With a goal in the 98th minute, Manchester City saved the Premier League lead, scraping a draw (2-2) at home against Arsenal in a match that was slipping away from them. It was a memorable duel, a continuous succession of events, some of them shocking, like Rodri’s injury, who went to the locker room before half of the first half had passed after taking a wrong step that caused a hyperextension of his right knee. A disaster for City because it meant their beacon in the centre of the field went out and they lost control of a match that turned towards the idea that Arsenal was pursuing. Rodri’s injury, which does not look good, came just after he had let slip his complaint about the workload that the players are subjected to, but it seemed to have more to do with chance than exhaustion. It happened that in a fight with Thomas to win the position in a corner he stumbled and in the bad move he fell to the ground to the dismay of everyone.
The game was a roller coaster ride until its epic resolution. From the start, it was City’s, who started off in command and scored with the first bullet Haaland had in his revolver after Bernardo Silva opened up the defence with a move towards the wing that widened the gap between the members of the back line. There, between the centre-backs, Savinho placed a pass into space for the exuberant Norwegian striker to gallop into, finishing without any fuss. Arsenal paled. They did even more so when just five minutes later, after a quarter of an hour of play, Gündogan sent a free kick onto the post with a curl that went over the wall. But shortly after, Rodri’s bad step came and everyone changed their pace.
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The game had begun to get tangled up and, after a foul by City, the ineffable referee Michael Oliver called the captains to the centre circle. After receiving a reprimand, the wearer of the armband for City, Kyle Walker, turned to several of his teammates to ask them to be sensible. At that moment Oliver gave permission for Arsenal to take the free-kick, so Arteta’s team was quick to find the space that Walker had vacated. And from there they designed an attack that was culminated by the full-back Calafiori with a shot that meant the equaliser.
Walker will remember that play for the rest of his life. It will also go down in the memory of a succession of encounters that already give the clashes between City and Arsenal the status of a contemporary classic. Guardiola against Arteta, once teammates at the board, now rivals, always generators of footballing trends. In the London team, for example, a strategy is now being displayed in corner kicks that is proving difficult to defend. At the Etihad, they showed it in two almost consecutive actions prepared for the shot by the São Paulo centre-back Gabriel Magalhaes. The plan consists of accumulating men in the six-yard box and opening up a space at the far post for the defender to enter to finish. For everything to go well, two premises must be met: having an accurate kick-taker, Bukayo Saka, and applying the blocks to the goalkeeper with a mixture of firmness and dissimulation. Martinelli did a fine job, occupying the space where the goalkeeper had to come out to clear the ball with his back to Allison. The VAR studied it and found no fault. Gabriel aimed for the first, which went a few inches high, and sent the ball into the net on the second.
Without Rodri, at a disadvantage, with a game that was advancing between pushes and without control of the ball, City was heading towards disaster. But almost immediately another twist occurred: in the last play of the first half, Trossard committed a foul on Bernardo Silva and then moved the ball. Oliver showed him a yellow card, his second. Never in the Islands was there a culture where cautions were so cheap, but the Premier League no longer champions traditional English football: both teams took to the field with lineups made up of players of nine different nationalities.
The fact is that when he was left with ten men, Arteta had no doubts. Before returning from the dressing room, he had already activated Ben White, who had been left on the reserve team from the start, to form a five-man backline that in reality became six because Martinelli was placed at left-back. With a 1-6-3 Arsenal fought to lock down City’s monologue. They raised a wall that seemed like a tribute to Nereo Rocco and when some rubble fell there was David Raya, the goalkeeper in the elite at his best, to repair any damage.
Guardiola looked for resources on his left. He found Foden, Grealish and Stones. He looked for crosses and long shots, he barely had any paths to Haaland, who always traveled at rush hour, surrounded by all kinds of traffic. Everything led to a vibrant epilogue, with City desperate and Arsenal celebrating each defensive success as if they had won the World Cup. Until the last play, with ten Arsenal players behind the penalty spot, Stones converted a melee spontaneously, City saved their unbeaten streak and are on track to two years without losing a league game at their stadium, a ground where Arsenal have not won since January 2015.
