Manchester City vs Arsenal - Sunday, 31 March, 4:30 pm: Page 20 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Manchester City vs Arsenal - Sunday, 31 March, 4:30 pm

Claudius

Sicario2 - Tier 1 go back to look at games where we’ve taken risk against City. KDB, Silvaand Foden in open space will cut you up.

Sicario2 - Tier 1

Claudius
This is a different Arsenal team who came into the game in the best possible condition. No risk no reward.

RocktheCasbah

Sicario2 - Tier 1 sign of our progress that you feel this way I think.

City are unbeaten at home since before the World Cup, this was the first time they haven't scored at home since 2021. I totally understand what you are saying with their injuries, but we were one Trossard touch away from a perfectly executed (albeit adapted!) game plan.

As it is, we've come away from our two games with City and restricted them to scraps. This is a team who put 7 (SEVEN) past us in 2 games last season.

Gazza M

a bit more pace and power up front for us and we win that, I reckon. we just need a few more guys who we can spam with those long balls, who can also finish

JazzG

Sicario2 - Tier 1 It’s a great point but looking back I think we could have taken a few more risks. Will we ever get a better chance of beating city than yesterday? Think they were for the taking

If we went into this game with a fully fit Saka & Martinelli I think we would have taken more risks, with both of them clearly nowhere near their best it was going to be difficult. Despite that we had a couple times where better decision making could have resulted in a goal.

Gurgen True but I think Haaland was a bit rattled yesterday with how well we defended him.

awooga83

As I said it was a great result for us with the context of who city are but at the same time this is probably one of the more vulnerable city defensive sides and we've also not been able to really create much against them despite the deflected goal. I still think it's good to be able to go there and shut them out but if we are the highest scorers in the league you'd hope we could offer a bit more attacking threat.

The main annoyance I feel is about we have such a small margin for error now but it won't be these results that have undone us. It's the villa, Newcastle, Fulham X2 and West ham just change one of them and we are in a much better place.

JazzG

I'm not sure if they were that vulnerable. They went into the match with Ake, Akanji, Dias and Gvardiol in their back line, that is a £200m defence they put out there. All three except Dias are also very comfortable playing as full backs.

goon

JazzG

Yeah, the poverty defence narrative is hilarious.

awooga83

JazzG I meant more this season they have been more vulnerable defensively. Liverpool made them look very shaky at times. It's not that they don't have some decent players still but they are unquestionably not their top players in those positions so that makes it a better prospect then if they had those.

goon

Sicario2 - Tier 1

I don’t think it’s about risk, it’s about composure and belief.

Raya’s distribution was not good, Saliba was a little nervy on the ball too and Jorginho was swallowed up. Supporting runs were slow too.

When Partey came on things improved, but the the final pass was off.

Clrnc

We definitely didn't play for a draw. Even in the dying minutes Saliba was running to get the ball back and restart play

Claudius

Clrnc it’s not so much playing for a draw. It’s managing the opponent in front of you. City played like they had just consumed a kilo of cocaine. They pressed and closed down quickly and pushed us deep with the ball. We picked an offensive team. We just had to manage a much more offensive opponent, and be organized for 90 minutes.

Qwiss

MistaT Kiwiors passing was terrible in the first half.

Claudius

Qwiss was easily the toughest game Kiwior has been in. And you can see that City targeted him. They pushed play towards him, and they crowded him when he had the ball. Was hard for him to get out.
There were times I wanted Zinchenko there to give us more control. But on the other hand, whenever we had set pieces, Kiwior was really good. City have some robust players and Kiwior threw himself about. So that was valuable.

SimplyThePest

Claudius It was exactly the kind of performance against a top team, home or away, that many of us pined for Wenger to deliver when he had teams that could have won the title.

Clrnc

SimplyThePest one of the only time I have seen Wenger intentionally make us play so defensively was the fa cup which we won against United and... Paris... which we were robbed by the ref

JazzG

awooga83 True, Liverpool though have this unique ability to turn football matches into basketball games and they'll usually beat teams doing that. Unreal how well Liverpool are doing considering the number of chances they give away.

They were unable to do that in the games against us but I am surprised they were able to do it so easily against City.

daredevil

awooga83

Yet, despite Pool's tactics, they drew as well.

A defence first approach away to title rivals and in Europe, whilst playing on the front foot at home is exactly how I want to see our team setup. It's one of the few positive impacts Mourinho had on the game. Hell, even Guardiola adopted it last season with City ceding possession to us and Bayern away from home.

naz

Performances be damned. I'd have taken the draw at the start of the game and was happy with the draw at the end. We're not talking about chumps here, City are incredible at home. We snuffed everything they sent our way and made them look ordinary. Gabriel and Saliba were outstanding. Any other team would've conceded a couple.

Let's win the rest and hope for the worst for Liverpool and City

Coombs

Claudius only one way for him to get more experience. He'll either take it and move forward or we'll learn he doesn't have what it takes. I think he'll go from strength to strength.

Claudius

Coombs he’s also primarily a centre back, filling in at left back. Team is performing well, and he is outdoing himself. If anything happens to our centre backs, he can slot in more than adequately

Coombs

Claudius well, I always thought he would play left back, even when the signing was first mentioned. I don't consider him to be playing out of position.

« Previous Page Next Page »