We started off great after Arsenal steamed into us for the first five minutes. On 25 minutes until about 40 minutes, Arsenal came into it & had their best period of control & goal threat, but we came back into it & ended the half level.
It was noticeable that aside from Bernardo in the first 25, we lacked width again, as Grealish offered very little. Arsenal also trebled up on Haaland & snuffed him out of the game, so it was no surprise he was subbed.
It was pretty even in the second half until the changes were made, & we immediately gave Arsenal something different to think about, because Cole, KDB & Foden came on, which made us more dangerous of a threat & gave us better wide left & right attacking options.
We took relative control of the match, but Arsenal stayed in it & looked dangerous at times, & then Cole struck with a fuckin beauty of a curler, Mahrez stylee!
We looked to be comfortable, albeit Arsenal still posed a threat, but with 2½ minutes left Troussard scored via a double deflection. There was nothing Julian, Akanji or Ortéga could've done.
The less said about the penalty shootout the better! :-/
My thoughts going forward haven't changed. We badly need width. With Grealish being rendered null & void & offering nowt, we literally only had Bernardo offering a wide threat until Cole & Phil entered the fray.
We learned a lot today. Cole did well enough, but can he be relied upon for a full season like Mahrez? I've my doubts. Kovacic was useful, but an attacking level below Dog, & it was noticeable how much more of a threat we looked when he went off & Bernardo came inside.
We're not far off, but LB width looks to be a problem waiting for us again, & Grealish is more a wide midfielder as opposed to being the traditional winger I think we need.
Regardless of any departures, we need two wingers & an attacking Alphonso Davies style LB.
I hate losing, but it seems Arsenal over all were more up for today than City were, as evidenced by our fans sounding muted & there's sounding like today was the CL Final.
We've got a month to bring in reinforcements. Over to you Pep & Txiki. As things stand, bolstering the squad is still in our hands until September 1st. Roll on Friday! \0/
