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MANCHESTER, England – Pep Guardiola predicted this week that after a start to the season full of bizarre results, normal service would resume in the Premier League. For 90 minutes at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday night, he was right when his Manchester City side beat Arsenal 1-0 thanks to a goal from Raheem Sterling.
City avoided a third straight league game without a win, while even a campaign in which Aston Villa already beat Liverpool 7-2 and Tottenham scored six at Manchester United could conjure an away win for Arsenal against one side. of the top six.
The Gunners have made significant progress under Mikel Arteta, but it’s 29 games since the 2-0 win at City in January 2015. He must change to have title ambition, but the Arsenal manager can feel confident that his team He showed the strength to stay in the match until the final whistle, something that has not always been the case in this match.
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On the other hand, it should also feel like a missed opportunity against a City team without two of its best players, Kevin De Bruyne and Aymeric Laporte. In his absence, it was Day Captain Sterling, available again after skipping international duty with England due to injury, who made the difference with a close-range finish after Bernd Leno saved from Phil Foden.
“It was an important victory,” Guardiola said. “Having a clean sheet was important but not the most important thing. Against a team that has everything to be a contender to win the Premier League, we knew it would be a close, difficult match, but winning is important for confidence and mentality.” . and it will help us grow. “
“With the position we have, it is important to win games,” Guardiola added. “We cannot be 90 minutes at the highest level but we did it. We cannot be perfect right now but the victories against teams like Arsenal help us reduce this time to reach our best performance.”
Pep Guardiola surpassed his former assistant Mikel Arteta. Getty
It was a seventh straight league win for City over Arsenal, who gave seven minutes off the bench to £ 45 million on the deadline to sign Thomas Partey, but if the result was expected, the way Guardiola did. it was not.
When the scoresheet was turned in an hour before kickoff, it looked like a simple 4-3-3 variation, but it turned out to be the opposite.
Joao Cancelo, in his first league start of the campaign, was both a right-back and a midfielder. Kyle Walker was a right back and center back. Bernardo Silva looked like an auxiliary midfielder as Sterling spent most of the night playing down the middle alongside Sergio Agüero, back after missing the last four months with a knee injury.
It was the kind of complicated system that Guardiola usually reserves for the last stages of the Champions League, but this time it worked; City had more than 60 percent possession and 13 shots and probably should have won by a greater margin.
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Ruben Dias, who played in his second game after his summer signing from Benfica, was excellent in the center of defense, both in position and out of it. It’s true that Ederson needed to make a good save with the shoulder to deny Bukayo Sako, Arsenal’s best player, but it was the Brazilian goalkeeper’s only serious job of the night.
Guardiola’s system was perhaps a nod to the way Arteta planned a win in the FA Cup semi-final in July or possibly a way to protect Agüero, who looked rusty before being replaced after 65 minutes and never threatened Leno.
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The Argentine forward could face an FA penalty after appearing to put his hand on assistant referee Sian Massey-Ellis after appealing a decision from the touchline, though Guardiola was willing to ignore him in his post-match press conference. match.
“Come on guys, Sergio is the nicest person I’ve ever met,” he said. “Look for problems in other situations, not this one. We are incredibly happy that he is back. He is still far from his condition but he has 60 minutes and on Wednesday we have another game. It is important to have him. We need his goals.” , your performance.”
Guardiola also needs a healthy body after losing De Bruyne, Laporte, Benjamin Mendy and Gabriel Jesus just as the Champions League is preparing; Porto are visitors to Manchester on Wednesday.
“Mendy will be out for three or four weeks, Laporte we wait earlier, maybe a week,” Guardiola said. “[Jesus] its a big problem. The injury he had in the front part of the leg, we will have to be calm and cautious. He’s not in training ground yet. “
Meanwhile, Arteta admitted to being frustrated with the result, but was willing to focus on the positives despite returning to London with a sense of deja vu.
“You want to go to all fields and win, but to get there you have to do so many good things in 96 minutes and in the end the games are decided at the box,” he said. “When you arrive you have to put them away. I’ve been in the dressing room for four years and playing with the attitude and confidence we had is really difficult.”
Source: espn.co.uk
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