The thing about miracles is they don’t come around very often. The dictionary definition pretty well sums up the chances: “An extraordinary and welcome event not explicable by natural or scientific laws.”

At 3-0 down at the Etihad Stadium last night with over half an hour to play, someone shared a stat that came up on their phone. Arsenal had a less than one per cent chance of winning the game. A draw came in at about three per cent. Well! It’s a chance! 

It’s brilliant believing in miracles. It’s a lot better to retain a shred of optimism rather than go through life anticipating the worst. It is revealing, though, that even before the match against Manchester City kicked off, most people of an Arsenal persuasion were thinking along the lines of comparisons to miracles past rather than giving themselves the kind of fighting chance usually associated with a team who are top of the table. 

Trying to absorb the reality of what unfolded in Manchester yesterday is not easy.

This is not really a time for gallows humour, blaming scapegoats, ranting and raving, or even forensic analysis. It is a particularly weird scenario because it feels over, and yet technically it isn’t. It seems reasonable to react with a kind of mourning for Arsenal’s beautifully promising season but it still has a pulse. You can’t have a post-mortem when the person is not actually dead yet.

Still top. Five more matches. Fifteen more available points. There still exists a possibility, however improbable, that the stampeding elephant trampling all in its midst unexpectedly tumbles.