Arsenal have tasted defeat for the first in 2023 after being knocked out of the FA Cup by rivals Manchester City.
The Gunners were marginally the better side in the opening half, although it was a 45 minutes of limited opportunities. There wasn’t a single corner before the break, and it wasn’t the best viewing for the neutrals, but that isn’t unusual when two of the best sides in the country come face-to-face.
We moved to bring in both William Saliba and Sambi Lokonga at the break, but it was our rivals who began to turn the screw in the new half, and they were enjoying more and more in the final third before their double-change of Julian Alvarez and Kyle Walker which brought an almost immediate return.
The Argentine was involved in putting the pressure on, narrowly being denied by the post before it fell to Nathan Ake, who placed his effort neatly into the side netting. Arteta reacted by throwing in Gabriel Martinelli and Oleksandr Zinchenko on almost instantly, before captain Odegaard shortly followed them, but there just wasn’t enough time for us to find the rhythm to get our team back in control and get the goal that we needed.
It isn’t a huge deal, as losing away at City could easily happen to any team in the world, and one less distraction from our title push can hardly be a bad thing, can it?
Patrick