Fifty-five minutes in, the Emirates was doing its nervous shuffle. Leeds had been the better side for most of the afternoon, David Raya had kept them out more than once, and when James Justin crashed Gudmundsson's cross in at the back post it felt like Brighton all over again. Fifteen minutes later Arsenal were 2-1 up. Riccardo Calafiori tapped in after Ben White headed Madueke's cross back across the box, Mikel Arteta threw on Bruno Guimarães, Viktor Gyökeres and Jurriën Timber, and Bruno finished off Declan Rice's flick from the edge of the box eight minutes after the equaliser.
Three points, level on points with City at the top, and the end of Leeds' unbeaten run. You'd think the fan channels would be dancing. Some were. Plenty weren't.
"We showed what it takes to be champions"
AFTV had Stricto in the chair after the final whistle, and the room went straight for the big question: do you talk about the 55 minutes, or do you talk about the win? They went with the win. "We showed character," was the verdict. "We showed what it takes to be champions and why we are champions." There was a theory for the first hour too. It had been said on the matchday live that Arsenal might need to concede before they woke up, and the room stuck by it. Arsenal were "like a boxer sometimes", all jabs and no knockout, until Leeds put them on the canvas.
The man they really wanted to talk about was the goalkeeper. "That save, save on save on save," and without Raya, they reckon, it's a completely different game. Noni Madueke got a proper defence as well. The room thinks the criticism has gone overboard and says Madueke "could have had a couple of assists today".
"Leeds absolutely dog-walked us"
NorthsideLDN isn't having any of the champions talk. His reaction opens with "we got away with it" and doesn't really let up. "Leeds in that first half absolutely dog-walked us," he says, and he puts the result down to Raya and to Arsenal simply having better players. In his words, if Leeds had taken their chances "we would have got finished".
He goes through the side one by one. Ødegaard, Madueke, Saka and Havertz all get called "rubbish", and the first half gets labelled "Offside FC". The selection is what really winds him up. He can't understand Havertz starting up front after Gyökeres had been scoring for Sweden over the international break, and he can't understand why nothing changed at half-time. He does give Arteta one thing. Bruno coming on "was a good substitution", although he thinks the Brazilian should have started anyway.
The Goonerverse counts the Leeds chances
The Goonerverse does the more measured version of the same complaint, and it lands harder for it. He gives Arsenal a decent first 15 minutes, then reckons Leeds "dominated us from the 15th minute to about when they scored". He even runs through the list: Okafor's chance on the edge of the area, Stach's shot blocked, Bogle forcing Raya into a close-range save, Gudmundsson's "thumping effort", then Tanaka over the bar. That's five or six genuine openings before Justin scored.
Two things soften the verdict for him. First, the equaliser came before Arteta made his triple change, which tells him the response came from the players on the pitch. Second, Madueke on the left. He admits he was "tearing my hair out" with Madueke early on, but the cross that started the leveller came from Madueke's right foot, so "he justified the pick". His title for it is "What Champions Do!", and he sounds about half convinced.
The Bruno argument
Whatever you thought of the first hour, everyone agrees on the man who settled it. Guimarães came on straight after Calafiori's equaliser and scored within minutes. It's the second time in three league games he's come off the bench to make the difference, after he opened the scoring in the 2-0 at Sunderland, and both goals have come from outside the box.
Chadwick TV is all-in. "This is what you pay the money for," he says, and he calls Bruno "the bargain of the window". For a £75m signing that's quite a claim, but he means it. Chadwick isn't letting the rest of the team off, though. He reckons Arsenal are slow in transition this season, says Madueke "had a better game than Saka", and makes a point about wages: "when you get these wages, when you get these contracts, expectation needs to rise."
Saka in the firing line
That brings us to the uncomfortable bit. Yorkshire Gunner called his video "Saka Needs Binning", and the reaction backs it up. He says Leeds "should be like 3-1 up" at one stage, that Arsenal were "offside left, right and centre", and that "Saka was absolutely awful today". He goes further than most and suggests "we need to start calling for maybe moving him on". He also says plenty of the fanbase lets Saka slide too much.
He also wanted Gyökeres from the start, though he gives Arteta a possible way out: maybe Gyökeres is being saved for the Champions League. Then he takes his share of the credit. He says he picked Skelly and Rice ahead of Bruno in his preview, and Bruno coming on fresh to win it proved him right.
He wasn't the only one. Saka's late miss from a Gyökeres pass kept coming up across the channels, and LeeGunner called his fan cam "Scammed a win again". In it he says "we're getting away with it" more than once, and he reckons Raya "should have got man of the match". Back on AFTV, the room drew a line. Saka has "credit in the bank", they said, but some of what's being thrown at him is "way, way overboard".
The view from outside the bubble
For a neutral read, Big Six Bants liked what he saw. He gives Leeds full credit up to the equaliser and singles out Calvert-Lewin for holding the ball up, but the line he keeps coming back to is depth. "Man can be angry, man can be mad, but this is what champions do." On Bruno, he thinks people who've called the signing a disappointment have missed the point. He was "bought in to do exactly what he's doing", coming off the bench and adding something the other midfielders don't have.
The argument
So which is it? The champions' version says you don't win titles by playing well every week, Arsenal fixed the problem inside 15 minutes, and they've got a bench that can turn a game. The angry version says they were outplayed at home for the best part of an hour, got bailed out by Raya, and look short of ideas up front with Saka and Havertz struggling. Both are fair. The table is on the champions' side, level on points with City. The first 55 minutes are on the other side, and those are what the comment sections will keep arguing about.