Yuletide is football – the goodwill season given purpose and direction by a footballing roller coaster of multiple games in a calendar nutshell. In north London there was a crackling in the air, a festive sense that the collision of Christmas and football was a godsend. Boxing Day football transported fathers and lifelong supporters back to their own childhoods, rekindling that profound love they have since harboured for the beautiful game. They were passing on that feeling to the next generation.

There were plenty of flags, scarfs and other paraphernalia of the Arsenal persuasion, and a few Santas, amid a giant pilgrimage to the cosy Emirates Stadium, or amid a great escape from the overdose of stuffed turkey, family banter and the odd overly inquisitive cousin – football to wash away the delights of Christmas. Boxing Day is also a first moment of self-assessment for clubs – how much progress has been made this season? What can be achieved come May? It’s an X-ray, a thorough screening that may expose an unpleasant truth.

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Same old Arsenal

For Arsenal, the 26th of December seemed to turn unpleasant indeed – West Bromwich Albion exuded a fine Tony Pulis DNA, manning the box with a double defensive girdle, barely leaving their own half and lurking on the counter attack. WBA displayed a physicality that is unique to Pulis – a grit that no other coach can elicit from his team. For large swats of the match, the visitors easily negated any threat from the home side.

Arsenal were left frustrated. They were insipid, lacklustre, and without much purpose. Were Arsenal copy-catting their back-to-back 2-1 defeats away to Everton and Manchester City, respectively? They had little options on the ball and their movement – if there was any – was lateral. The hosts didn’t penetrate. This was another infuriating performance from Arsenal, innately brilliant and gifted, but, all too often, lethargic, and without a spine. This was a performance to derail another season, with Chelsea already leading their London rivals by nine points.

Not that Arsenal were awful, but their possession, 76% overall, led to precious little – WBA’s fine defending was a measure of Arsenal’s attacking impotence. And so, Arsenal were on course for a crushing and season-ending draw, up against Pulis’s 9-1 formation, WBA’s collective resilience, Ben Foster’s saves, the woodwork and Dame Fortuna. This was Pulis Max, and a classic case of organised, stoic defending.

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Super sub Giroud

Ultimately, Olivier Giroud rescued Arsenal from a mini-apocalypse. His performance had demonstrated why he has become a substitute at Arsenal, with Alexis Sanchez up top. He slowed down Arsenal’s intricate, pacy attacks, weighed little on the visiting rearguard, but did combine, with another struggler, to craft a neat winner.

Ozil had been peripheral yet again, often slumbering in midfield, devoid of ideas and, this time, even the rare defence-carving passes. The aloof German, however, needs just a brief moment to justify his inclusion and silence his growing army of detractors. In the 87th minute, with space and time on the ball, he picked out Giroud with a floated cross and the Frenchman sent a looping header into the net.

In celebration, there was raucous joy at the Emirates Stadium, but also apprehension. This had been a frighteningly familiar afternoon in north London, leaving Arsenal in – a frighteningly familiar – fourth position in the Premier League table, foreshadowing another St Totteringham’s Day, the day when Arsenal fans celebrate the fact that Tottenham can no longer overtake Arsenal in the league table, and another perfunctory Champions League ticket.

Arsenal want to blossom again and smell the honey-sweet perfume of victory, but their deficiencies have been so consistent and so recognizable this season that their projected failure may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Wenger’s team are close to becoming a self-parody, repeating the same mistakes over and over again, resulting in the same result over and over again. Yet the French manager stands tall, holding dear to his principles, fetishising the purity of the game, carrying his dogmas everywhere. Wenger belongs to the world of Oscar Wilde – noble, refined, and unique, but he is condemned to the universe of gum-chewing armies of mediocre British coaches and the money-inflated rat race that the Premier League has become. “One-nil to the Arsenal” sufficed against WBA but, in the long run, it may not for Wenger and his Arsenal.