Manchester City can celebrate a 5-0 win today, but reality is Arsenal were never in this match.
We were 2-0 down inside the opening 15 minutes, with Ilkay Gundogan heading his side ahead unchallenged inside seven minutes, before Ferran Torres found himself one-on-one with Bernd Leno after the ball was played through our defence, with our defender failing to make a solid contact to clear the attempted pass.
Emile Smith Rowe nearly got us back into the game when he piled pressure on Ederson who failed to clear his lines, but our effort span past the far post.
The Brazilian goalkeeper was struggling with his decision making, and just as we were beginning to believe we may get one on the board and get back into this, Granit Xhaka got himself a straight red for a two-footed tackle.
It was pretty much one-way traffic from that point onwards, and when Jack Grealish’s forward run drew four defenders out of position before teeing Gabriel Jesus up to tap home, the manager must have been considering what would be needed to stop the rot.
Bukayo Saka was the man to make way at the break, being replaced by Mo Elneny, but that didn’t stop the home side from adding a fourth early after the break, with Rodri’s long-range effort beating Bernd Leno at his left post.
Lacazette was next to come off the bench for Auba(for some unknown reason), and while that change did nothing to the game, Bernd Leno did manage to deny our rivals with a number of saves for the next 30 minutes, but Mahrez’s cross was eventually met by Ferran Torres in the box to head in a fifth, and I can’t help but wonder how many they could have scored if they kept their foot on the pedal.
Attention will no doubt turn on the manager’s head for the coming days, and it could well be a long international break for the Spaniard as calls come in for his head.
Could the club finally be persuaded to give up on the ‘process’?
Patrick