Arsenal's Max Dowman delivers the moment for Arsenal's title challenge

LONDON -- If I tell you that the internet died at the Emirates Stadium moments before Max Dowman put that cross in, does that make it feel even more like what followed was it? Arsenal demanded your absolute attention. This was their moment. You know the sort. Every title winner gets one -- when hope leapfrogs faith and reaches certainty.

Marc Overmars at Old Trafford, Thierry Henry dancing through the Liverpool backline, that sort of thing. More apposite for this season might, however, be Federico Macheda, the teen who turned the tide against Aston Villa in 2009. You suspect that Dowman, the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history, is destined for more than just pub quiz curio.

Arsenal have already seen flashes of a 16-year-old with talent and temperament beyond his years. A burst, a flash, a slaloming dribble that didn't quite result in the end product this time, but you knew would before too long. Add a sense of timing to those preternatural qualities of his.

"I had a gut feeling that it was a moment for him," said Arteta. "Probably because he doesn't seem to be faced by the occasion or the moment or the context or the opponent. He just plays so naturally. He makes decisions to make things happen and what he delivered was incredible.

"His character, his personality and the fact that he doesn't seem to be fazed by the pressure or his teammates or the opponent. I've seen a lot of players with talent but at 16, very few that can cope with that level of demand."

If you want to know what a player unfazed by the moment looks like, just watch Dowman readying himself in the seconds before Arsenal unleashed bedlam. As the doubts threatened to overwhelm Arsenal, he refused to panic. Checking onto his left foot, he assessed his options.

There were 85 seconds of normal time to be played but Dowman would not be rushed. Piero Hincapie knew what was coming, a cross to the back post that flew perhaps an inch over Jordan Pickford's glove. Yet again, the ball found a way to not go in, cannoning into the Ecuadorian's midriff and across the six-yard box. For a split second it was the Eberechi Eze shot bending wide all over again, another one of those moments where Bukayo Saka couldn't jam the ball goalwards. Not this time. Bundling into shot came Viktor Gyokeres, on the brink of another of those zero shot, zero impact appearances that have been all too familiar, to thunder home.

Two shots per 90 in the Premier League. Possession lost at an alarming rate for a forward with so limited a touch profile. Very little to offer besides the shots that don't come all that often. Problems for another day. What mattered now was goal number 11 of the season.

We are in March now. Performances don't matter that much. The last time the Emirates experienced jubilance like this, Reiss Nelson had buried Bournemouth with the final kick of the ball but there were 12 more games to go. With that much football left to play it mattered that Arsenal were looking vulnerable at the back, that the numbers looked a little light to weather any injury storm.

Maybe the same thing will happen this time. Perhaps something as yet unforeseen will derail the title train. This has been the best team in England, one who can just about do enough in attack given that they are deploying the best defence England has seen in a generation. And they only have to navigate another seven of these. Arsenal can cope with being bad.

Not that they were that bad. Indeed with Kai Havertz leading the line this was a team that looked like it had timed its late-season burst to perfection. Arsenal were dominating the final third, pinning Everton back into their box and testing their defences from range with the cannoning efforts of Eze. A little of Martin Odegaard's edge-of-the-area guile might have helped but if you want to know why Arsenal didn't score and didn't get quality shots until Dowman turned the tide, you need to look at a particularly impressive defensive display by their opponents.

Sometimes the other team drives you mad with their organisation and you start making sloppy errors. Arsenal didn't do that. They kept probing. And yes by the time Dowman lofted that cross in the Emirates might have been wavering but their team were playing in the sort of fashion that tends to bring goals more often than not. The scoreline might have been bad, the xG worse, the xG per shot my eyes the goggles do nothing awful, but the process was right.

It just needed a sprinkling of stardust.

"We talked before the game to play with that relentless desire to win every action and to have the conviction that we are going to find a way to do it," said Arteta. "The effort, the quality, the commitment of the players was sensational. And then it ended up in a manner that probably none of us expected. And it was one of the best moments that we lived together at the Emirates."

Of course, no one would have predicted that this would be the day as the sun kissed the Emirates Stadium with its orange light before kick off. This didn't have to be the day that brought north London together in glory. But when you start working back you see the signs everywhere. Riccardo Calafiori's once-in-a-lifetime block. The stonewall penalty that wasn't given when Michael Keane clipped Kai Havertz's ankle. The shot off the post, onto Iliman Ndiaye and wide.

It had to end this way because this is how titles get won. You see the projection models, the bookmakers' odds, the pundits telling you it's yours to win and you don't quite believe them. You ready yourself for the worst. And then the moment comes. This was Arsenal's. This was Dowman's.

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