Arsenal fans can only hope that Manchester City will not be in quite such good form on Sunday, when Arsene Wenger takes the Gunners to the Etihad stadium for a Premier League match, as they were in Italy last night, but I think we have to assume that they will be and that is going to make it extremely hard for the Gunners to get anything at all from this crucial away tie.
Perhaps the fact that City had to go to Napoli for this Champions League match and the fact that the situation in their qualifying group meant that Pep Guardiola had to select his strongest starting line-up could help Arsenal at the weekend, as our players should be fresher as the manager rests his key players and rotates heavily for the visit of Red Star Belgrade in the Europa League tonight.
Man City’s De Bruyne said: “It is a very important one again.
“We have Arsenal and United have Chelsea, so there are a lot of things that can happen again.
“If we win that game, it means that somebody else is also going to lose points with Arsenal.
“So it puts pressure on the rest, it gives us a good advantage and it is always handy to have more points and to put pressure on the other people.”
Tiring Man City legs in the latter stages on Sunday will not matter, however, if Arsenal do not work out a way to negate the pace, power, precision and finishing of Guardiola’s men, who put four past an excellent Napoli on their own turf with a dazzling display.
This result was a stark warning to Wenger and his players but will they be able to heed it and do anything about it?
Bob.