Arsenal 5 Manchester City 1: match report

By Ethan Aspinall, Mon 03 February 2025 16:24


Arsenal 5 Manchester City 1: match reportGunners pile misery on sorry City in 5-1 thrashing at the Emirates

Having advanced to the champions league play-off round midweek, Manchester City travelled to North London away at Arsenal looking to build on their recovery in the Premier League. Stefan Ortega started in goal. Josko Gvardiol, Manuel Akanji, John Stones and Matheus Nunes started in defence. Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic were in the holding midfield with Omar Marmoush, Phil Foden, and Savio in attack with Erling Haaland the sole striker.

From the minute the game kicked off, there were immediate problems for City, which was evident when the ball first found its way into City’s final third. Akanji made an attempt to pass the ball but it proved a terrible mistake, with Havertz collecting and passing to Odegaard, who smashed it in to give Arsenal the lead over City after just 104 seconds, an immediate disaster for the Blues. Arsenal showed no signs of slowing down for the next few minutes and has the ball back in the net again at the 6th minute mark only for it to be called offside against Martinelli.

Following this tricky start, City managed to recover somewhat and the game returned to a much calmer tempo, though the Blues still struggled to win the ball back every time they lost possession. A long range shot from Marmoush fell well wide of the target. Savio managed to take a shot which took a deflection but was straight into the hands of Raya. A corner in from Marmoush found the head of Gvardiol but Raya made another excellent save on to the bar before the ball was eventually cleared. Despite the Blues improving before the end of the first half, the score remained 1-0 at half time.

In the second half, City continued to look better in attack and this eventually led to the equaliser. A ball in from Savio found the head of Haaland and into the net to finally get City their leveller. For a split second, anyone would be forgiven for thinking the Blues would ultimately comeback and win. However, this was just a moment before total disaster for City as one way traffic was soon to ensue.

Just 39 seconds after the game kicked off again, a sloppy pass from Foden was intercepted by Partey, who carried on and took a shot from distance, taking a major deflection off the back of Stones and into the net to almost immediately restore Arsenal’s lead and cause more trouble for the Blues.
6 minutes later, Arsenal had the ball on the edge of the City area. Declan Rice threaded the ball through to 18 year old Myles Lewis Skelly who controlled the ball and took a shot which came off the hand of Ortega and into the net to double Arsenal’s lead. Any hope of winning the game for the Blues had now been extinguished but things were to only get worse for them.
Despite City’s efforts, they simply couldn’t keep possession and were caught on the counter far too easily. In the 76th minute Kai Havertz ran with the ball from the middle of the pitch all the way and struck the ball in to make it 4-1. Stones and Akanji simply couldn’t keep up. Despite changes being made for City with De Bruyne and Mcatee coming on, there was no more that could be done and insult to injury was only to be added in the very last minute of the game, with a long range shot from youngster Ethan Nwaneri finding the back of the net once again to make it 5-1 to Arsenal at full time. The Blues had simply been brought back down to earth once more following recent wins.

It is the worst possible start to a difficult month for City who have to play Real Madrid twice, Tottenham away, Liverpool at home, and Newcastle at home. Pep Guardiola’s biggest test is to come up and the remaining fixtures will be about damage control for the Blues, who are merely fighting to compete in the Champions League next season. Despite this being a huge win for Arsenal, they remain 6 points behind Liverpool, who still have a game in hand.