Arsenal Take the Game to City

Suddenly the home side’s much vaunted “bank of three” shielding the defence was a bank of two, with first Yaya Toure, and then Gareth Barry dropping in to the back line.  With one less body to play around, there was more space for Arsenal to exploit around the flanks of City’s midfield.  If you look at the heatmap here, you can see the majority of our passes in the final third taking place in wide areas as we stretched the depleted City defence and waited for an opening.

The first goal came this way as Nasri probed up the right wing, played a one-two with Arshavin, and finished high over Hart and the covering defender.  It’s a simple training ground move, the one-two, but performed in such a tight situation in a real match environment this one was a thing of beauty, and devastatingly effective.  Nasri has cemented

We needed that goal, as City were still coming forward and having a lot of success getting in behind Gael Clichy.  When Clichy was in position his man rarely got the better of him, but too often he was caught upfield when we lost possession giving Richards in particular a massive gap to run in to.  Lucky he’s a Gooner, and he didn’t look inclined to score against us. 

Even with a goal though, Andy Gray was right when he said Arsenal were capable of “messing up” this game.  Our defence was easily punctured on a few occasions but Fabianski looked up to the challenge, and pulled off a number of fantastic saves.  With the bookings racking up at the same time though, it wouldn’t have been a surprise for Clattenburg to even up the numbers.

Instead the referee had a different decision to make when City’s best defender Kompany brought Cesc down in the corner of the area.  It was as clear cut as the sending off earlier, but Fabregas’ spot kick was far less decisive, saved comfortably by Hart.

The second half continued in the same pattern, Arsenal pressing and probing, almost setting up camp inside the opponent’s half, but City were still dangerous on the break.  The replacement of a hampered Tevez with Adebayor spiced up affairs, and changed their angle of attack.  Balls in to the big man’s head provided a couple of chances, and to our delight Ade fluffed them all. 

The second goal in the 66th minute killed the game as a contest.  Chamakh, surrounded by defenders, lost control in the area but the loose ball fell nicely to Song who toe-poked sweetly into the top corner.  City’s resistance was broken, and we saw out the game playing tikka-takka and racking up the possession and pass stats.  We weren’t finished scoring though, Bendtner came on and finished off proceedings after a weighted through ball from Nasri left him one touch and a sweet finish curled around Hart.

I called for more clinical finishing ahead of this match, and I was not disappointed.  The chalkboards show Nasri, Song and Bendtner all found the net with their only attempt of the game, and you can’t ask for more than that.

If you want further proof of Arsenal’s dominance, look again at the heatmap, you can see that 62% of Arsenal’s passes were in the opponents half, while only 42% of City’s passes took place in our half.  We took the game to them, with our usual game plan, and used our man advantage cleverly to see out a big game with relative ease.

Today, for once, we can bask in a victory over a fellow title contender, and we can reflect on second place in the table, after tricky trips to Eastlands, Stamford Bridge and Anfield.