Arsenal vs. Manchester City: 6 Things We Learned at the Emirates

By the time the referee blew the final whistle on Manchester City's season at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, one needed not to look the scoreboard to know the whole story.

Up in the visiting owners' box, the silent faces on City's unhappy financiers—long, blank, impassive—said enough.

And down on the pitch and in the bowels of the stadium, Arsenal's celebrating players and supporters said the rest.

After Arsenal's 1-0 victory over Manchester City on Sunday, City's English Premier League title hopes are over. Arsenal's hopes for the future burn brighter than at any other point this season.

It's almost unnecessary to write now, but Manchester United will win the title. Again. And Manchester City, for all their new-found riches, will finish trophyless in 2012.

An uncertain offseason beckons and only the brains behind those silent faces in the owners' box might hazard a guess at what will happen next.

For Arsenal—themselves no strangers to uncertain summers in the recent past—Sunday's win provided the latest incentive for positivity.

Long gone is the humiliating start to the season. Ahead lies a battle for third place and Champions League qualification, a fight they'll be favored to win.

And after that, who's to argue against more progress? As Sunday showed, material riches aren't everything.

City Are Finished

With six games left to play, Manchester City trail Manchester United by eight points. The title race technically still bears life, but the end is near.

If City do win the title, it will have meant an epic collapse from Manchester United, one that would make City's own implosion feel inconsequential in comparison.

More than likely—inconceivable just a few weeks past—United will clinch the title at City's ground three weeks from now.

Billed as a title-decider for much of the season, City's home date against United on April 30 will instead serve as a coronation for England's champions—regardless of whether the Red Devils actually clinch the title mathematically that day.

Either way, it would be a cruel twist for City, but they would have only themselves to blame for a run of five points from their last five games.

And in truth, better teams have folded in the face of Manchester United's unflinching title run-ins.

And Mancini Is as Good as Gone

Roberto Mancini seemed to recognize the writing on the wall this week as City's season threatened to unravel.

Now that it has, he's almost certainly a lame duck as City's manager. Brought in to win trophies with an expensively assembled squad, Mancini will be held accountable to a standard as lofty as his players' inflated wages.

Speaking of which, the players should expect a similar shakeup in the ranks, especially if they're Italian and they like to write whimsical slogans on the shirts beneath their jerseys.

More on that momentarily.

As City's bosses watched from their lofty perch high above the Emirates Stadium pitch, it was impossible to know exactly what they were thinking.

But it couldn't have been good news for Mancini or his flailing squad.

Poetic Justice for Arsenal

Sunday's significance wasn't lost on Arsenal fans.

As Samir Nasri returned to the Emirates for the first time in the league as an opposition player, the team he spurned Arsenal to join saw its title hopes evaporate.

For a player who had criticized Arsenal's lack of title ambition, it was a foot-in-mouth moment at best and a humiliation at worst.

For Arsenal, on the other hand, it was undiluted vindication.

City spent and spent and spent. Arsenal scrimped, saved and struggled.

City presumed to buy a squad that would win a title. Arsenal stuck with their manager and rode out the storm.

The reward was long in coming, but sweet nonetheless: an end to City's title run, on Arsenal's own turf, against that player.

Arsenal have won eight of nine, collecting 24 of the last 27 points available and since losing that match to Manchester United they've won the same number of games as City.

Arsene does indeed know. Still.

Just imagine what he could do with City's cash.

Bye Balotelli

Mario Balotelli has lost the plot, the book and the directions to the library.

What else is there to say? City must let him go this summer.

The brash Italian striker should have earned a red card for his nasty, studs-up, potentially leg-breaking stamp on Alex Song's planted leg during the first half.

The referee missed the encounter, but almost atoned for it by sending off Balotelli for his second bookable offense late in the second half.

By that time, Balotelli had stopped bothering to track back to help his midfield and more often was trying to find ways to cause trouble for himself, his team and his opponents.

Appropriately enough, the sending off came after City had allowed Arsenal's critical goal. Both City and Balotelli had clung to life against all odds longer, by all accounts, than they should have.

Then, at the death, they finally met their fate.

City are finished, but they fought hard. Balotelli is a disgrace and a waste of his talent.

Mikel Arteta!

Congratulations to Mikel Arteta for scoring the match-winner, his second wonder-goal in as many home games.

Bought from Everton on deadline day last summer, Arteta has repaid Arsene Wenger's investment with solid—if not exactly breathtaking—midfield play and a spattering of clutch goals here and there.

This time, the classy Spanish midfielder hijacked David Pizarro in the midfield, took a couple dribbles and tucked a low shot—curled with the outside of his right boot—into Joe Hart's near post.

It was beautiful and satisfying, in no small part because until that point Arsenal had seemed snake-bit.

Defender Laurent Koscielny had earned his 10th yellow card as well as a two-match ban on the last day before such counts are reset.

Robin van Persie, scoreless again (a run that now stands at four games) had hit the woodwork twice, foiled once by his teammate after his header had seemed destined for the net.

RvP had seen another effort ruled out in a tight offside decision and three Arsenal players had conspired, incredibly, to fluff a glorious chance in the 76th minute.

In the end, though, it didn't matter, thanks to Arteta's clutch strike.

The Kompany One Keeps

When Manchester City's masters make over their squad this summer, they will do well to keep Vincent Kompany around.

The Belgian defender turned in a captain's performance worthy of man-of-the-match honors. Apart from Thomas Vermaelen, he did more than any other player to keep Robin van Persie scoreless.

He was the man most responsible for keeping City in Sunday's match, bar none.

The squad needs tweaking this summer, as City's indifferent run of late has shown.

The shakeup should not affect Kompany, if there's any sense at City.

Follow @MikeCummings37