Lewis-Skelly delivers act of Real disruption

Teenager has become Arsenal's spirit animal in European run and looked at home in Bernabéu victory

- Barney Ronay

here is la remontada? Seriously. There really was supposed to be a remontada around here somewhere. Of all the sprinkles of sugar, the crispy, salty, crunchy morsels for Arsenal's supporters to pick over after Wednesday night's brilliantly assured victory at the Bernabéu it is probably Myles Lewis-Skelly's part that will give the most lasting satisfaction.

Sadly for the banter-angle it seems the post-match rumour that Lewis-Skelly had approached Jude Bellingham and asked him: 'Where is la remontada?', as recycled across social media in a dizzying range of languages, turns out to have been, of all things, made up.

Presumably someone somewhere is already overseeing a furious first press of T-shirts carrying Lewis-Skelly's new strapline. The memes will endlessly replicate. Already a backlash against the backlash is insisting, without evidence, that Lewis-Skelly did actually say this after all. We're post-truth here people. Does it actually matter, if enough convincingly clipped-up noise is generated? There are fine people on both sides here.

More to the point, phantom Lewis-Skelly was right. There was no improbable act of sporting fan-fiction at the Bernabéu. And Lewis-Skelly, perhaps more than anyone else on the pitch, got to act out his own version of remontada-denialism, a tribute to the power and the clarity of being too young and too cool to care about That Thing Everyone Goes On About.

It is worth remembering on nights like these that Lewis-Skelly is still only 18. He has still played only 17 Premier League games. He also still isn't really a full-back, more an ongoing hunch-based conversion.

No good has ever come from trying to predict the ceiling of a prodigiously talented footballer. What kind of player is he anyway? Utility marauder. Polyvalent semi-defender. All-purpose shithouse scamp. Lewis-Skelly had already got under Bellingham's skin during the first leg, and the relationship is clearly a grower.