Finally, after 102 days without competitive football in England, Arsenal returned to our TV screens. The game didn’t represent the sort of trip to Manchester that we expected as we walked away satisfied after scraping a 1-0 win against West Ham in March. Still, it did represent the sort of result we all feared.
Many Arsenal fans, including myself, were brought under the illusion pre-game that we may have got something out of what is always a difficult game away to City. A mixture of positive noises coming out of club concerning the players’ attitude upon their return to training and the praise directed at Mikel Arteta in yesterday morning’s article from The Athletic left many an Arsenal fan filled with excitement. In defiance of this positivity, as this Arsenal side always do when they play away against a ‘big six’ club, they let their fans down.
In fairness to Mikel Arteta’s men, the statement from their manager post-match: “Everything went wrong from the first minute” was pretty accurate. Firstly, Granit Xhaka picked up what seemed like a serious ligament injury in the opening 10 minutes. Then, around 15 minutes later his teammate Pablo Marì was hauled off after straining his calf. Far from ideal circumstances for the Gunners.
Surprisingly, despite a storm of injury chaos, Arsenal weathered the situation they found themselves in rather well during the first quarter of the game. Arteta’s men looked a strong and cohesive unit defensively, shown by our ability to limit Manchester City to just 1 shot on target in the first 30 minutes. All the while, it looked as if we had some form of control over proceedings as possession was still equal on the 25 minute mark. Mikel Arteta and his staff are likely to have been satisfied with what they initially saw on a rainy night in Manchester.
As foreshadowed above, soon enough, the pathetic fallacy kicked in for Arsenal. Unfortunately, a football match lasts a lot longer than 30 minutes, something which the Arsenal players had to learn that the hard way last night. After a 15 minute onslaught from Manchester City prior to half-time which involved 3 magnificent saves from Bernd Leno and Raheem Sterling chipping over the bar Arsenal finally caved in. Whilst it felt inevitable, it was the manner of the concession which angered Arsenal fans most.
David Luiz, who experienced a night to forget after replacing Pablo Marì on the 24th minute, made an innocuous error which left Raheem Sterling through on goal. The Englishman duly delivered for the Cityzens after powering the ball home into the far-left corner leaving Bernd Leno surplus to requirements. After keeping City at bay for so long despite all their intricate attempts to cut us open, this really must’ve frustrated Mikel Arteta. Such mistakes are just impossible to defend and explain. Regrettably, such matters are just out of the Spaniard’s control.
The enigmatic veteran’s night went from bad to worse after the half-time break. Arsenal were almost caught out moments before Luiz received his marching orders from Anthony Taylor by a long kick from Ederson. Nonetheless, the youthful Arsenal side did not learn from this and allowed the goalkeeper to catapult another ball up the pitch which left Riyad Mahrez in behind once again.
After failing to control the ball minutes earlier, the Algerian trickster made no mistakes the second time round as he knocked the ball past luiz, galloped past him, felt a tug on his shoulder, and collapsed to the floor just inside the penalty area. The smirk on Luiz’ face after his dismissal said it all, it just wasn’t his night.
After Kevin De Bruyne, who performed magnificently last night, slotted away his penalty the game played the way Man City Vs. Arsenal usually has during the last half an hour over the last few seasons. Manchester City seem to accept they have won the match, Arsenal seem to accept they have lost. So, Pep Guardiola’s men develop a degree of sympathy for their North London opponents.
For a club of our stature, it’s really unacceptable that we let City do this to us on such a regular basis. The only difference last night was that the whole world was watching. Embarrassing.
Nevertheless, City youngster Phil Foden clearly didn’t get the memo as he smashed the ball into the top corner after an effort from Sergio Agüero rebounded against the post and fell into the Englishman’s footpath on the 91st minute. Man City were just rubbing salt into the scathing Arsenal wounds at this point.
In spite of a promising start, our second half performance was typically toothless. Arsenal may have been away for over 3 months, but don’t you worry, in a match away against a top side, everything seemed very familiar for gooners.
What makes the fact we lost so dismally last night all the more frustrating is our opening half an hour. Perhaps even the first half in general. Bernd Leno was having a blinder in goal. Matteo Guendouzi was operating excellently as a regista. Aubameyang and Nketiah were causing Eric Garçia all sorts of problems and there were signs to suggest that Mikel Arteta had a masterplan up his sleeve. If David Luiz had his brain fit in properly and we managed to get into half-time at 0-0 amid offensive bombardment from Manchester City we might’ve had a real chance with this one.
Unfortunately, some nights you just don’t get the rub of the green, Arteta summed it up perfectly speaking to BBC Sport after game: “I want to delete the game from the hard drive,” bemoaned Guardiola’s former number 2, “a lot of things happened and there isn’t a lot of points to take from this game.” One could sense the disappointment in our manager’s voice. He was clearly desperate to get one over his old boss and everything that could’ve gone wrong, went wrong. It was a harsh but important introduction to football management against a top, top team for Arteta.
The Gunners return to our screens this Sunday as we take on Brighton at the Amex Stadium. The team’s head coach gave the impression of a man on a mission as he declared that his side would “start preparing [for] the game against Brighton tomorrow.” Hopefully, Mikel Arteta’s anger was representative of the team as a collective and Arsenal can come out with a point to prove on Saturday.
Upwards and onwards for Arsenal, let’s not forget, Manchester City first game back was always going to be tough. All being well, Arteta will have got some backing from the board over the Summer and we’ll look a much better team by the time we next voyage to the Etihad.
