This version of Manchester City must hate the entirety of North London. After losing 4-0 to Tottenham back in November, and the subsequent run of bad form that followed, City went into Arsenal's home ground on Sunday riding a bit of a high, relatively speaking. Though it had choked away a 2-0 lead to Paris Saint-Germain in the second-to-last Champions League league phase match, City has actually been on a bit of an upswing recently, winning six of its last eight matches across all competitions. In its most-recent match, a must-win against Club Brugge, City gave up the opener but ended up winning convincingly 3-1, thanks to a steady and ruthless second half. While I wouldn't have said that City is all the way back to its world-conquering ways, I wouldn't have been shocked if it went into North London and beat Arsenal, something it had done 12 times in a row in Premier League play between 2017 and 2023.
That being said, I am also not shocked at how the match actually went, as Arsenal played the most brutal of hosts—eat your heart out, Walder Frey—and stomped on City's slowly reanimating corpse to the tune of 5-1.
Despite how violent that scoreline reads, it almost flatters City, who gave up an opening goal in just 105 seconds and never truly caught back up, at least on performance. That opening goal also served as a bad omen, as it didn't come from incredible individual play from an Arsenal player. Instead, it was from a colossal mistake from City center back John Stones, who played an unconscionable pass across the field just outside of his box to Manuel Akanji, who was already under pressure. The Swiss defender immediately lost the ball, which bounced to Declan Rice, who played a one-touch pass to Kai Havertz. The big German just had to cut it back to Martin Odegaard, who scored his first goal against City in an Arsenal shirt.
Again, this was 105 seconds into the match, and though Arsenal would not double its lead in the first half, there were threats. Havertz was unstoppable except for by himself, constantly bewildering the City backline and only not scoring because of a poor finish on a golden chance in the box in the 26th minute. Still, though City was playing poorly, the score was 1-0 at half, and the visitors actually controlled much of the flow of the match, out-possessing and out-shooting Arsenal. Yet that possession, and those shots, didn't feel like they were amounting to much. Arsenal goalie David Raya was rarely forced into saves, except for one stunning point-blank stop in the 23rd minute.
On the other side of the break, it was much of the same for about 10 minutes, with City passing the ball around but not being able to get much going against top tier defending from one of the Premier League's best center back duos in William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhães. Gabriel also had an early highlight in the first half right after Odegaard's opener, mocking Erling Haaland seemingly in response to the Norwegian's comments in September towards Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, who he told to "stay humble" following a 2-2 draw in Manchester. Maybe that wasn't the best idea for Gabriel, as it would be Haaland that scored the next goal, putting a particularly sick header into the back of the net in the 55th minute:
This was the moment I feared, as someone who supports Liverpool and therefore knows all about Manchester City's ability to turn swoons into, somehow, league-winning campaigns. My stomach started feeling funny following Haaland's goal, expecting as it was for City to turn on the jets and beat Arsenal in the way that the club has become accustomed to. Before I could really interrogate whether City was back, it was all over but the embarrassment, as Thomas Partey ripped a long-range effort just two minutes after Haaland's goal, one that took a wicked deflection off of Stones—he was John Pebbles on Sunday—and went in the back of the net to restore Arsenal's lead.
The rout wasn't on yet, but City crumbled after Partey's goal. Five minutes later, Myles Lewis-Skelly, playing only because his controversial red card last weekend was rescinded, fired a shot that City goalie Stefan Ortega could only deflect into the goal. (Lewis-Skelly also continued Arsenal's perhaps one-sided feud with Haaland, mocking the striker's celebration following what was his first Arsenal goal.) Havertz would get on the scoresheet finally in what ended up being a Man of the Match performance in the 76th minute, calmly turning a counter-attack into a far post curler inside the box. And to rub particularly coarse sea salt into the gushing wound that is 2024-2025 Manchester City, substitute Ethan Nwaneri hit a gorgeous 92nd minute curler to give us that aforementioned 5-1 scoreline:
This was as comprehensive a beating as City has taken even in this most dire of seasons, more so than the Tottenham one, thanks to Arsenal's talent and the sheer quality of the goals themselves. With the loss, City slides into a points tie with Newcastle United at the bottom of the Champions League qualification slots, and I can't say I'd bet on the Sky Blues to hold off the Magpies, as well as one-point-back Chelsea and Bournemouth. It would be a medium-sized disaster if City doesn't make the Champions League next year, not because the club needs the money from that competition, but because that's just not something City has ever truly struggled with since its takeover and the arrival of Pep Guardiola. (Arsenal, for its part, keeps pace with Liverpool, sitting six points back, though the Pool Boys have one more game to play.)
There's still plenty of time for City to turn this around and, at the very least, mount a reasonable charge up to third place, where Nottingham Forest currently sits with a six-point advantage. There's nothing in the past few months, however, that makes me think that's a guarantee, and it is starting to feel just as likely that City will use that remaining time to continue to confound itself. Whereas City was always on the other side of games like this, where it beat on a supposed contender so badly that it sent the opponent's season into tailspin, this is starting to feel familiar for its reciprocity. Arsenal simply turned City's own dominance against it, and I question how many more four-goal losses City can take before something, anything at all, changes. At the very least, Guardiola and his players might breathe a sigh of location-related relief: It only has to deal with North London one more time this season (a Feb. 26 visit to Tottenham), and that just might be enough to salve some of the bruises that the defending champions have picked up this season.
