Manchester City and Arsenal faced each other on Sunday, March 31st, after a tough head to head battle between the two teams, the game ended in a 0-0 draw.
Currently the lead for the Premier League is a fierce battle between Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool. As it stands, either Liverpool or Arsenal are the favorites to win the title as they have equal points as of April 10th.
Opinion of the Game:
In my opinion, City should’ve been able to come through with a win against Arsenal. The Gunners were playing a great game but at the Etihad (Manchester City’s home arena) they should’ve been able to pull through. According to ESPN, Man City had 72.5% possession, with all the possession they should’ve at least scored once. According to the same statistics form ESPN, they had twelve shots, of those twelve shots they only had one shot on goal, this just shows the class form Arsenal’s defensive line. They were very consistent and effective with their four back formation. William Saliba specifically was great during the game, winning man of the match due to his excellent defending. However, with all those shots they should’ve been able to at least put more on target with Saliba or not. According to the Premier League website, City made 700 passes during the game compared to Arsenal’s 269. This is another reason as to why City should’ve done more with their possession, clearly they were able to pass for ages but they just couldn’t produce a goal and barely any shots on target.
Arsenal had half as many shots as City’s twelve, with only two shots on target. City’s defense was also excellent but they had a few hiccups during the game. Another thing about this game is the officiating, and good god it was awful in my opinion. The on field ref wasn’t giving any cards out whatsoever. According to the Premier League website, Arsenal made twenty fouls and only got two yellow cards. twenty fouls with only two yellows is insane, during the match the fans and players of City were livid, booing and yelling at the ref and I fully support their anger. That ref should’ve been way harder on the players in my opinion. I get wanting the game to be clean and things like that but twenty fouls and only two yellows? That’s a joke!
At the end of the day though it was a good game. A battle between two of the greats of football. Both City and the Gunners have a shot to get their hands on the title this year, but so does Liverpool. All three sides will have to be super disciplined and be their best each and every game in order to win this year. It will surely be a race for the history books, one you won’t want to miss.
