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MOTD: Manchester City 2-2 Arsenal

By on May 8, 2016

There’s still life left in Manchester City and Arsenal.  It’s just buried in there somewhere, deep behind a mound of disappointment and underachievement.  As Leicester City were gloriously crowded Premier League champions on Saturday, Arsenal’s visit to the Etihad Stadium was merely an afterthought, albeit one with major implications for next season.

Fleeting moments of class in a riveting affair relieved the numbing disappointment of the title race for both sides, although it jeopardized Manchester City’s Champions League position.  Manchester United can now overtake their crosstown rivals if the Red Devils win their last two matches of the season.

Despite taking City to the Champions League semifinals this season and winning the Premier League title and two FA Cup trophies, it was a sour final home match at the club for Pellegrini, whose post-match farewell speech echoed across the empty stands.

It took City only eight minutes to take the lead through Sergio Aguero’s lethal opener, and two for them to lose it.  Twice Arsenal came roaring back from behind courtesy of goals from Olivier Giroud and Alexis Sanchez.  The Gunners are now on sixty-eighth points, three ahead of City and five ahead of United, who have a game in hand.

Barring a disaster against bottom-of-the-table Aston Villa, Arsene Wenger’s men have all but confirmed their place in the top four.  Wenger did have cause for worry, however, as Danny Welbeck went down with a knee injury in the first half.  The striker went down in pain after tackling Bacary Sagna in the twenty-first minute and reports that Welbeck suffered a suspected later meniscus injury makes him a doubt for Euro 2016.

The match began at a breathless pace and Aguero arrowed a brilliant half-volley past Petr Cech’s near post to give City an early lead.

The Sky Blues carelessly threw again their lead moments later, however, after conceding a needless corner from which Olivier Giroud rose up to score his first goal in over 800 minutes of football.

The second half began a much more sloppy affair, until De Bruyne took hold of the match in the fifty-first minute, driving in down the left and curling a lovely finish past Petr Cech from twenty yards.

Arsenal, though, came roaring back again and Sanchez buried their equalizer after a neat one-two with Giroud.

In response, City threw everything forward, bringing on Yaya Toure, Raheem Sterling, and Wilfred Bony, who hit the crossbar in the dying moments of the game.  Aguero also volleyed narrowly wide, but City were unable to find a vital winner to take hold of their Champions League fate.

However poor Pellegrini’s reception was in his farewell speech, the perception of his tenure might become a whole lot worse if City fail to qualify for the Champions League this year just as Pep Guardiola arrives.

Homepage photo credit: Ronnie Macdonald (Olivier Giroud) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.