{"id":442611,"date":"2025-09-22T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T06:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/442611\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T06:00:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T06:00:19","slug":"three-things-we-learned-from-arsenal-fc-win-as-gunners-force-pep-guardiola-to-abandon-his-principles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/442611\/","title":{"rendered":"Three things we learned from Arsenal FC win as Gunners force Pep Guardiola to abandon his principles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Arsenal<\/p>\n

Pep Guardiola<\/a>\u2019s side had looked on course to claim all three points, thanks to an early goal from Erling Haaland.<\/p>\n

Arsenal dominated possession throughout the game and they were rewarded in the dying moments, when Martinelli struck.<\/p>\n

The Gunners, however, have lost ground to Liverpool in the title race and now trail them by five points.<\/p>\n

And, here, Standard Sport<\/strong> looks at three things we learned from Arsenal\u2019s draw with Man City\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Action Images via Reuters<\/p>\n

After a difficult start to the season, Martinelli has had a dream week.<\/p>\n

The winger came off the bench on Tuesday to open the scoring in Bilbao and he came to Arsenal\u2019s rescue, again, against City.<\/p>\n

Martinelli has looked low on confidence in the first few weeks of the campaign, but you would not know it from his finish, here.<\/p>\n

Eberechi Eze picked the winger out with a long ball from deep inside Arsenal\u2019s half, and Martinelli raced onto it before dinking Gianluigi Donnarumma.<\/p>\n

The stands at Emirates Stadium<\/a> became a sea of limbs, and Martinelli was mobbed by his team-mates.<\/p>\n

The competition on Arsenal\u2019s left flank is, perhaps, greater than anywhere else on the pitch after Eze\u2019s arrival; however, this was a reminder of what Martinelli can offer.<\/p>\n

Against tired defences, his pace is a lethal weapon off the bench and – as he showed against City – he can finish, too.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Action Images via Reuters<\/p>\n

The end of the Merino-Rice combination?<\/p>\n

It is rare for Mikel Arteta<\/a> to make a half-time substitution, let alone two, and his decision to do so against City was, perhaps, an indication that he got his team wrong.<\/p>\n

Just like at Anfield last month, Arteta opted to start Declan Rice and Mikel Merino in midfield as two No8s ahead of Martin Zubimendi.<\/p>\n

The duo have both performed well in that role for club and country, but when playing together for Arsenal they are yet to click.<\/p>\n

Both players are at their most comfortable playing with their backs to goal and, in the first half, Arsenal suffered from a lack of creativity.<\/p>\n

In the past, with Martin Odegaard being out injured, Arteta could be justified going with Merino and Rice together – but not now.<\/p>\n

Arteta can call upon either Eze or Ethan Nwaneri to stand in for the Arsenal captain, and the second half, here, showed the value of playing one of them. It was Eze\u2019s pass that created the late goal.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

Arsenal force Guardiola to abandon his principles<\/p>\n

Arteta has come under fire for how he has set his teams up in big games, but it is hard to remember a Guardiola side ever playing quite like this.<\/p>\n

City\u2019s early goal may have changed their plan, however they finished this match with just 32.8 per cent possession.<\/p>\n

Guardiola\u2019s substitutions in the second half included Haaland coming off for Nico Gonzalez and Phil Foden being hooked for Nathan Ake.<\/p>\n

That summed up City\u2019s happiness to sit deep and soak up Arsenal\u2019s pressure, rather than bossing the ball.<\/p>\n

In the past, Guardiola\u2019s side have come to the Emirates and outplayed the Gunners – however this time they abandoned their principles.<\/p>\n

Arsenal should view that as a mark of respect and also an indication of how far they have come as a team under Arteta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola\u2019s side had looked on course to claim all three points, thanks to an early goal from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[2921,94,25014,80,1037,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-442611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-emirates-stadium","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-gabriel-martinelli","11":"tag-mikel-arteta","12":"tag-pep-guardiola","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115246427436836523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}