Wow, I really did not expect this to happen. Arsenal has at long last broken their winless streak against their newly forming title rivals in Man City as they won 1-0 over the Citizens to move into 2nd place in the league.
Well, we have a title race again.
Arsenal have drilled a huge hole in City’s presumptive gondola stroll to the title as they defeated Man City 1-0 and not only jumped above them in the Premier League, but they also pushed City all the way down to 3rd place and made them look piss poor doing it. And, even though it’s early, this was a hammering I really didn’t expect.
Okay, I know the obvious stats for this game would have you believe it was a lot closer as the scoreline suggests with City squeaking out possession 51% to Arsenal’s 49%, yet Arsenal scoring the lone winning goal in the 86th minute through Nathan Ake…oh, wait…Gabriel Martinelli’s winner. Seems like a pretty even game, right?
Well, it honestly wasn’t at all as the Arsenal midfield and defense COMPLETLEY shut down Man City and made them look no better than a Nottingham Forest with far more passing acumen. Alright, that may be a bit disrespectful, but City really couldn’t get anything going on attack and most of their possession was non-threatening passing and probing games around Arsenal’s.
I mean, they only had 4 total shots and a single shot on David Raya’s net throughout the entire 98+ minutes, while Erling Haaland was literally stuffed deep into William Saliba and Gabriel’s back pockets. The front trio of Haaland, Julian Alvarez, and Phil Foden just did absolutely nothing, and as I said, a big reason for that was because City’s midfield couldn’t create a stick-figure drawing against Arsenal’s midfield trio of Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, and Jorginho.
Everyone knows that Arsenal is one of the most explosive teams in the league, but this game showed they have more than enough capable players, such as Rice and Jorginho, in the center of their formation to shut down even the best and most intricate attacks in world football.
And when you pear that up with a defense capable of shutting down strikers like Erling Haaland and creative playmakers/center forwards like Phil Foden and Julian Alavarez, you get a team capable of going the distance winning the Premier League.
And that was something Arsenal just couldn’t do last year, but now seem like they’re more than capable of now. Sure, their striker and attacking core wasn’t that great either as their game-winning goal was really down to Nathan Ake heading the ball into his own net, but this is still Man City after all. And defenders like Ruben Dias, Nathan Ake, Kyle Walker, Joško Gvardiol, and keeper Ederson are pretty decent players, right?
But, as for City, what the hell was that performance? Did they know they had a game today?
They’ve now lost their last two straight games 1-0 (they lost 1-0 to Wolves last weekend), and they’ve fallen from a comfortable 4-point cushion atop the Premier League and looking destined to cruise to their 4th straight Premier League title to now wallowing in 3rd place and sitting a full 2 points behind Arsenal and Spurs (who are now 1st place in the league!). How did this happen to City?
They’re playing extremely slow, lethargic, and timid with their passing and midfield creativity, they can’t get the ball to Erling Haaland and their strikers, and they’ve relied on their defense and Ederson to bail them out of games.
Yes, they have injuries to key players, but they still had Bernado Silva, Rico Lewis, Mateo Kovacic, Jack Grealish, John Stones, and Mattheus Nunes to start in the midfield. It’s not the Champions League winning trio of Kevin De Bruyne, Rodri, and Ilkay Gundogan, but they should be able to contend with all the best sides in Europe.
Maybe this is just a little blip in City’s season, and they’ll be atop the league by this time next week, but that’s going to be really difficult with Arsenal and Spurs now roaring with momentum and a small two-point advantage.
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