Independence Gotten! Arsenal breaks league curse against Manchester City

Emirates stadium erupted as Arsenal got a league win over Manchester City for the first time in eight years, with the last win being in 2015, both at home and at the Etihad.

Manchester City’s goal machine, Erling Braut Haaland was a shadow of himself as Arsenal’s William Saliba put up a brilliant performance against the Norwegian who failed to register a single shot on goal.

Both teams started the game with impressive lineups with Gabriel Jesus starting on the right flank for the recuperating Bukayo Saka who was not in the matchday squad.

Leandro Trossard also started on the left,with Jorginho, Declan Rice and captain Martin Ødegaard all starting in midfield for the Gunners.

City came into the game with a pretty much unchanged lineup with Matteo Kovacic, Rico Lewis and Portuguese, Bernado Silva starting in midfield.

The encounter was balanced early in the second half with neither team able to penetrate the other.

However, in the 5th minute of the encounter Man City almost took the lead through Josko Gvardiol’s shot but it was cleared off the line by Declan Rice to keep Arsenal in the game and Nathan Ake making an absolute blunder of the follow up.

Arsenal also had a chance of their own from a ball whipped in by Captain Martin Ødegaard but Eddie Nketiah failed to make good use of it.

Man City’s Julian Alvarez was the most promising player for the travelling side as he constantly posed a threat to the Arsenal defence but they were quite disciplined with Gabriel and Saliba at the top of their game.

Arsenal’s Eddie Nketiah was toothless at the other end with Gabriel Jesus’ work rate mostly going to waste.

The second half soon began and Arteta withdrew the misfiring Leandro Trossard for Gabriel Martinelli who just returned from his injury against Everton.

The Brazilian often brought the Gunners off their seats as he was exciting with the attacking phase of the Gunner’s game.

Arsenal came into the better side in the second half as David Raya put his bad first half performance behind him and was better in goal against City.

Martinelli swung in a beautiful corner kick which Ederson failed to claim and Gabriel Jesus could only fire a right footed shot deflected off Bernado Silva.

A minute later, Gabriel Martinelli once again livened the Arsenal supporters as he aimed a beautiful strike towards the near post for Arsenal’s first shot on target and Ederson’s first save of the game.

Pep Guardiola made a triple change in the second half as Jeremy Doku, Matthews Nunes and John Stones came on to replace Julian Alvarez, Kovaciç and Rico Lewis.

Seven minutes later, Mikel Arteta made a triple change of his own, bringing on Kai Havertz, Thomas Partey and Takehiro Tomiyasu.

Arsenal skipper, Martin Ødegaard was found by Gabriel Martinelli again but the Norwegian could only fire a shot which was well off the mark and into the home crowd.

Arsenal felt they should have been awarded a penalty in the 86th minute as Gabriel Jesus was brought down in the 18 yard box by Nathan Aké but Michael Oliver deemed it as a harmless challenge.

The Gunners were not done yet as Thomas Partey’s long ball was headed down perfectly by Tomiyasu to Kai Havertz who played a fantastic lay off for Gabriel Martinelli who used his pace to race past the City defence and fire an absolute curler which deflected off Nathan Aké and Ederson watched helplessly as it fizzled into the post and sent him the wrong way as Emirates stadium was blown off its roof.

This loss means that Arsenal have won a Premier League match against the reigning champion’s reigning champions for the first time since Leicester City in April 2017.

Manchester City have now lost consecutive premier league games for the very first time since losing to Crystal Palace and Leicester City in December 2018.