Arsenal's obliteration of Atletico Madrid shows that Gunners are more than just Champions League contenders

LONDON -- From parity to obliteration in the space of a quarter hour, but then I suppose that is simply what happens when Europe's apex predators smell blood in the water. And yes, Arsenal might not have the trophies to rank alongside the other big beasts of the Champions League favorites, but past success doesn't win you anything this season -- what does is being able to beat high-grade opposition in any number of ways.

The levee might have broken by a set piece, as it so often is, but there is a reason that Arsenal get in the position to loft that many balls in Gabriel Magalhaes' direction. For the best part of an hour, they held court in Atletico Madrid's third, probing at weak points and drawing ever more clumsy tackles from Diego Simeone's increasingly beleaguered charges. Bukayo Saka bullied David Hancko, Martin Zubimendi ran the midfield, and on the rare occasions when Julian Alvarez got the better of Gabriel, he found William Saliba charging into view.

But for Gabriel Martinelli's offside, Arsenal's lead would have come much earlier. Saka went close too, beating Jan Oblak to Eberechi Eze's slide rule ball but not getting enough loft to take it over the keeper. Eze, too, could have had one, gliding into midfield early on and rasping a shot against Hancko, whose night would only get more difficult from then on. So when you hear it said of Mikel Arteta's side that they only score from set pieces, that they would be nowhere if they couldn't spam crosses and free kicks, think again. For this team, Gabriel's output is not an aim in itself but a byproduct of the way they control the game, a byproduct they have long been exploiting to the maximum. 

Anyway, it is not as if the Emirates Stadium seems that bothered about the aesthetic impurity of goals from dead balls. 

"Set piece again, ole, ole," was the cry after Gabriel was allowed to glide onto Declan Rice's peach of a delivery and ease past Oblak. Maybe it was a command. If so, Arsenal fulfilled it in due course, Rice's corner to the back post flicked back into the mixer for Viktor Gyokeres to turn in from close range with parts unclear.

Neither that nor his first were the most elegant of goals, the Swede posting up his man when the ball bounced to him in the box before contriving to flick it around him. Then again, if Arsenal did have a problem last season and the one before it was that they did not quite have a player who would be on hand for such artless goals. Gyokeres has won qualified praise from Arsenal supporters -- and glowing write-ups from Arteta -- for his work rate, but he was signed to be the fox in the box. In that regard, he delivered Tuesday night.

By then, Gabriel Martinelli had treated the Emirates to a proper Arsenal goal anyway. Myles Lewis-Skelly drove through the left side of midfield, slipped a ball in through the backline for a right-footed forward to open up his body and roll it into the far post. I believe the kids used to call that Henry coded.

This will look like a game that rapidly and dramatically pivoted in a brief burst. It was nothing of the sort. It just so happened that the moments Arsenal's dominance showed were condensed together. Through all that goalless period David Raya had nothing to do that he didn't inflict on himself. Even when he handed a throw-in to Atletico Madrid with chaotic work in the left corner, he did not face a shot on target. Alavrez contrived to skew wide of an open goal. That's the thing about Arsenal defenders, they give you so little that when a chance does come your way, you've no memory of what to do.

This was a beatdown of a team that had pushed other Champions League contenders far closer, to say nothing of the drubbing they inflicted on Real Madrid. Atletico Madrid are not a bad side. They were just made to look it by Arsenal. That is a sign of a serious outfit.