Owen Murphy

Now, I think that the only thing that they can take from this is that they actually played really well in this game.

Like, it was a great game.

And this was like, I mean, how many terrible games have there been between Arteta and Guardiola?

This was a great game.

And, I mean, it was like you couldn't take your eyes off it.

Which you can say about barely any football games these days.

Because it's like, you know, there's so many more interesting things on various screens than most of the football that's going on.

And yet this game was... Okay, there's so much obviously riding on it, but the teams are sort of competing so hard.

And...

Arsenal surprised me.

I was expecting them to be more cautious, more defensive, more territorial in terms of defending deep and saying, you've got to get through us and looking for set pieces and all this kind of thing.

And they actually went after City.

They chased them.

They tried to win the game in their own particular way, you know, try and break up what City are doing high up the pitch.

But they did this like really well, better than I've seen them do in such a long time.

And I think the effect of that, even though they lost this game, is going to make them feel more confident about the games that they have played.

Because this wasn't like, they've played, like they played Bournemouth.

It was awful.

They lost.

It was, it was, it was a disaster.