Arsenal 2 City 1
Walcott 33 Giroud 45+1 Yaya Toure 81
Excellent team performance by Arsenal.
Their professionalism last night will give Leicester plenty to think about.
After half an hour of probing & sparring, City launched a lighting raid when Aguero’s flick-on released De Bruyne far beyond Monreal and the Belgian wonder fired a shot low shot just past the far post.
The commentators and pundits all said he was too selfish and should have passed across the box to David Silva.
In real time, I didn’t think that. Having watching six replays, I still think Mertesacker’s position was very controlled and cute,and Bellerin’s recovery run was so fast, that the chances were 50-50.
I thought KDB’s chance of scoring was as good from shooting as it was from trying to find Silva. So I’m in a minority of one. But I can live with that.
Immediately, Koscielny found Ozil with a magnificent long pass, Ozil played a simple short ball to Theo Walcott, who swerved inside Sagna and fired a thunderbolt. The ball was in the back of the net long before Joe Hart landed.
A spectacular do-it-yourself goal was followed in stoppage time by a second which was a gift.
In the 46th minute Delph passed backwards to Mangala, who passed to Ozil, who played in Giroud on the left. The striker rifled a left-foot shot through Joe Hart’s legs from a narrow angle.
2-0 to Arsenal and game over.
I’d seen nothing to suggest Man City could save the game.
Second half, City’s shots were mostly straight at Petr Cech and Arsenal could easily have score two more goals.
Then in 82 they produced a burst of slick passing down the right flank. Sagna played a one-two with De Bruyne, then played another one-two with Yaya Toure and saw the big Ivorian allow the ball to roll almost past him before bending a magical left-foot shot into the postage stamp.
A prodigious strike, a first-time sidefoot with remarkable power, like many other special goals Yaya has scored.
No other player in the Premier League could have scored that goal from that ball in that position just outside the box
Arsenal lost composure but survived four minutes of added time.
Overall, their collective defending was superior to City, and their passing was better too, as I said it would be. And the group will be much stronger when they get Sanchez,Coquelin and Cazorla back.
Manuel Pellegrini picked the wrong team. He always, always picks his senior players.
With such a feeble away record, do Man City still have chance of winning the title?
They’re still third but they’re a collection of talents, not a team without captain Kompany.
On this evidence, Spurs will finish above them.
At 10.45pm, hearing a familiar-sounding car door slam, I opened the front door and saw a laughing woman coming towards me. She had a flashing red light on her lapel and was pretending to wield a light sabre.
Jan and her pal Halyna usually go to The Tricycle Cinema just before Christmas.
Yesterday Bob Lefsetz nailed the moment we called 2015 with this column about Star Wars and Adele.