League leaders dumped out of cup by champions (Theo Tarling, Trinity)

It’s clear that Mikel Arteta’s full focus was on the Premier League, especially after the fact they had made a club record start for points after 19 games, that was reflected in the lineup where he made six changes. Turner, Holding, Tierney, Vieira, Trossard and Tomiyasu all came in with Odegaard, Ramsdale, White, Saliba ,Zinchenko and Martinelli all dropping to the bench. City however played what seemed to be a near full strength side, the only changes being Ortega and Ake coming in for Ederson and Laporte. Although this game would provide no points effect on the Premier League title race, it would deliver a psychological blow to whichever team would lose the match for the Emirates clash on February 15th.

It was Arsenal who started the better team, with their best chances coming through Leandro Trossard, who since arriving for a fee of 28 million pounds had already had played a key role in helping to set up the winner for Eddie Nketiah against Man United. City hadn’t been up to scratch yet and Guardiola was far from impressed but it remained 0-0 at half time.

Arsena made two half time switches, Sambi Lokonga on for Thomas Partey, who was taken off as a precaution after getting a knock to the ribs, and also William Saliba to replace Rob Holding who was on a yellow card in the first half. City started the second half much stronger as excepted and began to pile pressure on Arteta’s men but they prevailed for now. It wasn’t until the 64th minute when a Julian Alvarez effort struck the post and the ball eventually fell to Nathan Ake who finished it beautifully into the bottom right hand corner and give Man City a deserved lead. Arteta immediately made 2 changes bringing Martinelli and Zinchenko on but the Ake goal was enough to separate the sides.

Arteta said after the game that the feeling was “disappointment because we are out and could’ve take much more from the game”. He believes it was a missed opportunity. However, it could benefit Arsenal within the long run with only league games and Europa league games left to play.