We have lost 12 of our last 13 Premier League games against Man City. The only win out of those was in this very season at Home. We haven’t really playing well against them from some time now, having lost all our last 7 as visitors. And there is a chance to do the double on them since 2007-08 season.
Man City are unbeaten in their last 38 games at home in all competition, last time they failed to register a win was against Brentford in 2022; their longest run without a defeat since 1919-1921. They have one of the best managers in the world, probably ‘the’ best who has assembled one of ‘the’ best teams on the planet. We have seen how they didn’t allow Klopp and his Liverpool team with the likes of Salah, Mane, Firmino and VVD to win more than one Premier League title at their heights. We know they will not allow us as well.
Team News
We are having some luck. John Stones and Kyle Walker are out for today’s game – both picked up an injury in the international break. However, Ederson, Akanji and De Bruyne are fit to play likely having recovered from their not-so-serious injuries.
We have our own challenges though. Saka and Gabriel pulled out from their international duty and it remains to be seen if they can make it. Martinelli was out because of a foot injury and is doubtful for the game. Missing both Saka and Martinelli creates a problem for us, since we only have Trossard as a quality back up. I don’t want to see Nelson starting against City with almost no game time recently. The other option would be to put Gabriel Jesus on the right wing but too many un-tried changes can disrupt the chemistry and it’s not one of those games where you need to try new things. Lets see who makes it before the game.
Personally, I would pray for Saka to make it. He has a score to settle with Foden. Kai up top has proved better than Jesus and I will stick to it. In the midfield, Jorgi allowing Rice to play an advance role has helped us. We need Odegaard to continue his form, and we need our defence to be solid like we had. We need Raya to keep his calm and concentration because the City players are going to test him.
Fire and blood
At this point, players are aware of the game Mikel wants to play. At this stage, both the managers would have figured out each other’s game plan. Quality wise, City might have an upper hand because of De Bruyne and Haaland but then Saliba had kept Haaland in his pocket whenever we have played them and we have our own KDB in Odegaard. At this stage, I would say the only disadvantage we have over City is that we are playing on their ground.
Most of the time, you win because of your game plan. You find a way to over crowd the opposition box, you define a strategy to overload the fullbacks, you play a false 9, and if you are Brentford, you find a way to let them have all the ball and counter attack whenever you get a chance. Some other time requires fire and blood. Today’s the day!
The winner of this match will be decided by whoever is willing to sweat more, keep the fire burning for 90min, run and press endlessly and put their body on the line when needed.
The winner of this match will go on to win Premier League. Lets see how much Arteta can motivate a group of 15 players.
Right, we should thank the gods – the old and the new – for the football is back. And what a way to begin. Hope you are doing well, hopefully it ends even better.
Cheers!
this isn’t too dissimilar from our first meeting, a snipe hunt with a rather sneaky 1-0 scoreline in our favour…fact is, this isn’t nearly the same City squad as last season, in that they haven’t even secured all 3 points against anyone in the top 5, so if we want to change our narrative we have to be willing to take the required chances
our subs, on the heels of City’s, seems to suggest that MA believes a draw is a victory…we’re upgrding our defensive side of things, meanwhile they’ve tried to upgrade their offensive options
Partey and Tomi coming in for Jorginho and
Meanwhile Halland trying to disturb Jesus with small talk.
doesn’t mean we can’t win, but this has been a competely gutless tactical affair by MA…I kind of knew that was in the offing when he declared in his pre-match presser that he was going for it
Finally some attack who can score
Set piece can we?
one of MA’s yes men must have reminded him that offence does matter today…even still I would have opted for more speed
Last dice
Tossard and Martinelli coming in. Tossard already showing how El Bastardo was so wrong.
Havertz still in
I get the whole getting 4 of 6 points against City narrative, but let’s not forget that context matters…Pool won today and, like I stated earlier, City have been far below average against the top sides
right now we look to be living on borrowed time
it will be intriguing to see who Marts replaces…could it be for the invisible giraffe or could Saka be making way
as it’s Saka off, that’s likely not going to change our tactical pursuits
it’s hard to believe that no one’s been injured today with the refs whistle firmly in his pocket…don’t get me wrong, I like that gig so long as the match doesn’t get too scrappy
that’s why playing a RB on the left can be problematic…thankfully nothing came of it
A dent in our title aspirations and good call Norg I think you called the draw.
A game we needed to get 3 points so now we rely on others.
0-0
Which was my original hunch , but was not confident to express
sorry but I’m not having it…you can package this anyway you want, and some will undoubtedly heap praise on the manager, but this isn’t the kind of outing I expect from us, tactically speaking, after all that money spent and up against a side with numerous defensive injuries and not a single victory against a top 5 side
If Pep had taken off Halland and kept Foden and Grealish , their game would have been different.
Halland had a day off . Also playing at the back didn’t give him space for his runs
I’m still digesting that but my overall emotion is positive. Particularly when one considers the last 7 or 8 times we’ve played there.
Arsenal women beat Chelsea 1-0 in extra time at the Women’s league cup! 🏆
Marc
How you doing with all those beers inside you mate? I hope the bedspin is manageable tonight.
At the end of the day it was negative tactics by El B. Certainly not the tactics of a title winning side.
Offensively we needed Trossard, Martinelli and a fit Nelson if Saka was suspect. We had no pace in lumbering Havertz who’s job as a striker is to defend.
We can still win the title but we will be relying on other results going our way. Had we bagged the 3 points the title was ours for the keeping. Now we play catch up football.
We had the squad only El B once again was left wanting and played not to lose rather than to win.
Tony-agree wholeheartedly…we came there not to lose and were far too conservative when it came to our early subs…with the ref opting to let us “play” we should have played some more man coverage in the midfield, then brought in some more pace to counter effectively…taking it to a wounded beast, even if we lost 4-3, would be better in the long run, as that’s the full circle moment this program needs in order to push on
KP on that basis of tonight’s game it wasn’t a title winning side’s performance. We played not to lose. When we should have played to win.
Wrong selection for the game for me. We have a £billion squad and El B makes the same mistakes playing Havertz and Jesus who thought it was funny to get booked.
The few times we got in their box we showed we could go toe to toe with deft passes. Unfortunately Ode was lacking his usual sharpness down to too much running in our press. His creativity was from tired legs.
Kiwior was better than Tomi. Partey was largely ineffective moving the ball forward and didn’t look fit.
When your 9 is playing more in defense and defensive midfield and Jesus thinks it’s funny getting a yellow, you have to question the manager.
We had 2 shots on target to City’s one where they had 7 off target to our 2.
I feel it’s points lost rather than gaining a point.
Defensively we were sound and Saliba was worthy of the MOTM adulation.
Now we have to win every point and to hope others take points off Liverpool and City who are a point behind us.
TRVL sorry repeating myself but absolutely right had we won that would have been a potential title winning 3 points, such would have been our swagger going forward.
At best El B bottled it yet again. Conservative football was very apt from you. Toothless would be a word I’d associate with tonight’s performance.
Tony-Cheers!!
KP-don’t get me wrong, there were far worse potential outcomes and, given our past, taking anything from a match at the Etihad should raise spirits, but I’m not sure this actually moves us forward…I guess I’m more perplexed by the notion that we went there with nothing more than a draw in mind…if not now, when? especially considering these particular circumstances
context is so pertinent to the conversation…if this were the final week of the season and we needed a single point to take the title, masterful shit, especially if City could have unseated us with a win…with their lineup issues out wide and at the back, poor goalscoring form(PL only) and lack of success against the top 5, we should have been chomping at the bit to take all 3 or die trying…for me it was a bit of a missed opportunity
Ultimately, we were top at the start of the weekend and now we’re not. So it has to count as points dropped in that context.
It was a brave win and took peak concentration. We limited ManC, no goals, limited shots on target. Not many manage that and we were good for it. The performance was satisfactory. For all the chat about them not beating top 5 teams not many keep clean sheets against them either. Keeping them at bay, at about 30 mins I saw them start to toss 3 or 4 random crosses in hoping Haaland might get… something, isn’t to be sniffed at.
When Early Days Tets was lobbing in blind crosses and trying to gaslight us that the metrics meant we were virtually winning he was rightly dissed. He was wrong then, Pep saw it was wrong today and took action. Give Tets his dues, he responded to those changes quickly, he’s learning. But it was a recognition by Pep that our set up was working.
We’re still in the pack, all of us will drop more points. There was never any sense in going all out for one game. But if you can’t win, make sure you don’t lose etc.
The subs made sense, although Tomi took a minute to find his feet. Partey had a decent cameo and showed he still has something to contribute in the run in. He also brought some composure and held of their press well.
When the game became a little more stretched bringing on Martinelli was positive. We could have gone full double team once Doku and Grealish came on but we took a slight risk in not putting all our eggs in doubling up on either and leaving ourselves with no attacking outlets.
What was also encouraging, if a little nervy for me at the same time, was in the second half, the team trying to remain composed when we won the ball deep. We stopped lumping it out to invite more pressure and tried to play it out. Risky but necessary if we wanted to avoid constant attacks.
I’m relaxed about the poss stats. One thing we’ve come to terms with from Wenger to Tets is the concept of ‘illusory possession’. No point having the ball if all you’re doing is play horseshoe football with or hit and hope crosses.
I can’t get excited about the performance but content that we matched them and end the weekend above a team I still see as the main rivals. Liverpool are doing what we did last year, sneaking wins. We know that’s not sustainable. Them being top is less of an issue.
Onwards to Luton.
Aitcho-agree with several of your sentiments, minus the “brave win” commentary
one of MA’s most glaring managerial flaws has been his inability to make in-game adjustments in a timely fashion…once it became apparent that the Taylor was going to let them “play”, we should have made life much more uncomfortable for their midfield by ramping up our pressing, especially considering their inability to properly threaten us from wider spaces…not to mention, the whole Jesus out wide experiment seemed to be more about catering to those on the highest wages than the greater good…the last thing we needed was to have both Havertz and Jesus on the pitch at the same time, as it was exceedingly unlikely that either would score from the limited chances MA’s tactics would provide
I have no problem with adopting a more pragmatic approach at times, but this was a full-bore don’t lose initiative that didn’t even include a plausible countering option…in my opinion, this sort of “baby steps” approach to game management should have been tossed in the bin as soon as our investments reached unprecendented levels…hopefully our rather toothless Striker position will be quickly remedied come the offseason, but I do fear that this might not be in the offing…MA paid through the nose for Havertz and without him being deployed as an up top afterthought, he will undoubtedly be shoehorned into our midfield, which certainly won’t help matters…to be frank we simply traded one albatross, Xhaka, for a far more expensive one, who will never live up to expectations, from a wages perspective, and who doesn’t make tactical sense
Our next 4 games… 9 in total still remaining.
Luton (h)
Brighton (a)
Shit on the Villa (h)
Wolves (a)
Plus the small matter of Bayern twice.
This is when it starts to count. Maximum points needed, nothing less. Notwithstanding anyone being crocked yesterday, I think the squad is in pretty good shape. TP looked at it yesterday and our midfield looked better with him and Declan at the end. Tomi got better too as his stint wore on. Martinelli looked like he hasn’t been away of course
Arteta needs to think about spreading the load and which combinations of players will get the job done. That includes tactical substitutions when sensible. If he’s thinking to himself, ‘I’ll just stick with my core XI (til they snap)’ , that way madness lies.
Surely we can trust him to get this right, eh lads?
In essence, I’m probably glass half full after that. Luton will huff and puff but a win will assuage any doubts about the draw. Getting the best out of our squad is vital.
But I equally respect others’ nuanced views. That’s why 10 out of 10 users prefer LiR to other hipster, bullshit, US-based blogs of bollockry! Cheers again Ambarish for doing what you do – we appreciate it mate!