Man City 0-2 Arsenal: impressive defensive performance from Arsenal earns fine victory
The starting line-ups
Arsenal produced a tactically mature performance, largely nullifying Manchester City's attacking threats.
Manuel Pellegrini welcomed back Sergio Aguero, who played as the lone striker with David Silva just behind, and captain Vincent Kompany. Samir Nasri was out, while Yaya Toure is at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Arsene Wenger decided against using fit-again Mesut Ozil and Theo Walcott, although Aaron Ramsey returned to take the place of Tomas Rosicky. Hector Bellerin and Francis Coquelin were notable starters, while Nacho Monreal got the nod over Kieran Gibbs, and David Ospina continued in goal.
This was a distinctly unArsenal performance – they defended deep and with great compactness, although their attacking in open play was unusually poor.
Arsenal defend deep
Arsenal looked nervous in the early stages, with Sergio Aguero and David Silva looking to run in behind the defence, then Laurent Koscielny picking up an early booking for a foul on Fernandinho. There was nothing to suggest this would be a good defensive Arsenal performance, although after the first five minutes they grew into the game and their defensive structure – basically a 4-1-4-1 – was very obvious, with the wide players getting back behind the ball quickly.
The extent of Arsenal's defensiveness (compared to their usual performances) has arguably been exaggerated because of the collapses at Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool last season. It's worth considering that Arsenal recorded 1-0 victories away at Borussia Dortmund and away at Tottenham last season with extremely deep defending, and defeated Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield the previous campaign with another display based around structured defending and counter-attacking.
Nevertheless, this was slightly different because Arsenal were breaking up City's attacking moves through good positioning in midfield, rather than relying on their back four and goalkeeper for last-ditch interventions.
Silva nullified
The crucial part of Arsenal's gameplan was in midfield, where Wenger's midfield triangle went head-to-head against City's trio: Coquelin was close to Silva, while Ramsey and Santi Cazorla dealt with Fernando and Fernandinho.
However, whereas recently we've seen plenty of Premier League sides – Manchester United in particular – effectively man-marking in midfield, Arsenal concentrated on structure, and on preventing Manchester City threading through-balls into the feet of Silva. Ramsey and Cazorla were keen to check behind them and adjust their positioning according to Silva's movement, and there was good communication between the three in midfield, passing on City's midfielders when they switched position. Coquelin was outstanding in a crucial role, and made plenty of tackles and interceptions:
The only nervous moment was Koscielny's aforementioned booking, which came for a challenge in the zone where Arsenal looked most vulnerable. With Navas staying wide and pulling Monreal out to the flank, there was a pocket of space that Silva (with his clever drifts), Fernandinho (with
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