Manchester City travelled to the Emirates in North London with hopes of getting a result that would speed up their ascent to the top of the 2024/25 Premier League table but instead met a shocking fate.
The hosts, Arsenal, showed their growth over the years in this rivalry by playing impeccable football and defeating the reigning league champions 5 – 1, which happens to be City’s biggest defeat in the Pep Guardiola era.
Although the defeat was by a four-goal margin, it marked the first time in almost a decade under Guardiola that Manchester City had conceded five goals in a single match. It also marked the first time since their 8 – 1 loss to Middlesbrough in 2008 that they conceded five or more goals.
The loss showed how much work the Spaniard has ahead of the next two years of his new contract and also effectively ruled his team out of the Premier League title race for this season.
The former Barcelona manager reacted to the events of Sunday afternoon in typical fashion, praising his team, his opponents and taking the blame for the shambolic performance while promising changes.
“I only regret the last 25 minutes, we forgot to do what we should do, what we have done for 65/70 minutes,” he began. “Of course it’s a difficult game starting in this stadium, against that team in the first minutes it’s happened many times this season.
“But after 10/15 minutes I think we took the game and played really, really, really, really good and we are in it after 1-1 and good momentum we pass to make the transition with Omar [Marmoush] and a deflection and the third goal.
“But after that, we then continued to do what you have to do in terms defensively and [be a] little bit more patient. And when you’re playing that way, they can run, and of course at 3-1 they are comfortable, it’s more difficult.
“I regret the last 15/20 minutes, the rest was a really good game for our side. It’s difficult to understand when you see the result, but this is my feeling.
“It’s happened all season, we are giving away too many things, we are aware this cannot happen, it happened.
“But we reacted really well, and we played with personality, and we defended so well, and then with the ball we were a threat, but unfortunately after the second happened, again many times we had the momentum. For the deflection and in other situations we conceded the goals.
“You have to overcome [it], you cannot lose the control, it’s 90/95 minutes. You cannot finish in the way we played, we could’ve scored three more, but the team has to be stable it doesn’t matter what happened.”
