Thread by @MyRugema

A few comments on the Arsenal performance versus Manchester City… #ARSMCI👇🏽

The story unravels much like the New Year’s Day game back in 2022, where Arsenal had a superb first half against champions City but eventually mistakes and errors led to a comprehensive City win

Arsenal with much support from the Emirates managed to provide a hostile game state against the City XI, jeering at Ederson goal kicks, being combative in duels, making noise during fouls - this helped Arsenal to keep pushing

Tactically, Pep went for a similar setup as in the game vs Aston Villa, with Bernardo Silva in the inverted LB role to roam into midfield to exert control, much like Zinchenko does for Arsenal.

Silva struggled against Saka and was lucky to not get his yellow card earlier

Arsenal caused City problems on that right hand side, mainly from Saka’s direct attacks, as well combination play in the midfield between Jorginho, Xhaka, Ødegaard and Martinelli - this led to great chances for Nketiah in the box from crosses and passes all game

The lack of clinical accuracy from the chances Nketiah did have was a big factor going into the second half, but of course the penalty was a big boost psychologically for Arsenal

If the game was 2-1 for Arsenal going into the 2nd half, the game would have ended differently

Tomiyasu clearly struggled against Grealish and I thought a pivotal moment in the second half was the yellow card, and I was screaming for Arteta to bring on Ben White for more energy when he was on the ball

Of course his mistake first half was also pivotal but not game ending

Other individual errors definitely made a difference, and Gabriel definitely could have done better in many instances to prevent that second goal from happening, but the press from City was flawless and caused the error

Zinchenko was also culpable at some points

The slight change I noticed from Pep’s City in the second half was more tactical, which he took directly out of the Dyche / Frank playbook, by playing long kicks towards Haaland as well as targeting the lack of aerial presence of Zinchenko

Off the back of those long kicks, the City front 5 did amazingly well to counter press consistently and effectively, which not only induced mistakes from the Arsenal defence but caused panic in the Arsenal crowd which was crucial

This showed Pep’s willingness to be pragmatic and stray from his usual game plan, but Arteta didn’t.

Arteta’s naïveté in some ways was his downfall, by continuing to play out from the back against a very strong counter-pressing City front line - City only had 36% possession

At that point, I thought we could have also taken some more long balls from goal. Arteta himself in the post match interview reflected on this saying that a change in play would have been necessary

This wasn’t completely a case of tactics thought because Arteta set the team up completely correctly but certain individual errors ay the back undermined the plan, combined with a lack of clinical finishing upfront vs a buoyant City was just not enough to take the win

If you zoom out and see where Arsenal are at, they’re still behind City in many ways, mainly depth and strength in the squad, lack of experience and some naïveté in game management - and all this will come with time and more games

In terms of the title race, it’s not definitive but it very much pushes City into the driving seat with great momentum going forward.

An Arsenal win would have just put one hand on the title but now it’s a foot race that can go either but City definitely have the edge

Now, it’s onto the next one for Arsenal. Always Forward #COYG