Manchester City 2-1 Arsenal
Man City: Sane 47’, Sterling 71’; Arsenal: Walcott 5’
Man of the Match: Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City)
It seemed the most cruelly fitting of metaphors.
Pep Guardiola is often admired for his elegance. He tends to bring a sense of style, on and off the pitch. Yet there he was, chalk on his backside, having lost his balance on a slippery touchline as he tried to retrieve the ball.
Manchester City were slipping up, too, a goal down to Arsenal. Guardiola's descent into the ranks of the mere mortals was being underlined. A perfectionist's time in England looked increasingly imperfect.
An hour or so later, he emerged triumphant. In one respect, it was not in trademark Guardiola fashion, with domination from the off, a strategy executed perfectly and opponents passed off the park.
This was something different, a win that owed something to the manager’s motivational prowess at the break and plenty to old-fashioned attributes of desire and running power and collective resolve. Yet Guardiola’s fingerprints could nevertheless be found all over this result.
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“Now we won the trainer is a genius,” he said sarcastically, aware decisions are interpreted in the context of results.
His idiosyncratic choices leave him open to criticism. He eschews the obvious and pursues a particular path. Leroy Sane, deployed as a left wing-back against Chelsea two weeks earlier, was chosen on the right wing. Raheem Sterling, without a goal in his previous 14 outings, was selected instead of a striker.
Both scored. Victory offered Guardiola vindication. It tends to provide the footballing philosophers justification for an entire belief system.
Guardiola had been at his most quixotic, fielding a false nine and inverted wingers. Then he got more inventive again.
“In second half we played more without a striker, like two No 10s, to play behind [Arsenal’s defensive midfielders Francis] Coquelin and [Granit] Xhaka, to make the movements outside and inside,” he said, explaining how a numerical overload in midfield was engineered. Kevin de Bruyne became the game’s outstanding player, his brilliant diagonal ball helping supply Sterling with a winner. “Both wingers scored goals and that is so important,” Guardiola added.
Sane had already materialised in the middle to swivel and level. The German had seemed one of City’s more superfluous signings, a £40 million (Dh183.5m) recruit who was one of four wingers Guardiola bought in the summer. He turns 21 in January; perhaps he came of age a few weeks early yesterday. Certainly it was his most auspicious display in a City shirt. He is emblematic, proof it can take players time to settle and that Guardiola’s focus is not purely on the short term.
The fixation with results frustrates those with loftier aims.
Results can be determined by decisions, and not merely managerial, as Arsene Wenger rued. Sane was fractionally offside when he accelerated on to David Silva’s pass to level. The Spaniard did not touch the ball but may have been in Petr Cech’s vision when Sterling slotted in the decider.
“We conceded two offside goals which is very difficult to accept in a game of that stature,” the Arsenal manager said. “The referees are protected like the lions in the zoo so we have to live with that.”
It represented a rather odd analysis. The more pertinent part came later.
At the Etihad, as at Everton, his side assumed a 1-0 lead, this time through Theo Walcott. Each game ended 2-1, and neither to Arsenal. “We had a horrible week and what is worse, out of two good performances, we get zero points and out of two leading positions, we lose two games,” Wenger said.
“For a while we have not kept a clean sheet. If you want to play at the top you have to keep a clean sheet.”
It is eight league matches since Arsenal’s last. A purist sounded distinctly pragmatic, just as Guardiola had done minutes earlier when he reflected with satisfaction that City are getting better at winning second balls.
Perhaps, after an awkward autumn, they are getting better at winning, too.
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