- Arsenal thrashed Manchester City 5-1 in the Premier League on Sunday
- Mikel Arteta’s side scored four in the second half to run away with the victory
- LISTEN NOW: It’s All Kicking Off! Ollie Watkins to Arsenal? It’s terrible planning from Arsenal… it’s all a bit late and panicked from the Gunners!
A little over an hour had gone at the Emirates when Myles Lewis-Skelly saw his shot nestling in the back of the Manchester City net. It was the critical moment in the humbling of the champions that was fast unfolding.
The stadium rose deliriously to the kid who is one of their own and he ran to the corner flag, sat down and crossed his legs. He stayed there, a smile on his face, imitating the meditation position favoured by Erling Haaland, the City player Arsenal fans love to hate.
He held the pose for a few seconds, milking it. It was wonderful, uproarious theatre, the kind that football thrives upon. This was his first senior goal but not only is he the future of this club, he is box-office, too.
He is still only 18 years old but he is packing a lot in to his first season in the first team. When the two teams met at the Etihad in September, Lewis-Skelly was booked before he even got on to the pitch. He is a young man in a hurry. He is a mesmerising talent.
Gary Neville said, as he commentated on the game, that Lewis-Skelly is ‘lighting up the league’ and he is right. He has got the kind of star quality that is priceless, the kind of quality that will give Arsenal and their fans hope that they might yet overhaul Liverpool.
City, a shadow of the team that they once were, do not have anyone like Lewis-Skelly. They do not have anyone like Ethan Nwaneri, who scored Arsenal’s fifth, and best, goal, either. They sold the best of their young talent and now they are paying a heavy price.
It was only last week that Lewis-Skelly was embroiled in controversy after he was sent off for a cynical foul on Wolves’ Matt Doherty, a red card that was later rescinded. His performance against City was the perfect way to put that furore behind him.
Arsenal are still six points behind Liverpool, who have a game in hand, but this was the kind of statement win, the kind of wild, exultant night that can change things for a team like Arsenal and propel them upwards.
They have not lost in the league for 14 games now and there is nothing quite as intoxicating as the promise of young talent like Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri to add momentum to their challenge.
There was a time when Arsenal’s challenge seemed to be fading away but the emphatic nature of this victory suggested that time has passed. They are still in this fight. They are still there. If Liverpool stumble, Arsenal will be ready.
Lewis-Skelly was close to being the best player on the pitch. Declan Rice might have just beaten him to it. Martin Odegaard was superb, too. So was Gabriel, who made sure that even though Haaland grabbed City’s goal, he was a marginal presence in this match.
It was, all in all, a performance that will live long in memory here. They have spent so long chasing City over the last four years that this felt like an exorcism. They banished the ghost and now they can give everything to the pursuit of Arne Slot and his team.
City? This was a new low in their fall from grace. The mind could not help but wander towards a week on Tuesday and quite what Real Madrid might do to them in their Champions League play-off first leg at the Etihad. Vinicius Jr and Jude Bellingham will be licking their lips about the prospect of getting at this City side.
Just one minute and 47 seconds of the game had elapsed when City tempted disaster and disaster took them up on their invitation. John Stones played the ball across the face of the area to Manuel Akanji but Akanji’s attempted pass was intercepted. It fell to Kai Havertz, who squared it, unselfishly and cleverly, to Odegaard, who swept it in.
Another Arsenal effort, from Gabriel Martinelli, was correctly ruled out for offside and City set about trying to end the anarchy that reigned in their defence. They stemmed the bleeding and tried to fight back.
Midway through the half, they must have thought they had found an equaliser when Josko Gvardiol rose at the near post to glance a corner from Omar Marmoush goalwards. It was flying towards the top corner when David Raya produced a magnificent reaction save and pushed it upwards with his left hand.
The ball looped into the air and, as Erling Haaland waited to nod it in, it bounced off the face of the bar and away to safety.
But City had not learned their lesson at the back. Stefan Ortega played another short pass out of his six-yard-box to Mateo Kovacic. Declan Rice was on him in a flash and his tackle found Havertz by the penalty spot.
Havertz had time and space to pick his spot. Ortega was trying to defend one side of the goal, Stones the other. Havertz lashed the ball in Stones’ direction but, to general disbelief, he dragged it wide of the post. If only Odegaard had been by his side again to finish things off.
City tried to profit from their escape. A minute before half-time, a rare moment of uncertain defending from Arsenal allowed the ball to fall to Savinho at the back post. He smashed his shot goalwards and it took a slight deflection off Jurrien Timber. Once more, Raya was equal to it. He got down to his right fast and palmed the ball away.
Raya was finally beaten ten minutes into the second half. City worked the ball cleverly from Foden to Savinho inside the Arsenal box and Savinho floated a cross to the back post. Haaland got ahead of William Saliba and leapt towards the heavens, nodding his header across the goalkeeper and into the net.
City were level for less than two minutes. Foden gave the ball away uncharacteristically cheaply in his own half, playing a pass straight into the path of Thomas Partey. Partey took a few steps forward and when he unleashed his shot, it cannoned off the back of Stones. The deflection took the ball away from Ortega into the net.
The game had burst into life now and Arsenal finally seized the momentum. Five minutes after Partey’s strike, Rice played a ball into Lewis-Skelly on the edge of the City box. Lewis-Skelly stepped inside Stones and let fly. Ortega got a hand to it but he could not keep it out.
Midway through the half, Arsenal nearly added another. Rice, who had been outstanding, led a charge out of the Arsenal defence and played a fine pass into the path of Martinelli. Martinelli outstripped the chasing pack and fired a shot towards the far corner but Ortega deflected it wide with his forearm.
It was only a matter of time now until Arsenal scored a fourth. City looked more and more like an imitation of the team they once were. And when Martinelli led another break 15 minutes from the end, there was an inevitability about what came next.
Martinelli picked his pass perfectly. He waited until he had got to the edge of the area before laying the ball into the path of Havertz. Havertz checked inside and curled his shot perfectly beyond Ortega.
His first-half miss had been the only blot on Arsenal’s evening. Now it was erased.
And still Arsenal saved the best goal for last. Nwaneri took a long ball down on the Arsenal right and stepped on to his left foot. He curled a beautiful, lazy, impossibly elegant left-foot shot beyond Ortega into the corner of the net.
