The chasm between Manchester City and Arsenal was extraordinary. Erling Haaland bullied Rob Holding and Martin Odegaard was well and truly put in his place by Kevin De Bruyne.
‘What the f*** are we supposed to do about that?’ all the Arsenal players presumably thought, having been drilled endlessly on the importance of pressing by Mikel Arteta, with a view to games like this, doing it to a tee, only for John Stones to boot the ball to the biggest freak after six minutes, who gave it to the next biggest freak, who scored a quite glorious goal.
From one goal line to the other in a matter of seconds, in a move that Erling Haaland has made possible and has made Manchester City the multi-faceted monster who now look as likely to secure the Treble as any team since 1999.
Arsenal fans will question whether William Saliba would have done more than Rob Holding against Haaland, and he probably would have done, but the Arsenal defender couldn’t have been any tighter. In fact if Haaland had gone down he may have got a free-kick. Instead he took the sort of delicate touch his wiring and machinery shouldn’t allow, before laying the ball off for Kevin De Bruyne.
He still had a hell of a lot to do, but ran at the Arsenal defence at speed, with the ball perfectly under control, before shooting at a point he (and we) felt certain he would score, despite that point being 20 yards from goal.
Running at Arsenal was the order of the day. Mikel Arteta was asked about Pep Guardiola’s tatical genius before kick-off and pointed to the inclusion of Kyle Walker to evidence his unpredictability. But it looked quite simple really. Rob Holding isn’t very good – let’s get our two best players to run at him.
Haaland perhaps hasn’t had so much joy in a game all season. He scored his 49th goal of this extraordinary campaign with the last kick of the game, had six shots and added a second assist for De Bruyne in the second half with the freedom of the Etihad allowed by a fragile defence and an absent midfield.
There was a moment late in the first half, where Holding was running back towards the corner flag and could have passed the ball back to Aaron Ramsdale, but instead kicked it out for a throw-in with Haaland galumphing along behind him. Holding smiled as he turned to see Haaland staring right through him. It was a spine-shivering display of dominance from a world class striker against a mediocre Premier League centre-back. A complete mismatch.
And it was one of…
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