Arsenal come away from the Etihad with a 1-0 loss on their hands, but neither us or Manchester City were at their best.
We were rocked by the late loss of Rob Holding, who was injured in the warm-up, which led to David Luiz coming into the side.
Mikel Arteta’s more controversial decisions were to change the formation for the fixture, reverting to a 4-3-3 and more-so to start without Alexandre Lacazette (who had scored three in three this season).
We started the game brightly however, moving the ball quickly and getting forward at speed, but our exciting start was short-lived however.
Raheem Sterling put paid to a neat team goal just after 20 minutes in, although the it was Bernd Leno’s parry which fell into the path of the England star.
Bukayo Saka had the best chance to level things when forcing Ederson to spread his body to pull off a crucial save, but the this was just the way the game was to play out.
We had plenty of opportunities to punish Manchester City, but were not clinical enough to get that crucial equaliser, and you could point at any of our three forwards in Aubameyang, Pepe or Willian for not being at their best during the match.
Each of them wasn’t clinical enough in possession, composed enough on the ball, or creative enough to get us the breakthrough we needed, and neither substitute Lacazette or Nketiah did enough in their limited time on the pitch either.
Man City will be thankful that the match played out the way it did given how wasteful we were in the final third, but Mikel Arteta will not be happy going back into the changing room with the loss today.
Will Arteta look at his selection as any form of mistake? Will the back four be here to stay after today’s performance?
Patrick