Nobody knew what to expect tonight when the PL leaders Arsenal and City faced off in the FA Cup. Maybe some people were expecting a barn burner of a game with two high-pressing, high-octane offenses would clash for the first time this season and instead, they got a cagey, kind of dull, lethargic FA Cup tie. City squeaked out a 1-0 win at the Etihad to advance in the Cup but you won’t find me pressed about it.
THOUGHTS ON THE MATCH:
PREMATCH: I played every scenario of what I thought would happen tonight. With City, there is always a possibility of getting smacked, look at their 6-3 win over United and their 4-0 win against Chelsea in the last round. The tough guys would say play your starters full throttle, don’t be afraid of City so on and so forth. As cool as that is, the players are human beings and deep down it wouldn’t be the same for them in a FA Cup 4th round when they know they face these guys in the league in a few weeks. City also have the ability to smack us with 4 goals with all of our starters if we don’t show up as well so not giving them the chance to have that mental edge on us is something I was cognizant about before the match. You also don’t want to play a lineup with all reserves which could also have its own significance in a harmful way if beaten handily. If I were Arteta, I would have started the match exactly like he did: a mix of starters and capable reserves to shore out and respect a vaunted City side (Turner-Tomiyasu-Holding-Gabriel-Tierney-Thomas-Xhaka-Saka-Vieira-Trossard-Eddie). That is 6 changes from the usual PL starting XI we put out as City essentially put out their best XI in regards to their latest matches which shows what Arteta and Pep thought about today’s game. Arteta looking to rest some of his key players and fully looking at the league with Pep looking for City to make a statement and after the match today, you’d have to say Arteta won.
FIRST HALF: I thought we edged the first half by a decent margin. You can see from the start that Arteta kept his principles the same and had the boys pressing from the start. There were times that it worked but you can tell that there is no better team in world football that is capable of breaking a press like City. Trossard picked up some good moments early, going at their young RB Rico Lewis. Noticed that he doesn’t mind going down the line with his weaker left foot and forced a decent save out of Ortega. He also earlier crossed the ball with his weaker foot which found a surging Tomiyasu who caught all of the ball but Ortega did well to get a strong hand on it. Other than that, City were admittedly poor given the stakes and who each team was fielding. Haaland’s touch was all over the place, Mahrez and Grealish were non-existent, Gundogan and Rodri were just passengers etc.
SECOND HALF: You can tell that Pep got in their asses and City came out a bit faster with more purpose in the second half. They were imposing themselves or trying to at least but I think Arsenal handled it as well as they could for the most part before Ake squeezed a shot past Turner. We got some of the big boys on to get something out of the game but it was a bit too much at the end. We definitely had our chances and picked it up after we conceded but the energy and drive to get that goal was not the same when trying to compare on how we chased that winner against United. Just different class and scenario for us and we bow out of the FA Cup to City. Not a bad result at all, matched them for 90 minutes away from home with a rotated squad while they played their best XI. You obviously don’t love to lose but this match just cemented how we should smack them when they come to the Emirates when the league is at stake. You can penalize us for not being as motivated as we should for this game but you would have to double that on how City performed with who they fielded during a home game against the PL leaders.
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