Arsenal do not play Bournemouth on Saturday. They played Bournemouth last Saturday, at the Emirates, and they lost 2-1. [1] It was Arsenal's first-ever home league defeat to Bournemouth, and it blew the Premier League title race, which had looked decided, wide open. Alex Scott scored the winner. Manchester City closed the gap at the top to six points with six matches remaining. [2]

The lunchtime fixture on April 18 is Brentford against Fulham at 12:30, followed by Leeds-Wolves and Newcastle-Bournemouth in the 3pm slot. [3] The weekend's meaningful English match is Sunday at the Etihad, when Arsenal travel to Manchester City in what Pep Guardiola, with his usual tactical management of expectations, called the match that ends City's title bid "if we lose."

This is Arteta's Stamford Bridge moment inverted. The point about last weekend at the Emirates was not that Arsenal lost — any side can lose — but the manner. They led 1-0 at half-time against a Bournemouth side with a third of their budget and surrendered two goals in fifteen minutes. The Bournemouth set-piece, the Bournemouth counter, the Bournemouth press: all Premier League ordinary, and all of them enough.

Sunday at the Etihad is the season. City are at home, in form, and carrying the momentum of a six-point swing in a week. A draw extends Arsenal's title race into May with matches against Newcastle and Liverpool still to come. A defeat ends it. Arteta's players spent the week being told both. Saturday's lunchtime kickoff is the table setting for what follows.

-- CHARLES ASHFORD, London