Manchester City vs Arsenal: Instant Reaction

Thoughts at full time

Straight into it.

Headline: Manchester City, two points dropped

That was agonizingly close to a full three points dropped and a massive swing in the title odds in favor of Arsenal.

Coming into this match, a draw was a good result for Arsenal. They were defending 0.9 expected points compared to Manchester City who were expected to get nearly 2 points based on the odds coming into this.

When Arsenal got the second goal and had turned the tide of the game, I would have really wanted to see if they could have pushed further on but that was over as soon as Leandro Trossard was given a second yellow card that swung the expectation back towards Manchester City (at least for a draw).

After the goal with some momentum Arsenal were nearly 60% to win from that position. The red card at that time knocked it down to just 33%, costing the team about 1 full goal of expectation (City up 0.6, Arsenal down 0.35) and was a -1.2 expected point swing.

It is such a bummer that this game that was looking to be a potentially really good battle was turned into something worse.

Initially it looked like the yellow was for the foul, and that would have been harsh given the other plays (Havertz on Rodri and Haaland on Saliba) already in the half that were similar and not yellow cards.

Later it seems like it was clarified that it was not the foul but the delay of the restart that he got the yellow for. He does kick the ball away but it is a bit after the whistle happens and while he is clearly in the action of playing the ball. Given how loud it is on the field and he can’t see the referee’s signal that would be very harsh.

My simplified in game win probability model had the match that looked something like this showing how drastic that was to the game.

Arsenal did not have a pretty half statistically. They gave up 27 shots before the goal, and 1.5 expected goals. Most of that was pretty mediocre shots into traffic (just two shots over 10%) but there were a lot of them and Arsenal had to be aware to get the ball out.

Arsenal dropped into that 5-4-0 or even 6-3-0 formation and clogged the game up. It was also a good day from Raya who made 9 saves and had a couple of them that were needed.

I think watching back the first half would be interesting, but I am not sure how much there is to learn about the second half. It was a spot where Arsenal defended for their life and came within a minute of having this be a major win.

I’m keeping it short today because that match just took so much out of me that I don’t have the energy to go deep into it yet. I will no doubt have some more opinions and thoughts in the debrief tomorrow.

Overall, I am proud of this team and how they dealt with the adversity here. Arsenal are still +1 on the same fixtures from last season and while they aren’t at the top of their game they just came through a week of three tough away games unbeaten.

Match Graphics