City's start was breathtaking and brought what looked a routine goal, but which was actually superbly crafted and brilliantly finished. This was all brought to a halt by the injury to Rodri and we had not reorganised when Oliver made a massive mistake in allowing them to take a free kick before Kyle was back in position, leaving the Arsenal lad unmarked as one of our CBs moved out to cover their winger. A very good finish, but referee ..... But then we paid for our naivete at corners: our big lads at the near post, two gooners standing on Eddie and Doku expected to cover Gabrielle. At first a narrow escape but disaster at the second go. Why didn't we have some big lads keeping the way open for Eddie? Why did Kyle not just block off the run from Gabrielle?
Trossard got his richly deserved red and this was at least a shock for a team which sees the first yellow as an opportunity for that player to offend and offend again in the belief that the ref will be reluctant to show a second yellow. It didn't get in the way of the time wasting: Arsenal took every advantage to waste time when the ball was out of play. It is to City's credit that the ball went out of play so few times, but Raya, for all his good saves, is a very good 'keeper but a damned disgrace. I do feel that we really missed KdB: hade he been able to play there would have been many more clever passes out wide, or to players in the box. There would have been more runs into the box and, of course, KdB is a much more frightening prospect on the edge of the box than Dias or Akanji.