It's unclear exactly how Arne Slot took in all the action and reaction from the Emirates on Sunday night, but the memes of social media perhaps provided the most accurate depiction.

From Miles Lewis-Skelly mocking Erling Haaland with his own yoga-pose celebration, to Arsenal providing a reminder in humility to the Manchester City star by playing Kendrick Lamar's 2017 hit 'Humble' at full-time, through to the furious retort of Alfie Haaland on X; it was the perfect storm for anyone looking to absorb themselves in the pantomime drama of elite-level football.

Arsenal and Manchester City has become the sort of rivalry at the cutting edge of the game that was absent during the Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp era of the Premier League, where only respect permeated the pitches and dugouts.

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Quite what Slot - the sober football obsessive - made of all the theatrics will only be known to those at the AXA Training Centre, but the meme of two men scuffling in a kebab shop while a third, blissfully unaware of the violence, is casually scrolling through his phone in the foreground came to mind at one stage.

Such was the amusement to be found in all the fallout for the neutrals that the Reds' head coach might also have resembled another meme of a Thriller-era Michael Jackson, smile on face and popcorn in hand, as he settled in to watch the drama unfold.

Arsenal, inevitably, attracted the heat. Was this over celebrating disrespectful? Was Gabriel Magalhaes barking in the face of Haaland beyond the pale? And do they know they are still six points behind the leaders?

The Gunners are perfectly within their rights to cherish such a cathartic victory over the team who have become their scourge in recent years but the deliberate targeting of Haaland inevitably came under the microscope. It looked like the sort of defeat that meant the end of the line for a few in that City squad but Arsenal fans will have to get used to the Norwegian goal-machine given the nine-and-a-half-year contract extension he recently penned.

"It's football antics," said Declan Rice at full time in an attempt to diffuse things somewhat. "Things happen on the pitch. [Lewis-Skelly] celebrated. It's obviously the Haaland celebration. I know he has respect for him, the whole team has big respect for him because of what he's done, he's a big player."

Mikel Arteta added: "We have to focus on us and leave anything that happens, it's part of the game on the pitch, whatever happens there, I think we've been in football a long time, just leave it, there's nothing there to do."

Whatever your personal feelings on how the dislike between the two clubs boiled to the surface, it was hard to escape the idea that it is probably, at least in some way, a positive development for Slot's league-leading Reds.

The idea of Arsenal closing the gap back to six points with an emphatic 5-1 victory over the champions cannot really be argued as a welcome development for the Reds, but the "football antics" - as Rice delicately referred to it all - now surely takes away the spotlight from Liverpool's own performance in their 2-0 victory at Bournemouth the previous day.

Such will be the intense reaction to events at the Emirates now across mainstream outlets that Liverpool's quiet humming will fade into the background while the debate around Arsenal's statement win and the tempestuous nature of it all will gain the lion's share of TV and podcast coverage over the coming days.

Expect outspoken radio sorts, shock-jocks and rent-a-quote loudmouths all to have their say in the race to shout loudest on this one. There may also be some sensible and nuanced arguments among it all too and from the leaders' perspective, there is some merit in suggestions that the emotionally heightened state at which Arsenal and Arteta appear to operate may even be advantageous at some stage.

Gary Neville, who is arguably the most ubiquitous football figure in the week-to-week coverage of the Premier League with his three podcasts and Sky Sports role, has already been giving his own considered takes on it all.

"I want to mention Gabriel and what he did to Haaland," Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast with commentator Peter Drury. "It happened to me actually at Highbury many, many years ago and we actually won 4-2 that day. A player screamed in my face.

"I actually don't like it, I think it's a bit disrespectful. I get that Haaland was the pantomime villain here today but there was something about it that I didn't like. I never went and screamed in a player's face, I just didn't like that, it made me feel a little bit uneasy, it was a little bit disrespectful."

That sort of discourse will now dominate the week and that will be exactly how Slot prefers it as his side continue going about their business with as little fuss as is possible for a team who lead the table by six points heading into a Merseyside derby as their next league assignment. The strong move quiet, the weak start riots, as rapper Memphis Bleek once claimed.

While Slot may privately find humour in some of the bad blood between City and Arsenal, the Reds boss would not want anything similar to engulf his own team and it's been telling this term how the head coach has always talked up opposition strengths during his pre-match press conferences.

The former Feyenoord coach seems to have made it a mission to ensure nothing is said that could possibly be used as an additional incentive for the other team in the build-up to games, acutely aware that a meeting with Liverpool is already enough motivation for many.

For the Reds, the fire can rage all week as far as they are concerned. It may not necessarily provide any tangible boosts in their efforts to finish top of the pile in May, but the levels of chatter about two other clubs can do no harm either.

Liverpool's part in all of this is the one of the nosey neighbours; peering through the blinds at the argument unfolding on the driveways of No.2 and 4. Stick the kettle on then, Arne, this is getting interesting now...