Martin Odegaard picked the exact moment Chelsea's back line stopped paying attention and put Arsenal top of the Premier League on three wins from three, a 1-0 gut-punch at the Emirates that Xabi Alonso's side spent ninety minutes threatening to avoid and never did. This was not a scrappy home win nursed to the final whistle. It was Arsenal doing the thing Arsenal have historically failed to do in September, which is turn a good start into an early declaration, while Chelsea head back to Stamford Bridge still searching for the version of themselves that beat Fulham a week ago.

Manchester City are running the same unbeaten ledger, which means the actual title fight starts now, in the fixture congestion of late September and October, not in a highlights package from the Emirates. Arsenal's résumé already reads Coventry, Aston Villa, Chelsea, three different kinds of test passed in three different ways, and that is the number that matters more than the odds boards resetting overnight. Chelsea, meanwhile, are the club still explaining to their own fans what a "process" is supposed to feel like. Arsenal just gave a pretty good demonstration of what it looks like when the process shows up early.