Match Day Thread Manchester City vs Arsenal - Matchday Thread

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Venue: Etihad Stadium
KO: 12:30 GMT
Date: 28th August 2021


Head to Head:
Wins: 98
Draws: 45
Losses: 60

Last six meetings:
Arsenal 0-1 Man City
Arsenal 1-4 Man City
Man City 1-0 Arsenal
Arsenal 2-0 Man City
Man City 3-0 Arsenal
Arsenal 0-3 Man City

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Team News:
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Kevin de Bruyne is expected to be unavailable for Manchester City after being left out of Belgium's squad for their upcoming World Cup qualifiers.

Phil Foden continues to recover from an ankle injury and remains absent.

Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka is fit despite hurting his knee in Wednesday's Carabao Cup victory over West Brom.

Hector Bellerin has recovered from a thigh problem, while Ben White, who has missed two games following a positive coronavirus test, will be monitored.

Alex Runarsson and Willian are available following Covid-19 lay-offs.

Kieran Tierney is fit despite being rested in midweek, but Thomas Partey and Eddie Nketiah remain out, while Gabriel won't be involved, having made his comeback from a knee injury by playing for the under-23s on Friday.

 

Looks like you all escaped to the beach!!

 

No words!!!!!

 

you are so ****e

 

I did not see the game, however from what I have heard about the game, you wonder what Arteta has to do to be put out his misery? I would not expect our under23 to be humiliated like this!

 

November 2020 when we lost 2-1 at home to Wolves.

That’s when I could see Arteta wasn’t going to make it.

that’s when I said we would have the EXACT SAME season this year when everyone was clamoring about him “needing time” and “a preseason” and a “few more windows”.

How was it that easy to see and how am I a year ahead of the board and club?

 

Anyone who thought that the match in midweek against West Brom was a return to form and some sort of normality was sadly disillusioned.
Today is back to the real world with senior players having little or no effect on the game whatsoever.
Surely Artetas' days are numbered.

 

No-one thought that.

 

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Xhaka Kahn
Xhaka Kahn
Xhaka Kahn't play football.

 

Likes all round

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Not even delusional Ty from AFTV, would conclude that our victory over a WBA under23 represented a return to form sir. That WBA side we played in midweek, coincidentally, would have acqitted themselves better than these lot that played mancity today.. We are a currently a shambles. We just have to watch and see how this season will pan out, how long they continue to back Arteta, (as it appears he will not resign and do the decent thing) we shall see. Funny enough, the drubbing today was no surprise, if the players had any spine, they would lead a mutiny to MD, and tell the powers that be, this jackass is out of his depths and they would not want to play for him again!

 

Didn't bother commenting on any match thread because what's the point? It's just the same BS we've been seeing since we won the Community Shield last year. Everything's plunged downhill since then.

My issue isn't losing per se; it's not wholly unexpected to get beaten by the Champions of Europe and Champions of England - but the manner of the defeats and performances are extremely concerning. The lack of attacking intent, the inability to keep possession for more than 2 seconds, the inability to drive up the pitch or counterattack, the lack of pressing, no closing down of spaces...

Arteta may well get a lot of positive PR from his fellow managers and from sports journalists, but the truth is, he is drastically underperforming with a squad that shouldn't be bottom of the league. The last time we were bottom after 3 games of the season was in 1955!

Yet again, he is breaking records for ALL the worst reasons imaginable.

Whatever people want to say about our hard start, the level of performances are a disgrace. There are teams who will get relegated this season that will put up more of a battle than we did.

If this was any other club, Arteta would be gone by now. He shouldn't be in a job.

 

Also WTF was that team selection??

Kolasinac is meant to be on his way out, and has proven he isn't good enough to be a PL player, but he starts as the left-sided CB against Man City?? He was meant to be going to Fenerbahce!!

Holding and Chambers are good guys, but unfortunately, they're just not at the required level. Their level is Burnley, Watford etc. Shouldn't be playing for Arsenal.

I would also love to know what possessed the club to give 4 year contracts to Pablo Mari and Cedric Soares when both played less than 10 games COMBINED in their loan spells. Both of them have proven they're not up to the standard we want to be at. And now we're stuck with them. Fabulous.

Dropping Lokonga, who has been our best midfielder this season, and playing Odegaard as a #6, is Emery levels of insanity.

Arteta didn't just **** up yesterday, he ****ed up to the extent where I don't believe it is recoverable to come back from this.

It's only a matter of time before he's gone.

The club should do it now to accelerate the process, but they will wait until it's too late and we have nothing to play for. So it's ANOTHER season that's going to be totally wasted.

 

Arteta is going to go. It's gone past the point of no return for him now, the atmosphere has become too toxic and with the international break coming up then I presume that the Arsenal board will make a move. Though the logic of the Arsenal board's action has been hidden from me for a while now. You've got Norwich, Burnley and AFC Wimbeldon before the NLD, that gives the new boy a decent run in.

It's not just a thing about being Pep's mate for Arteta. There are players and coaches at City who never knew Arteta before he joined and talk about him in hallowed terms. He was widely expected to replace Guardiola and the Chairman praised him as he left, saying that he was disappointed to see him go.

I've always thought that different managers have different skillsets. Arteta could manage a post-Pep Barcelona like a Tito or a post-Pep City and go on to win a treble, because having the knowledge and leadership to win with a world class squad is a different job to building that style of play into a squad that hasn't played it before. Even Pep, widely considered to be one of the greatest managers in the history of the game, took time to implant that onto a very expensive and very talented squad who had been playing slightly similar football under Pellegrini.

When I think of Arteta at Arsenal as an outsider, there's only sadness all around. Arteta couldn't realistically turn that opportunity down. Arsenal couldn't realistically ignore a former player looking for a manager's job who is assistant and heavily praised at the country's dominant team. I'm not sure it ever could have worked to be honest.

I think it was Roy Keane who was talking about this on Sky the other day, but people always talk about positive momentum that can build at a club and fire them up the leagues but people don't talk enough about negative momentum and how it can really cause problems. It's fair to say that Arsenal have been in a negative spiral since about 2010 and although they were hanging on under Wenger, when he left then the bottom dropped out and they've been in freefall ever since. I know it's not the same but I saw a similar scenario with City in the mid 1990s. We started making strange decisions, started appointing managers based on status, started buying "talented young players" who were actually people who had not really fulfilled their potential and with the board problems, a malaise came over the club that got worse year after year. We were relegated into the now Championship which was fairly disastrous for us but it had happened before and we'd just come back. We were too big to fail. We ended up in League One, which at the time was unthinkable for a club of City's size. In fact the commentary of the game on Sky where we were relegated literally said the biggest club ever to be relegated out of the two divisions. It happens more now with Sunderland and Sheff and the like of but back then it was unheard of.

The point I'm making here is that that negative pattern can sink you even if you're a big club relative to the league that you're in. I'm worried about Arsenal and have been for a few years. The atmosphere around the club has become toxic. Many blame AFTV but I think it's more complicated than that and the international fanbase that you have is much more demanding of success, much less patient and frankly much less rational, and that has been a large contributing factor.

You need to sack Arteta but more than that, there has to be some positivity brought back to that club because otherwise in a few years you could genuinely be fearing relegation, as crazy as that sounds now.

 

Villa were in the third tier in the 70s and until recent times, were a club with a similar history and similar sized fan base of past success that had faded. Like City, they got huge gates in the third división.

 

Why do managers of other clubs say the club should stick with Arteta? Why is Lampard out of a job, yet Arteta still in a job?

 

Arteta right coach/manager but at the wrong time? The team currently needs an experienced ruthless manager who can crack the whip. Mourinho would have been perfect… but unfortunately he is unavailable But Conte is…

 

On what planet would Mourinho have been perfect? It would have been a catastrophe.

 

Mourinho would have been ideal just for THIS current period but he’ll need to be moved on once the club gets on a more solid footing. Clubs employ him to do a specific job not to be a long term one. He stays (voluntarily or involuntarily) for a maximum of 3 years.