Arsenal surging back towards Champions League in Mikel Arteta’s image

Fourth place, Arsene Wenger famously used to argue, is like a trophy. It was a controversial assertion for traditionalists and perhaps the footballing pensioner Ashley Young ranks among them. He accused Arsenal of celebrating victory at Villa Park “like they won the league”.

But they are on course to win a four-club mini-league of the candidates to claim the last Champions League spot. Or, indeed, a 17-team division if three of Europe’s top four or five sides are excluded. It can be framed in various ways but a top-four finish would rank as a major achievement, perhaps a greater one than the trophy their manager did win. “We’re on our way to Champions League,” was the last line of a new chant hailing “super Mik Arteta.”

Amid the celebrations that irritated Young came a throwback to Highbury history, a chant of “one-nil to the Arsenal”. Ben White and Gabriel Magalhaes probably did not grow up with posters of Tony Adams and Steve Bould on their wall and George Graham’s legendary offside trap was not required to restrict Aston Villa to one, very late, shot on target.

Because, as the latest addition to Arsenal’s songbook suggests, they are not doing it Graham’s way or Wenger’s but Mikel Arteta’s. There were passages of play, especially in the first half at Villa Park, that showed a tactical blueprint that has gradually been implemented. There were periods in Arteta’s first full season when Arsenal were too slow and structured, their pre-planned moves stripping them of spontaneity as goals became a rarity. Now a vision is nearer realisation. Arsenal excel at working overloads on one flank: sometimes it lends incision but at others it drags opponents over to that side.

But it is an approach that comes with a Plan B, the quick