Football writer Alex Keble analyses Arsenal's 5-1 home win over champions Manchester City on Sunday.
Arsenal have thrashed the champions, have shifted the balance of power between these two increasingly bitter rivals, and yet the hosts’ 5-1 dismantling of Manchester City was so much more than just a statement victory.
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This was a joyful, almost playful performance by Arsenal. They revelled in piling on the misery. They did not stay humble.
Arsenal won this match comprehensively, and deservedly so, but it was the swagger that really stood out, the flicks and tricks in that second half delighting the home supporters, who witnessed their teenaged talents again suggest they can provide the energy in Arsenal’s title push.
Pep Guardiola, on the other hand, must be wondering how to lift his ageing team. It wasn’t the first time this season he looked dumbstruck on the touchline, a thousand-yard stare betraying the difficult task ahead of him.
Arsenal send message to Liverpool as youngsters star again
After a sluggish first half, in which Arsenal received some criticism for failing to show enough intensity against a Man City side who have struggled at times this season under pressure, the second 45 minutes showed the gulf between the two sides.
The contrast in age really stood out at Emirates Stadium.
The buzzing excitability of Myles Lewis-Skelly, 18, and 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri – who both got on the scoresheet – drove Arsenal on, while Man City’s older heads seemed to symbolise how tired and dejected Guardiola’s team have become.
It isn’t just down to age, of course, but it’s a neat representation of where the two sides are at.
Lewis-Skelly showed a tenacity in the challenge conspicuously absent from a lightweight Man City, and Nwaneri’s late goal – the icing on the cake – indicates Arsenal have a freshness that will serve them well in the title race.
Indeed a performance of such charisma and positive intent appears to signal Arsenal’s belated arrival this season.
All of a sudden, after becoming just the second side to score five goals against Guardiola's City, after Leicester City did so in 2020, the six-point gap to Liverpool doesn’t look quite so big.
Lewis-Skelly and Gabriel show this rivalry has got personal
This fixture has been spicy for a while now, but it was ramped up significantly when the sides met in September.
Today’s match was evidence that the players took things personally; that they had not forgotten what was said and done in the 2-2 draw. On this evidence it seems as though the two teams hold real and personal antipathy towards each other.
Gabriel Magalhaes, whose scrap with Erling Halaand in the reverse fixture culminated in the City striker throwing a ball at him, celebrated Arsenal’s opener on Sunday in front of Haaland.
It evoked memories of Martin Keown shouting at Ruud van Nistelrooy after the then-Manchester United striker missed a penalty in an infamous 0-0 draw with Arsenal in 2003.
Man City and Arsenal seem to dislike each other just as much as those Arsenal and Man Utd players did. Certainly Guardiola’s team will have been riled up by Gabriel’s celebration – and Lewis-Skelly’s, too.
It summed up the teenager’s supreme self-belief, not to mention his meteoric rise, that he mimicked Haaland’s meditative goal celebration after scoring Arsenal’s third, a response to Haaland angrily telling Lewis-Skelly he didn’t know who he was after that same match in September.
It was all a bit pantomime, but it was not without genuine edge.
This rivalry isn’t going to cool down any time soon.
Havertz and Haaland contrast defines contest
Arsenal were slick in the final third, Man City largely flat, and arguably the biggest reason for that was the contrasting fortunes of the two extremes of the modern No 9: Havertz and Haaland.
Havertz, Arsenal's "false nine", scored one goal, assisted another and had a very active role in the build-up play.
Haaland, an old-fashioned striker with a killer instinct but whose play is limited outside the penalty area, scored with his only shot on goal, but had just nine touches of the ball.
Havertz had 35 touches, or four times as many.
Of course, Haaland has never been one to get involved in the build-up play and it has worked sensationally for City in the past, but in their current malaise it’s hard to look past Haaland’s ghostly presence as part of the problem.
Man City's uncharacteristically sloppy possession a worry for Guardiola
Guardiola, however, is likely to focus on other flaws, chief among them City’s inability to keep hold of the ball in their own half.
The first two Arsenal goals came from sloppy pieces of play: Manuel Akanji was tackled on the edge of his own box for Martin Odegaard's early opener, then Phil Foden passed the ball straight to Thomas Partey, allowing the Gunners to retake the lead just 105 seconds after Haaland’s equaliser.
Man City have committed eight errors leading to goals in the Premier League this season, their most in a league campaign under Guardiola.
And there are plenty more examples, particularly in that second period, when Man City shrank.
Arsenal’s exceptional press, as well as their ultra-narrow defensive shape, made it difficult for Man City to pass centrally without losing the ball, although that does not fully explain City’s looseness.
Key: Green - successful pass, yellow - chance created, blue - assist, red - failed pass
Nevertheless, the focus today ought to be on Arsenal; on what was undoubtedly their best performance and result of the season, sending a powerful message to both Man City and Liverpool.
Arsenal are simply a better team than Man City these days. They have – for now – surpassed them.
As for Liverpool, if Arteta can provoke more displays like this, and if he can channel the youthful energy of Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri into a higher-tempo second half of the season, then Arsenal might just make up the gap to the top.
