Returning fresh from the international break that spanned for close to two weeks, Arsenal paid a visit to the Etihad Stadium to face Manchester City.
It was another opportunity for Mikel Arteta to record a positive result with his former master Pep Guardiola having previously done so when we sent them out at the semifinal stage of last season’s Emirates FA Cup which we went on to lift.
The boss made two edits to the side that played our last game before the break. It ought to have been three but Rob Holding was dropped as he developed a hamstring scare during warm-up to be replaced by David Luiz. New signing Partey only made a substitute appearance.
Prior to the first goal which would end up being the only one for the entire match, the Gunners were able to put the hosts on check. They posed less of a threat not until the 23rd minute when Sergio Aguero set up Phil Foden for a shot that was parried by Bernd Leno. The ball rolled to the path of Raheem Sterling and he thrust it in before any of our defenders could intervene.
Our response afterwards was one of hope. We created chances most of which came from Bukayo Saka. On one of the occasions, the Nigerian recently called up by the England national team made some nice dribbles before firing at goal only to be denied by Ederson.
Saka again came close after exchanging passes with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but he could do no more than a flick that found its way past Ederson and then over the bar.
Ederson saved from Aubameyang and a high-boot foul on Gabriel could have given us a penalty. It did not go that way and we had to end the first half without a goal to our name.
Nicolas Pepe’s header upon restart gave no issues to Ederson just as his freekick which followed shortly after. We had to settle for a loss having been unable to hit the back of the net.
That stretched our non-winning streak away at the top six teams. The last time we recorded victory away at any of the top six teams was in 2015 and it was against same side we lost to today.
We will continue our season with an Europa League appearance against Rapid Vienna in Austria on Thursday then host Leicester City in the league on Sunday.
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