SCHOOLBOY ERROR! ARSENAL TAUGHT LESSON BY TOP OF THE CLASS GUARDIOLA
IT IS just like they tell you in school. ‘Don’t play to the whistle,’ the sports teacher says. ‘If you see an infringement, stand in the middle with your hand in the air, as the game goes on around you. It’s bound to work out in your favour.’ Or maybe not. Arsenal did not lose because David Silva was offside when creating Manchester City’s third goal. They probably would have lost anyway. What they surrendered, however, was the chance to test City’s defence under pressure. The scenario Pep Guardiola’s detractors have been waiting for, in fact.
A single-goal lead, against a good Premier League team gaining momentum. Faced with this, it was predicted, City will collapse as the season wears on and they tire under Guardiola’s unrelenting command. They didn’t. Instead, it was Arsenal who blinked.
There will be the standard complaints about injustice here. Standards of refereeing have never been worse, according to Arsene Wenger. The second was never a penalty (false), while the third was plainly offside (true). Yet, equally, human error is a fact of sporting life and Arsenal stopped playing at a vital time.
In addition, City did not need the third goal for victory and their three points were thoroughly deserved. They were much the better team, and could have won by many more had all the crosses that skimmed across Arsenal’s six-yard box met a target.
So sympathy has its limits. Wenger should be as perturbed by the mental failings of his players considering that, at the time of the third goal, the game was in the balance.
Arsenal, set up as sturdily as Wenger allows, had stuck in there and benefited from the introduction of a £50million striker in Alexandre Lacazette. He provided the cutting edge Arsenal had been missing, albeit now 2-0 down.
Laurent Koscielny played the ball out the back to Alex Iwobi, who in turn found Aaron Ramsey. He slipped it inside to Lacazette, who lashed a low shot past Ederson.
Suddenly, with 25 minutes still to play, it was game on. Whatever Arsenal’s faults, no one can argue that they do not have match-winning potential in this team. Lacazette, Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Olivier Giroud. The Etihad was nervous, have no doubt of that.
At which point, fortune, and flawed thinking, intervened. And yes, Arsenal have a strong case that Silva, the provider, was offside in the build-up to the third. As every school child knows, however, those cases should not be made on the edge of the six-yard area. Action, not words, count there.
So when Sanchez lost the ball cheaply, Raheem Sterling took advantage and quickly played in Silva. He looked offside by a figurative mile. He wasn’t. His forward leg, however, was in an offside position. No matter. Arsenal had to keep going to defend the threat.
Instead, Granit Xhaka stopped, hand raised. He was the man who could have cut out the cross with greater determination. Now he was out of the game. Silva briefly hesitated, heard no whistle, and carried on. Gabriel Jesus, left alone in the middle, did the rest.
Xhaka, of course, continued his protests into the book. Wenger poured his fury into the ear of fourth official Andre Marriner. Yet, amazingly, despite this, there was no revision of policy and the result stood at 3-1, which is what City deserved. They were two goals better than Arsenal on the pitch, and twice that between the ears.
Arsenal didn’t play badly, as the scoreline suggests. City’s strength is that they are equally dangerous when not in possession. Like Liverpool, or Chelsea a year ago, one slip, even 80 yards from goal, and they are on you. An Arsenal attack, after two minutes, produced City’s first chance of the game.
Sterling led the break, four Arsenal shirts in pursuit, finding Kevin De Bruyne, who moved it on just as swiftly to Sergio Aguero, whose shot was snatched, wide, and wildly out of character for City’s newly crowned record goalscorer. The virtue of being a forward under Guardiola, of course, is that miss one chance and another comes along almost immediately, and pretty soon Aguero was putting Leroy Sane in on the left for what should have been the opener. His cross was low and lovely but Sterling couldn’t quite get there. Arsenal were reprieved — but not for long.
An Aguero cross was cleared and returned by De Bruyne, whose low shot forced a save from Petr Cech. That save was picked up by Sane, and recycled to Fabian Delph, who restored it to De Bruyne. He played a lovely one-two with Fernandinho before striking a low shot which this time flew beyond Cech’s reach. From there, it was only a case of how many.
Plenty, with better finishing. Silva had a ball fly across goal in the 34th minute and from the next break — again from an Arsenal attack — Sterling had only to hit an adequate pass to find Sane alone advancing on goal. He overhit it horribly.
In the 50th minute City at last achieved the distance their play merited. It was a clumsy challenge by Nacho Monreal that did the damage, a shoulder barge on Sterling that ended with legs entan- gled, and didn’t really come over as a serious attempt to play anything bar the man. Michael Oliver gave the penalty, Aguero sent Cech the wrong way, scoring off the inside of his left post. Some would claim it was lucky; to be fair, as long as the ball rebounds the right way, off the inside of a post with the goalkeeper in the opposite direction is about as good as a penalty gets. After goal No 179, Aguero would surely know. MANCHESTER CITY (4-3-3): Ederson 6; Walker 6.5, Stones 7.5, Otamendi 7, Delph 6.5; DE BRUYNE 8, Fernandinho 7, D Silva 7.5; Sterling 6.5 (Gundogan 77min, 6), Aguero 6.5 (Jesus 62, 7), Sane 7 (B Silva 87). Subs not used: Bravo, Danilo, Mangala, Toure. Scorers: De Bruyne 19, Aguero 50 pen, Jesus 74. Booked: Otamendi. Manager: Pep Guardiola 7. ARSENAL (5-4-1): Cech 6; Bellerin 6, Koscielny 6.5, Coquelin 5.5 (Lacazette 56, 7), Monreal 6, Kolasinac 5; Ozil 5, Ramsey 6.5, Xhaka 6 (Giroud 78, 6), Iwobi 6 (Wilshere 78, 6); Sanchez 6.5. Subs not used: Macey, Debuchy, Walcott, Elneny. Scorer: Lacazette 65. Booked: Monreal, Lacazette, Koscielny, Xhaka, Sanchez, Ozil. Manager: Arsene Wenger 6. Referee: Michael Oliver 6. Attendance: 54,286.