Arsenal were nonchalant, not scared

Gary Neville and his fellow Arsenal sceptics can do the old ‘I told you so’ routine but that was close and Manchester City know it is far from over just yet.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

Early thoughts
Arsenal playing pretty well, Haaland really does screw City’s system up. Singularly the most dangerous foul in the game has to be the ‘Harry Kane back into the jumping player’ that Martinelli just did on Walker. One day someone is going to break their neck. Should be a straight red.
Tom (He’ll score a hatRick now!)

Half-time thoughts
I’m writing this at half time in the Arsenal-City game. Regardless of the final score I’d love for the post-match interviewer to ask Mikel Arteta if, when:

i) Eddie Nketiah used his shoulder instead of his head to miss that great chance right in front of goal just before City scored, or
i) Tomiyasu played a blind back pass leading to De Bruyne’s goal,

they were guilty of “human error”, or they just did not “understand their job”.

Cheers
Paul, Cambridge (stop f**king slating officials – you cannot get enough refs in grass roots football)

Full-time thoughts
Naturally a disappointing result but plenty of positives still. The main difference between the sides was the ruthlessness in front of goal. Twas a game of very fine margins and alas we came up short……again.

No matter how much we try and pretend Nketiah just isn’t up to being first choice for a sustained period of time at this level, his inability to even hit the target from 3 very presentable chances is inexcusable as were the two wayward passes by Tomi and Gabriel, ridiculous shit that was all but gone from our game this season (real pig of a game for them to rear their ugly heads too.

Martinelli really misses Jesus, his movement on and off the ball unlocks so much space for Martinelli and Nketiah just doesn’t operate in the same way which is not a slight, just a difference that needs to be addressed. Feel he’s suffered more than the team has with Jesus’ absence. Odegaard seems to be struggling to find form too, really in and out of this one with some sublime passes and some real duds too.

There were positives though we created a decent amount of chances, controlled the game and possession at times well, Jorginho fitted in nicely (until he ran out of steam in the second half) and forced Citeh to change their style of play which doesn’t happen often. Feels like the game deserved a draw but as mentioned city…