Arsenal’s burning sense of injustice trumped by City’s ruthless mentality

MENTALITY MONSTERS: Manchester City's Erling Haaland and Arsenal’s William Saliba (left) battle for the ball. Pic: Adam Davy/PA Wire.

ANGRY Arsenal had promised to show their teeth in the title race after being driven to boiling point by a VAR debacle against Brentford, but they found it was champions Manchester City who have hidden strengths.

They say that the very best teams in the world play beautiful football with hidden fangs, and City proved that expression right with a performance that dealt perfectly with a frenetic atmosphere at the Emirates and a burning sense of injustice all over north London — and turned it to their advantage.

The Gunners, of course, felt they should have been two points better off going into this match after Brentford’s equaliser on Saturday was allowed to stand when VAR officials ‘forgot’ to draw the offside line that would have shown Christian Norgaard was ahead of his marker when he crossed for Ivan Toney to score. It set up a battle against City in which Arsenal hoped that a sense of injustice would drive them to victory with a power and passion that underlined their title credentials.

Unfortunately for Arteta’s men, that didn’t materialise.

Instead we saw a fascinating, if at times scrappy and fractious match, in which City got under Arsenal’s skins and, not shy of physicality, forced them into mistakes — before ruthlessly finishing them off.

Both the visiting team’s opening goals, through Kevin de Bruyne and Jack Grealish, came from Arsenal errors and the third, from Erling Haaland, underlined that pretty triangles and qualitly finishes mean even more when you have to fight for them.

That’s not to say the Gunners — or their fans — didn’t show defiance on a night when they played well for long periods and showed they are at the very least, worthy contenders..

There is a sense of unity, too. When Takehiro Tomiyasu made an awful back-pass to gift De Bruyne an opener against the run of play, the Japanese full-back was quickly surrounded by teammates showing support — and the North Bank roared its backing.

They equalised, deservedly, through Bakayo Saka’s penalty before half-time But there were flaws on show, all the same as City showed their inner strength — and no lack of physicality to counter a boisterous atmopshere.

Haaland gave Gabriel a difficult night, just as Toney overpowered William Saliba on Saturday, winning a penalty that was overturned, landing on him elbow-first in another bruising encounter and then finishing off the match with a sumptuous finish.

Earlier in the night the Emirates crowd fumed at City’s time-wasting tactics, their energy into the tackle — in fact at just about anything they could think of to get angry with. Even De Bruyne got involved in the dirty tricks, shoving Mikel Arteta out of the way to try and take a quick throw. These are not things you associate with CIty but it’s an example to Arsenal of what may be required to finish top in May.

The Gunners have built their title challenge on beautiful, exhilarating football and there’s no doubt they remain contenders, with a game in hand on the new league leaders. But what critics hoped to see from them here was evidence that they are born winners.

Was this Arsenal team, like nature, red in tooth and claw?

That’s a phrase coined by poet Alfred Tennyson, describing the way predatory animals cover their teeth and claws with the blood of their prey as they kill and devour them. A long way from the privileged world of football, of course. But that mentality is often cited as one that defines champions; those whose desire to win comes from deep within. Raw, unfettered and, ultimately, brutal.

Think of Liverpool’s ‘mentality monsters’ and the number of times they found late winners on their road to the title in 2020. Of the Manchester United of old, firing up in Fergie time — and of City, too, with their remarkable running stats that underpin an aesthetic style which lulls rivals into thinking their success is built on skill and not hard work.

When it came to the crunch, it wasn’t quite there — and City, with so much experience of winning titles, showed it in abundance.

It could be the difference in what will still be a very tight title race. Arsenal. who go to Aston Villa on Saturday. need to find that inner ruthlessness as soon as possible.