City and Arsenal share points in crucial clash at the Emirates
Manchester City travelled down to North London to face Arsenal in what has been billed to be one of the toughest fixtures of the season of the Blues. The match came off the back of a 2-0 win over Napoli in the week and for the third time in a row, pep fielded an unchanged lineup. Marmoush, Cherki, and Ait-Nouri were still ruled out due to injury.
Arsenal had most of the possession in this game and the initial intent appeared to be to keep the ball as much as possible before building up to threaten City later in the game. However, this needed to change after just 8 minutes – Arsenal were dispossessed by Reijnders in the midfield and created a brilliant counterattack, threading the ball through for Haaland who slotted the ball in to give City an early lead.
Arsenal were frustrated in possession following this – Madueke impressed for the Gunner’s troubling City defenders but couldn’t quite hack the final product to bring Arsenal level. The set piece specialists also had many opportunities to score from corners, but Donnarumma had these covered, frequently getting to the ball first and parrying it out the City box.
Every time City would get the ball back in possession, they would still look relatively threatening – in the 19th minute, Reijnders had the chance to make it two, but fired it straight at Raya. The match was also not without its incidents between the players as seen in the past. Bernardo Silva was booked in the first half for a mistimed challenge on Gabriel and was later involved in an altercation with Trossard on the stroke of half time.
In the second half, City appeared to revert to a defensive set up and essentially play Arsenal at their own game – something Pep has never done before and unrecognisable compared to his previous styles of play. For a large portion of the second half, this proved effective, with Arsenal struggling to formulate chances. The Blues will also feel they should’ve scored the few chances they had in the second half however, with Haaland firing a 1v1 shot straight to Raya and Doku also being in a similar position but not being able to convert or have anyone to square the ball to. City’s substitutions also reflected a very defensive approach, Haaland came off for Gonzalez and Foden was taken off for Ake to contribute to the Blues defensive efforts to hold off Arsenal.
The Blues were still a goal up by the time the game entered stoppage time, but their stubborn defence was broken in the 2nd minute of added time, when Eze played a long ball forward to Martinelli, who caught City’s defence play a high line suddenly. The Brazilian chipped the ball over Donnarumma to equalise for Arsenal with 5 minutes of play left. With a nervy finish, City held on to the draw.
On paper, the result is not so bad for City given their last performance at the Emirates and their start to the season, although they will be disappointed to have secured the win in the circumstances, having led for almost all the game. The match ends a tough run of fixtures for City, who face Huddersfield next in the Carabao cup before facing Burnley at home next weekend however, they will need to have minimal room for further points dropped if they do want to have a chance at any sort of a title run this season.