They can’t say they weren’t told. In the shadows of the Stadium of Light, there is a mural with three words, in white paint on a black wall, that serves more as a warning than a slogan: ‘Til The End.’
Sunderland may once have been pushovers but now they are a red-and-white fighting machine, a team that never knows when it is beaten. Their ability to climb off the canvas is compelling and, on a thunderous evening in the North East, they landed a blow to leave Arsenal’s eyes watering.
This wasn’t a fatal scoreline for Mikel Arteta but the disconsolate way he trudged off after the final whistle, looking like a man who realised his pockets had been picked when putting on his coat, told you how he felt about it all.
For much of this frenzy, it seemed as if this was going to be another week and another example of why they are going to become champions, fighting back from a goal down to lead 2-1, but then Brian Brobbey stretched out a foot in injury time and sparked pandemonium.
You wouldn’t get an occasion like this anywhere else in Europe. This was everything Premier League football should be: a ferociously contested game, huge performances all over the pitch from both teams and the kind of drama that you usually need to log into Netflix to see.
Brian Bobbey’s last-gasp equaliser sparked pandemonium in the Stadium of Light on Saturday
The Dutch forward wheeled off with glee after his acrobatic finish snatched Sunderland a draw
Mikel Arteta was left disconsolate after his side’s 10-game winning run came to a crashing end
Arteta had been on the cusp of extending the worst sequence of letters in Scrabble but, suddenly, the eleventh W became a D – two points had been dropped, two goals had been conceded in a game for the first time since May and two managers in Liverpool and Manchester were raising eyebrows.
How Sunderland deserved their share of the spoils. They ran and they pressed and they challenged and they took the battle to Arsenal so much that they left Arteta looking like an out-of-control Catherine Wheel, all sparks and flailing arms.
There were times, during the bad old days, when a visit here was miserable experience. The soul and fun had been eroded by sobering football and, quite often, you would see swathes of empty red seats, their colour faded by exposure to the sunlight; it felt like everything was past its best.
Not now. We have to keep cautioning that these are early days, that we aren’t even close to being halfway through this marathon, but the bounce has returned, you can feel it on the walk to the stadium, and that priceless feeling is flooding through the locals: hope.
You only have to listen to them singing I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You before kick-off to understand the emotional investment and what energy it is giving a team that is determined to keep defying those who had them down for a swift return to the Championship.
For all that they had held their own, you wondered how they could find a breakthrough. This was Arsenal, with eight straight clean sheets, the team who had only conceded goals to Dominik Szoboszlai, Erling Haaland and Nick Woltemade, the last of which was on September 28.
But they found a way through this dark blue dam and what a moment it was when Ballard surged into the area, thrashing in a right-footed drive, that bent away from David Raya and created the loudest moment here since Ballard equalised against Coventry, in the play-off-semi-final, in May.
He thundered into the area, spinning off Declan Rice and picking up Nordi Mukiele’s knockdown. Some may have anticipated a defender would struggle to retain his composure but it was quite the opposite, as he cleverly moved in front of the panicking Rice, making it impossible for him to tackle.
Daniel Ballard surged into the typically impenetrable Arsenal box and thrashed an opener in
Arsenal golden boy Bukayo Saka levelled the tie up early into the second half in Sunderland
Leonardo Trossard thought he had bagged the winner after smashing one into the top corner
Ballard was an Arsenal trainee as a young boy, he loved his time at the club, but that never stopped him celebrating with gusto. Quite right. There is no disrespect in enjoying the one thing football is all about and it’s nonsense to suggest otherwise.
Away from the hullabaloo, Rice scrunched his nose as he contemplated his mistake and Arteta, for once, stood still. Usually he strides around frantically, never paying attention to the guidelines of remaining in his technical area, but now he looked numb.
It had been 812 minutes since Arsenal had conceded, inviting the absurd suggestion we are watching the best defence in history but they were on the ropes. Arteta’s concern was such that he couldn’t wait to get down the tunnel at the break.
Whatever he said at the interval worked. Arsenal, inspired by the brilliant Martin Zubimendi, turned things around in the second period and Bukayo Saka secured parity before a spell of dominance ended with Leandro Trossard thrashing in a brilliant drive.
Game over? No chance. Sunderland kept going and Brobbey, on as a substitute, put his foot in when it mattered. Til the end indeed.
