We won 2-0 at the Stadium of Light and it went to the top of the table, but the scoreline hides how close this came to being a very different afternoon. David Raya saved an Enzo Le Fee penalty with the game still goalless, Bruno Guimaraes scored a stunning first Arsenal goal two minutes later, and Bukayo Saka settled it from the spot in stoppage time. Five wins from five in the league, and for the first time this season we sit above Manchester City on goals scored.

The honest reading is that this was another win earned rather than controlled, and the margin turned on a single save. Had Le Fee scored his penalty, we go a goal down against a well-organised, well-backed Sunderland side who created more than enough to hurt us. Instead Raya kept it level, Guimaraes punished them within two minutes, and the game flipped on those two moments. Sunderland finished with an xG of 1.64 and forced Raya into two more excellent saves after the goal. This was a hard, awkward away day, and we came through it because our goalkeeper and a half-time substitute decided it.

The whole match hinged on a ninety-second window early in the second half. On 56 minutes, Ezri Konsa was penalised for a clumsy challenge on Daniel Ballard, and Sunderland had a penalty to break the deadlock. Le Fee struck it low, and Raya dived to his left to push it away and keep the game level. It was the save of the afternoon and probably the save that won us the game.

Two minutes later, we were in front. Guimaraes, on at half-time for Myles Lewis-Skelly, collected a pass from Declan Rice on the edge of the box and thumped a brutal finish in off the underside of the bar from 23 yards. It was his first goal for the club, and it came against the region he served for years at Newcastle, in front of a Wearside crowd who let him know it. A former Newcastle captain silencing the Stadium of Light with a strike like that is the kind of moment that announces a player to his new supporters. Two minutes after Raya's save, the game had turned completely.

The second arrived deep in stoppage time. Saka broke clear on the counter, was tracked and then hauled down inside the area by Reinildo, and the defender was shown a second yellow and sent off. Saka picked himself up and squeezed the penalty past Robin Roefs into the bottom corner, despite the keeper getting a glove to it. Two-nil, ten men, game over. Good value for the margin in the end, even if the path to it was anything but comfortable.

They deserved a goal, and Raya made sure they did not get one, which is the whole story of the day for them. Regis Le Bris set his side up well, Roefs kept them level in the first half with a fine save from a Kai Havertz effort and an acrobatic stop from another, and after the break Sunderland grew into the game and repeatedly forced us to defend our box. Nordi Mukiele went close on three occasions late on, and Raya's save from him, following a fine Granit Xhaka cross while we were still only a goal up, was nearly as important as the penalty stop. Sunderland created a genuine 1.64 xG. On another day, with a different goalkeeper, they take something from this.

That is the pattern worth naming five games in. We are winning without controlling, and we keep needing individual moments, Odegaard at Napoli, Havertz and Odegaard against Chelsea, Raya and Guimaraes here, to separate us from opponents who stay in the game. The clean sheets keep coming and the wins keep coming, which is exactly what a title-defending side is supposed to do, and there is real credit in grinding out results on grounds like this. But we have not yet produced the ninety-minute performance that buries a team, and the finishing that let Napoli off the hook was in evidence again here until Guimaraes intervened.

There was a flashpoint worth noting: Arteta was unhappy with the penalty awarded against Konsa, describing his concern about the standard of the decision afterwards. Whatever the merits of that, Raya rendered it irrelevant. Five wins from five, top of the league, another clean sheet, and a new midfielder off the mark in the most emphatic way possible. Ipswich in the cup next, then Brighton away. We keep finding ways to win. At some point we will want to make one of these look easy.