Edgy, thrilling, unpredictable. Occasionally antagonistic. Manchester City presented daylight between themselves and Arsenal by the end but at times during an absorbing game, this felt like the night a new and modern Premier League rivalry took another big step forward.
Arsenal had been top of the table virtually all season prior to this night. Still, though, we wondered. Real deal or merely a team running hot? Here, at an utterly absorbed and invested Emirates Stadium, they came up short. But this was a contest not to settle an argument or even a title race. Instead it merely hinted at more to come from these two further down the tracks.
Manchester City, so used to dictating big domestic games when it matters, were not allowed to do so here, even though they somehow managed to win by two clear goals. That they eventually did win says everything for their own mental reserves.
Their possession percentage stood at less than 40 per cent at half-time. By then their goalkeeper Ederson had been booked for persistent time wasting while Bernardo Silva โ seemingly playing two positions at once โ was cautioned for persistent fouling of Bukayo Saka.
On the touchline Pep Guardiola, the City manager, gave a passable impression of a man trying to speed things up when it was clear his instructions to his team had been to slow them down. Not for the first time this month the league champions have been accused of doing one thing while claiming to have done quite another.
Here there was no Panic (on the streets of London). But there was discomfort, there was strain and there was the quite unusual experience of finding that so much of what was happening was being dictated by the other team. At times that strain showed. Only once they found a way to spend time in Arsenal’s half in the final 30 minutes did they impose themselves in that classic cynical way we all recognise. To win this game so comfortably in then end really was quite something.
Having taken only a point from their last two games, Arsenal’s form chart now reads one point from nine. So their game at Aston Villa on Saturday feels huge. If they lose again then a hiccup in form can quickly become a long and damaging malaise. But let’s see. Here they were not cowed by the fact that City could move next to them at the top of the league by recording yet another victory over them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Arsenal seemed motivated instead by opportunity to move clear of City and on a night like this that represents quite a mental shift.
Whatever happens between now and the season’s end, this should one day be viewed as a transformative campaign for Arsenal. It has been so long since Arsenal supporters have watched a team in which they can truly believe. If the club and the team doesn’t move forwards in to blue water from here then something will have gone very wrong indeed.
City know how all of this works, of course. They won their first Premier League title in 2012 and then fell apart in a heap the next. They learned quickly from that. More than a decade on, persistent success has been built on deep reserves of quality but City under Guardiola have long been street fighters too.
For long periods, especially in the first half, here they were second best. Guardiola’s team selection was odd. He left two central defenders on the bench and asked Silva to effectively play left back when Arsenal had the ball and holding midfield when they didn’t. The results of that experiment were pretty predictable and it was abandoned after an hour when Silva was moved to the right side of the attack. Like you do.
What is interesting and pertinent, though, is that amid all the chaos and uncertainty of this period in the game, City led. Arsenal created only half chances until the penalty that drew them level. While they were never fluent and while Erling Haaland at times looked isolated upfront, City presented enough nuisance value to make life far from simple for an opponent drawn into the kind of scrappy and bitty contest they didn’t want.
All of this served to whip those present here in to quite a state. Atmosphere and the Emirates have not often belonged in the same sentence since its construction seventeen years ago. The club have done their best during that time to change that. Ultimately it’s the football that has done it and here this game was played in front of a crowd โ both home and away sections โ that know the league title will be won by one or the other at the season’s end.
City were, it must be acknowledged, the better team for periods that ultimately mattered and that is what experience brings. They had a little fortune with their crucial second goal, a deflection taking it over Aaron Ramsdale’s hand when he seemed to have Jack Grealish’s shot covered.
But Guardiola’s team were not lucky here. No, they saw this game through like champions. They are top now and if they don’t stay there it will be a surprise. Arsenal look good enough to present an enduring challenge now, though, and that feels very important not only for them but for the English game.