WHEN the maths finally tells Arsenal this unexpected and exciting title challenge has bitten the dust, expect plenty of positives to be aired.

That this is just the first step and they’ll be back next season and challenge for years to come.

3Mikel Arteta failed to help Arsenal turn the tide in what could be a decisive dent to their title bid, Wednesday’s 4-1 defeat at the EtihadCredit: Richard Pelham / The Sun3Kevin Keegan couldn’t bear to watch as Newcastle threw away the 1996 titleCredit: Sky Sports3The pressure famously got to Keegan, including here with his ‘I would love it’ rantCredit: Sky Sports

That this will have been character-building and the players will be even stronger from the experience.

Mikel Arteta, of course, will have learned so much from how an advantage was thrown away and the same mistakes will not be made next time.

It won’t be long before they get that title for the first time since 2004.

The problem is it doesn’t always work like that.

Not when you have been so far ahead.

Not when you have this moment in time and fail to grasp it.

Not when you have blown successive two-goal leads to Liverpool and West Ham, then needed a fightback to only draw at home with doomed Southampton, followed by Wednesday’s 4-1 loss at Manchester City.

Three wins would have backed up Arteta’s pre-match theory that this encounter would not define the season because they would still be in the driving seat even in defeat.

If this plays out as we all now expect, it will be very hard to come back from.

Gunners fans only have to ask the team two places below them in the table what it means to blow a title and what the aftermath can be.

You can’t always just consign it to history and go again like Manchester United did to win the first Premier League.

Or, indeed, Liverpool more recently in 2019-20 after going so close the year before.

Newcastle fans still pick over the final months of that 1995-96 campaign and wonder how?

A very good book on that season is called ‘Touching Distance’, a quote from then chairman and owner Sir John Hall about how close they were without being able to light the cigar.

They haven’t been close to even opening the packet since.

Even when they broke the transfer world record for Alan Shearer at £15million the following season the seeds of doubt had been sown.

The wounds had not healed.

Disappointment can lead to frustration, can lead to desperation and you start running on sand.

Rash decisions can be made on players.

Managers can be doubted.

Fans can turn on each other as the fingers start to point.

If Arsenal fail to win this by a handful of points, for years to come fans will wonder how they blew that pair of two-goal leads.

Neil Custis

Kevin Keegan never got over it and walked eight months after Newcastle had surrendered the title despite the club desperately wanting to keep him.

The Magpies tried to keep banging on the door but soon they weren’t even heard.

People always remember the defeat at home to Manchester United followed by the incredible 4-3 loss at Liverpool as turning the tide.

Yet with six games to go they blew a 1-0 lead at Blackburn by conceding in the 86th and 89th minutes to lose.

The penultimate game was a draw at Nottingham Forest and ended with Peter Beardsley holding his head in his hands.

Win those two and maybe they don’t wilt and draw at home to Tottenham on the final day when they know the game is up, as news filters through from The Riverside.

That’s six more points. They lost it by five.

If Arsenal fail to win this by a handful of points, for years to come fans will wonder how they blew that pair of two-goal leads.

How they couldn’t beat Southampton at home.

Players’ body language after that draw was like Newcastle’s at Ewood Park. It told you that it was slipping through their fingers.

‘Stand up for the Champions’ sang City fans on Wednesday.

They could have been doing that at the Emirates next month.

Touching Distance.