Arsenal’s difficult start to the season continued as they lost 5-0 at Manchester City on Saturday, with Granit Xhaka’s first-half red card only compounding the pressure on under-fire manager Mikel Arteta, whose side have lost their opening three games without scoring for the first time ever.
The Gunners, who arrived at the Etihad having lost their previous eight Premier League fixtures against City, made a terrible start after falling behind to Ilkay Gundogan’s seventh-minute header.
City doubled their lead just five minutes later through Ferran Torres’s close-range finish after yet more woeful Arsenal defending, then Xhaka saw red for a two-footed lunge on Joao Cancelo ten minutes before half-time – an incident which the Arsenal manager later admitted left him angry.
Gabriel Jesus added a third two minutes before the interval after fine approach play from Jack Grealish to end the game as a contest, with Torres heading in his second to complete the scoring six minutes from time.
Arsenal – who failed to have a single shot on target in the entire match – drop to the bottom of the table, while the champions go top ahead of Saturday afternoon’s contests.
Player ratings
Man City: Ederson (6), Walker (6), Laporte (7), Dias (7), Cancelo (8), Gundogan (8), Rodri (8), Silva (8), Torres (9), Grealish (8), Jesus (8)
All the pre-match talk heading into the game focussed on whether City were short in attack this season after missing out on both Harry Kane and Cristiano Ronaldo this week, but Guardiola’s side delivered the perfect response with this five-star showing against a tame Arsenal.
In fact, it did not take the hosts long to make the breakthrough as Silva and Jesus combined down the right, before the latter’s dinked centre was headed home at the far post by of all people, City’s diminutive skipper Gundogan, who opened his account for the season after top scoring for the champions last time around.
Eyo Nse is a creative writer, blogger and a software engineer.
He is a simple individual who loves to see others succeed in life.
Mr Wisdytech as he is popularly known - started blogging in the early 2000's.
