Rodri avoids the first bell

Great game to start the year. With two daring, intense teams. That they looked for the ball and they looked for the opposite goal. With tension and emotion. With high pressures and struggles for each ball. It served Arsenal to check their improvement compared to the start of the campaign, when they fell in three consecutive games. In the last of these defeats they conceded a resounding 5-0 at home to Manchester City. Mikel Arteta was questioned, but the duel on Saturday, against the same rival, was a good testimony of how he has turned the situation around. Advance with a firm step, climbing places in the table and leading the fight for fourth place. Despite everything, he could not prevail over Pep Guardiola. He was close to giving the first bell of the year, but Rodrigo avoided it with a goal in discount. To the frustration of the Londoners, who had it in their hands, and to the joy of the Mancunians who continue to add and expand their advantage at the head of the classification. They have eleven points more than Chelsea, and twelve more than Liverpool, before the two teams meet at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

Arsenal was up to the task. That put Pep Guardiola’s team in serious trouble. They carried the weight of the game in the first half, preventing City from being City. This dominance was endorsed by Bukayo Saka with a goal after half an hour of play. The Englishman received from Kieran Tierney after a good ride. Saka, first, found the hole through which to beat Ederson. The visitors were stunned. They threatened to get back into the game, but came very close to being left out. Gabriel Martinelli had two chances to extend the home side’s lead before reaching the break.

The controversy clouded the show in the second half, although it helped to add more drama to the game. Something the Gunners did not appreciate. They were frustrated after the VAR corrected Stuart Attwell’s initial decision not to award a penalty after a fall by Bernardo Silva to Granit Xhaka, which slowed the Portuguese’s advance by poking in his left leg and grabbing his shirt. Those in north London, who had called for a penalty early in the game when Ederson put his foot in to get the ball out of Odegaard, were hurt. Or to tear it down. Riyad Mahrez, who played his last game before starting the African Cup of Nations, scored from eleven meters. Despite Gabriel’s efforts. The Arsenal center-back eliminated the game by kicking the penalty spot before the Algerian footballer’s launch. And then sticking out his arm to slow down Gabriel Jesus’ advance. He saw a yellow for every action, in two minutes, and had to go to the locker room.

Between yellow and yellow, another Gabriel Martinelli, had missed a golden opportunity to overtake Arsenal. Aké came to the rescue to get over the line a header behind Aymeric Laporte that had overtaken Ederson. Martinelli reached the rebound, but his shot, on target, went wide, spitting off the post. Deranged, the Londoners pulled their claws, but could do nothing against the team that best knows how to manage the matches in the Premier League. Since they fell to Crystal Palace in late October, Manchester City had never been behind on the scoreboard. And he had never lost a game. In the Emirates Stadium he fulfilled a very complicated mission, despite playing with numerical superiority during the last half hour. At the auction it was Rodrigo, in injury time, who gave the victory to City. Two shots on goal by Pep Guardiola’s men throughout the game, two goals. Three points.