Arsenal had handed most each take a look at this season. There’s nonetheless a touch of surprise/confusion at their place atop the Premier League. Whereas enchancment was anticipated from their fifth-place end final season, to run by means of the league for the primary half of the season as they’ve come out of nowhere. What made it much more stupefying was the sheer quantity of younger gamers that had taken an enormous leap ahead, in addition to the knee-weakening attractive soccer they’d been enjoying. However observers are all the time suspicious of groups stuffed with children, so there’s been a component of skepticism of Arsenal’s resurgence. Even Arsenal supporters have type of questioned when the ground would possibly drop out from underneath them.

And but, they’ve whacked Tottenham twice. They avenged their considerably unfortunate loss to Manchester United early within the season by authoring a comeback win over them at dwelling just a few weeks in the past. They’ve crushed each Chelsea and Liverpool with out breaking a lot of a sweat (neither is a lot of a sweat recovered required for that). For the season’s first half, there wasn’t a query that the Gunners didn’t appear to have a solution to.

That has wobbled of late. They caught Everton on the worst attainable time, their first match underneath a brand new supervisor, and misplaced. They then acquired form of screwed in a house draw with Brentford, however that occurs every so often. Generally you don’t get the bounces. Maybe they acquired caught wanting a bit forward to Wednesday’s go to by Manchester Metropolis, an event the place Arsenal may have gotten one hand on the Premier League trophy with a win.

What occurred within the first half

It’s the primary take a look at that Arsenal have unquestionably failed this season, shedding 3-1 and quickly ceding the highest spot to Metropolis on purpose distinction. What is going to actually burn Arsenal’s ass is that they have been the authors of their very own destruction.

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Especially in the first half, Arsenal had City on the run. Pep Guardiola had seemingly imported his usual Champions League too-cute-by-half tendencies into the Premier League, and began the match with out a left-back. This has been the development since he punted João Cancelo out of the membership for being a disruptive prick off the sector. Bernardo Silva was nominally filling the position, however when Metropolis have the ball they’ve all the time pushed a fullback into central midfield to offer Metropolis a 3-2-4-1 look. Pep has determined to simply go together with that on a regular basis.

And Arsenal picked at it relentlessly, with Silva clumsily and recklessly wandering by means of his defensive work when known as upon, fortunate to simply get away with just one yellow card. Nathan Aké having to cowl for Silva or Rodri having to cowl for each of them left Metropolis type of shapeless, and Arsenal pressed them relentlessly. Metropolis couldn’t actually get out of their very own half, and when Arsenal weren’t raiding down Metropolis’s left, they have been switching the play to the unoccupied different aspect (the place their penalty got here from). Martin Ødegaard was regularly drifting on the market to mix with Bukayo Saka and Tomiyasu.

And with Silva enjoying deeper than he usually does, every time he wasn’t trapped in protection, Arsenal was operating midfield. Granit Xhaka, Ødegaard, and Jorginho have been inflicting turnovers repeatedly and getting Arsenal on the break. Arsenal actually may have made life much more hellish on Silva and Ake than they did, with the ultimate ball missing often. Eddie Nketiah’s radar was off for the primary time in weeks, lacking a golden probability earlier than Metropolis scored.

And Arsenal ruined their work with their first self-inflicted buckshot to the face, when Takehiro Tomiyasu did this:

Arsenal was in a position to get well, regrip the sport, and get on equal footing by means of Nketiah successful a penalty.

What occurred within the second half

The second half began a lot as the primary did, with Arsenal imposing themselves on Metropolis with out actually creating something earth-shattering. After which someplace across the sixtieth minute, the enormity of the event appeared to grip Arsenal far more than it did Metropolis. Which makes some sense, as Metropolis have been right here for the previous six seasons. Arsenal haven’t. The Gunners began having bother discovering one another with the best passes. Their decision-making began getting summary. Xhaka, by no means thought of a paragon of grace underneath fireplace, blew two probabilities to offer them superb scoring probabilities, scorching a through-ball to Nketiah when he wanted some contact after which taking too lengthy to determine whether or not to move or shoot when on the sting of the field and doing neither. He was hardly alone. The edginess was palpable.

Guardiola appeared to sense the apprehension, and reverted to a extra regular form by bringing on Manuel Akanji for Riyad Mahrez, which pushed Silva up into the frontline, which gave them a extra decided presser on the fitting aspect. Arsenal cracked underneath the upped strain:

Each of those objectives spring from Arsenal giving the ball away far too simply. Metropolis weren’t nice, however they didn’t should be, they usually’ve been across the block sufficient to know that quite a lot of instances, for those who don’t fuck up your self in a match like this, your opponent will achieve this. Metropolis have the very best ground within the Premier League, the place they by no means appear to shoot themselves within the foot when it actually counts (Europe is one other matter).

Many miles to go earlier than we sleep

It’s not a demise blow for Arsenal. They nonetheless have a sport in hand, which is Everton at dwelling, and even with a brand new supervisor that ought to be a dangling curveball. They’ll get one other crack at Metropolis down the highway. They received’t be as distracted as Metropolis by European commitments, nonetheless ready for his or her Europa League Spherical of 16 draw. They’re out of the FA Cup.

However that is nonetheless a fairly skinny squad. Thomas Partey’s harm definitely was apparent yesterday once they began treating the ball like a hand grenade and wanted somebody to both calm them down or cease a Metropolis push. Jorginho is quite a lot of issues however a stopper he’s not. Nketiah has crammed in admirably for Gabriel Jesus, probably not a prolific scorer himself, but it surely was arduous to overlook the effectively ruthless method that Erling Haaland took his one probability and the best way Nketiah missed the couple he had. They’re nonetheless fairly depending on Ødegaard to create most of their attacking work.

They froze when the lights have been brightest. As anybody else who’s tried to run with Metropolis will inform you, the margin for error is minimal. You definitely can’t give them something once they’re already constructed to take all the pieces anyway.