When he was asked earlier this week whether he was ready to concede the title to Liverpool now that they had moved 11 points clear of his Arsenal team, Mikel Arteta had been adamant. ‘Over my dead body,’ he said.

His defiance was admirable. His defiance was to be expected, too. Still, after this bore draw with Nottingham Forest by the River Trent, he might want to stop talking about corpses before someone points out Arsenal’s title challenge is starting to resemble football’s version of one. Their hopes of the title have now expired.

Arsenal are ex-contenders. It’s practically official now. It was over when Arsenal lost at home to West Ham on Saturday and Liverpool beat Manchester City the next day but this dreary display against a team six points behind them in third place underlined Arsenal’s capitulation.

They are a side that has become adept at blinking first. Close but no cigar. That might as well be their motto. Except this season, it seems they are not even going to be close. In the clutch, they have been found wanting again.

They were toothless in attack. Their display never looked like matching their manager’s defiant words. Undone by the club’s poor recruitment, they have been unable to overcome the absences of Bukayo Saka and, latterly, Kai Havertz. Being left without a single striker looks like rank carelessness for any side with real pretensions to be winners.

Liverpool’s match with Newcastle started later than Arsenal’s clash with Forest at the City ground but it soon became clear that the 11-point deficit Arsenal faced to Arne Slot’s side at the start of the evening was going to get even wider by the end of it.