Everywhere there are questions for Arsenal and most involve Havertz

The ball sat up for Kai Havertz at the edge of the box. Very briefly, the possibility loomed that he might be about to arrive. This was the perfect moment for him to cast off all the doubts. Smash this into the top corner, win the north London derby with a brilliant late winner, and in an instant his journey in fans’ affections from puzzlement to embrace would have been completed.

It was not an easy chance, far from it, but so much the better: nobody becomes a hero with a tap-in. But the ball bounced fractionally higher than he’d anticipated, he made contact with the outside of his boot and the shot flew harmlessly high and wide. Havertz chewed the collar of his shirt: he knew what that moment represented.

And so Arsenal go on, somehow threatening to be good this season without so far yet really managing it – unless you count the most routine of 4-0 wins against an extremely open PSV. There is no sense yet of the momentum that carried them through the early part of last season. Rather Sunday’s north London derby felt like a throwback to the critical phase of last season, when they would dominate the start of games only to be knocked off their stride by the first sign of resistance.

Worse, much of what went wrong in the back end of last season could be put down to the team’s growth. They were young. The squad was slender. The likes of Martin Ødegaard and Bukayo Saka had played a lot of football and so understandably lost zip. That’s what the summer spending, a net £160m of it, was supposed to address. It’s still early. Arsenal remain unbeaten. They’ve won at Everton, where they never win. Everything is still broadly positive. But it’s reasonable to start asking questions about how this all fits together.

Havertz has