Arsenal escaped defeat at the Etihad, and William Saliba has revealed what they did right to avoid defeat.
If there is one area of Mikel Arteta’s team that really stepped up Sunday afternoon, it is his defence. Given how inefficient Arsenal’s attack was, Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba may have been the reason for avoiding another defeat at the Etihad.
Arsenal’s great defence benefits from Gabriel Magalhaes’ strong front-foot defending and Saliba’s calm and cool demeanor. Since March 2022, Manchester City haven’t failed to score in a PL game at the Etihad, but against Arsenal they failed.
With that out of the way, what did Arsenal do well that kept them from losing? Saliba admits that drawing with Manchester City was not pleasant, but they accomplished their goal in that game. According to the Frenchman, their aim was to avoid losing even if they did not win, which was undoubtedly the case.
“We cannot be satisfied when we draw, but it’s OK,” Saliba told Sky Sports.
“We learn from some games. When we cannot win, we must not lose. That is what we did well. So, we leave with one point but we are not satisfied.
“I think it’s more in our heads because we know they are the best team in the world.”
A win over Manchester City would have been enormous, putting our Gunners four points ahead of the defending champions. However, the game finished in a draw, with Liverpool emerging victorious as they currently lead the Premier League log by two points over our Gunners.
With nine games remaining, our Gunners have no alternative but to strive to earn as many points as possible in these games while hoping Liverpool drops points along the way. It’s a difficult task for our Gunners to win the league, but they took a big step yesterday.
Daniel O
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Well said, Saliba. Our defence was excellent in keeping City quiet but we missed chances through Jesus and Trossard should have passed to Martinelli instead. Anyway, a point against City at Etihad is good enough and we move on.
Saliba is right, I am also not satisfied with draw. We need to raise our mentality and go for win no matter who the opponents are. The result favors mancity as they knew this was their most difficult remaining match and defeat here would have put them in difficult situation. Now they stayed in title race and can blow away the teams in remaining fixtures, whereas we now face uphill task to get maximum points against very tough opponents.
My worry is the remaining games. The fixture list is kindest to Man City who I think will win 8 games. We need to match that with our very difficult fixture list including Brighton and Villa with a Bayern Munich sandwich. I think Liverpool will win at least 7 games.
So my view is that we are going to fall short by 1 – 3 points. Hope I am wrong.
There’s two ways of looking at the game. One is in isolation, Arsenal played disciplined negative football and came away with a point. You can take that as a positive or negative. In terms of the title race though Liverpool won, City and Arsenal lost. I do think that it would have been a much better game if the referee hadn’t been so reluctant to book anyone. With a few players from each side on yellow the cynical fouling whenever anyone from either side looked a threat going forward might have stopped.