manchester filtered through.

Defiance that came from the stands, albeit falsely flamed by news of a West Ham leveller before the break at the Etihad.