The quiet inevitability of Arteta's Arsenal

ON THE BALL

- ROWAN CALLAGHAN

THERE'S a particular moment when a football team stops being exciting and starts being inevitable - and Arsenal may be approaching that moment.

This is not the free-flowing, wideeyed Gunners of yesteryear, the ones that played beautiful triangles before abruptly remembering that they also needed to defend. Nor is it the tender, fragile Arsenal of Mikel Arteta's early rebuild.

This is something else entirely: a team that is winning games without ever seeming to hit top gear - the universal warning sign that a dynasty might be germinating.

Manchester City fans know the feeling. Before they were the trophy-hoarding juggernaut we now accept as a natural force, they were something much duller: relentlessly efficient.

They won matches they shouldn't have, survived moments they had no right to survive, and played like a side that trusted the system more than any single star. And somewhere between the umpteenth consecutive narrow league win and Pep Guardiola explaining inverted fullbacks for the 97th time, a dynasty was born.

Arsenal are now entering that intermediate stage of the metamorphosis - the chrysalis of dull excellence, or winning ugly.