Arsenal 0 – 1 MAN CITY – MY THOUGHTS
30 Nov
A terribly dull game that was settled by one moment of class. For over 80 minutes, this had been a near-soporific affair with barely any action at either end. And then, for ten seconds, City burst into life. Edin Dzeko showed a great turn of pace to win the ball from an Arsenal corner, then produced an exquisite pass to find Adam Johnson, whose superb flick was right into the path of Sergio Aguero. The rest is history.
It was the clinical nature of his finish which we have come to expect, but truth be told, that move apart, it was a dour match. As expected, both sides made numerous changes and that undoubtedly contributed to a fragmented game, lacking in any real quality. However, we’re now in the semi-finals for the second time in three years and Roberto Mancini will be delighted.
There were a number of impressive individual performances, most notably from Edin Dzeko and Costel Pantilimon. The latter of that duo made a pair of outstanding stops to keep the scores level, but also suffered a shaky period at the start of the second half with regards to his handling. I’m not yet convinced he’s good enough to keep the pressure on Joe Hart, and should the England ‘keeper suffer a serious injury, I’m not sure I’d be overly confident seeing the giant Romanian line up. He’s fine for the odd Carling Cup game, but if we’re looking for someone to keep Hart on his toes, I don’t think we have the right man.
Looking further up the pitch and I thought Edin Dzeko produced a strong performance, not just with his pace and passing to set up the goal, but with his all-round display. He was dominant in the air, brought our midfield into play well and his touch was far better than it has been recently. He’s looked short of confidence in matches over the past month or so, but hopefully we’ll now see him return to his excellent early season form.
Opposition View: Arsenal, like City, made ten changes and they relied heavily upon the explosive Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to cause problems. His pace and ability to run at speed with the ball was eye-catching and he forced Pantilimon into a wonderful stop from 30 yards. In midfield, Emmanuel Frimpong was up for the battle and used his strength well, although as a team they struggled to create many openings.
As for the Blues, our focus now returns to the Premier League and the weekend visit of Norwich. We can’t afford to take that game lightly or we may well see our five point lead at the top of the table reduced.
Glad we won, despite how boring the match was.
But I’ve got to disagree with you on Dzeko. Aside from a couple great long passes I thought he was very poor. His hold up play and touch were terrible in my opinion, and it wasn’t the strongest defense in the world he was playing against. Balotelli is way more useful at this point.
In Dzekos defense, nobody really had a great game for City, and we were surprisingly outplayed a lot.
but a wins a win, and we’re one step closer to another trophy
To moderator! Mate did you watch the game yesterday? “Arsenal, like City, made ten changes and they relied heavily upon the explosive Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to cause problems.” and you trying to say Arsenal could not create many chances? There were 7 shots on target for Arsenal and 1 shot on target for Man City! Arsenal showed you how to play football for 90 minuets despite placing reserves team against your first team players! Man city should be embarassed! Also, not to give a credit to Arsenal for the way they have dealed with Man City is very poor from you
I’m an arsenal supporter too but I find this article refreshingly fair. The author does acknowledge arsenals good play and that we had a few chances. Overall, we could have won but we didn’t – I was quite pleases that our youth did so well. Really, but for leaving the door open once we would have had it. City didn’t impress me especially given that just Dzeko + Johnson (who spent 80 minutes in the youngster Miquel’s pocket) cost more than our whole team.
ha i dunno Johnson only cost 7 mil remember
Nobody should be judging Aguero on this game, he has a lot to do to live up to his price tag. As for Dzecko he really is a typical City striker, in that he has moments of brilliance but then is prone to look like he doesn’t know what to do with a football.
rubbish you were outplayed for nearly the whole game and only arsenals profilgacy in front of goal prevented you from being defeated. Talk about rose tinted glasses, were you expecting abuse from arsenal fans???? lol city wont win the league the whole team that played and played you off the park cost less than 2 of your players, the future is still bright at arsenal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111
Thats what I am talking about! Man City you are rubbish! Frimpong and Coquiline owed your middfield including that money grabing greedy bastard Nasri who know nothing about loyalty and commitment!
Week after week it’s been fascinating to see the responses from the opposing fans after each match on all the various blog posts and news articles I read.
Arsenal fans may be in the lead for most abusive, so – - congratulations.
I didn’t realize the Carling Cup was so important to you all. Must still be hurting from last year’s final.
Dzeko’s scoring run was great – but I was frustrated that in so many opportunities he headed (or kicked) the ball over or past the goal.
It wasn’t just Dzeko, yesterday City was the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
Hahaha serious u watched the game mate u got rinsed for 85 mins
Hey Arsenal fans, guess what? You lost the game. Who cares if you had the better of the chances, you didn’t put the ball in the back of the net and when it counted we did. So f*ck off
Typical Arsenal fan, these peanut-sized creatures fail to understand that Professional soccer is result oriented. You have been playing beautiful football for the past 6 years and yet keep moaning and groaning about a trophy. Have you ever asked why? I do not give rat’s behind whether you outplayed us 85 minutes or 90 minutes, what counts in the end is the score-sheet on the board. We won and knocked you out much like last season that we took your spot very much to your dislike which is our turn-on!
Pretty soon we also buy Van Persie as we have done in the past and leave you high and dry sucking on your thumbs! to get another 8 – 2 beating [so much for your crap beautiful football!]
Due to the sheer brilliant of this comment by MC I am just going to quote him!!
“Hey Arsenal fans, guess what? You lost the game. Who cares if you had the better of the chances, you didn’t put the ball in the back of the net and when it counted we did. So f*ck off”
God, I watched this game with arsenal fans and I have to conclude that they are largely a pathetic bunch (annoyance induced generalization). If only your first team could play as well as your second. shame.
im with ryan in that i thought dzeko was largely ineffective and certainly frustrating most blues at the emirates. couldnt seem to get the ball down and release it quickly enough in many instances, making their defenders look good. but the breakaway run + pass for the goal was similar to his one at anfield where he nearly set up silva. as for arsenal it was only really squeaky bum time for park’s shot and gervinho’s cross at the end, so they’ll just have to take the performances of a few youngsters from the game; maninci bringing on aguero showed we were serious about winning it and it can be cruel for other teams because players of his quality need far fewer chances to make it count.
Shit-Head Mancity fans…i rather see chelsea lift the epl….#gunnerz all D way
It is very true that Arsenal played us off the park for the majority of the game.
I was very impressed by the Arsenal midfield. Very tenacious in the tackle (a bit more than De Jong was, I daresay).
However, what I wasn’t impressed by, for either team, was the quality of the finishing. The fact that Arsenal created so many chances and failed to score possibly indicates an over-reliance on RVP (I know it was a reserve team but any striker should be able to score). Credit should go to Pantimillion who I thought had a very solid game. He is never going to be our number 1 but a solid performance from the sub keeper is always welcome (I feel more secure with him in goal than I did with Fulop).
As for the score, the overall performance doesn’t matter in the long run. The carling cup website in 20 years will not have a little footnote next to the score indicating that city scored with their only shot on target, it will simply say 1-0.
Dzeko, I thought was quite poor, with the exception of the playbup to the goal. In contrast, I believe that AJ had his best game for city for a good while. (I’m sure VFAB will disagree with that!)
By the way, MC, What a comment!