Manchester City continued their impressive form in superb fashionafter beating table toppers Arsenal 6-3 at the Etihand Stadium in a thrilling encounter in a Christmas cracker.
Both sides were coming off contrasting games in the Champions League in midweek, as City beat Bayern Munich 3-2 at the Allianz Arena, were as Arsenal lost 2-0 away at Napoli, but still scraped through to the knock out stages.
All eyes were on City boss Pellegrini, as he selected Costal Pantilimon ahead of Joe Hart, after speculation the England keeper would gain his place back in the first team set up.
City took the game to the Gunners in the opening exchanges, and took an early lead, and after City had a few chances early on through Aguero who brought out a fine save from Arsenal keeper wojciech szczesny, and up at the other end, Pantilimon had to be at his best to keep out Olivier Giroud.
After dealing with a mountain of pressure, Arsenal caved in, as another corner was delivered by Samir Nasri. At the near post Martin Demichelis flicked on with a header and there was Sergio Aguero to stabbed home an acrobatic volley home past Szczesny to give City the lead….in what was the start of something special.
City were looking superb, with Yaya Toure and Fernandinho bossing their midfield battle between Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere.
But when a sloppy piece of play allowed Ramsey to steal the ball off the Ivorian midfielder, Welsh midfield maestro Ramsey ran on and fed Mesut Ozil who cut the ball back to Theo Walcott. He side-footed a first-time shot that appeared to skim of Demichelis’s head and into the net. Somehow, having been dominated, Arsenal were level, and deservably so.
After a spell of Arsenal pressure, which included Ozil and Walcott causing the City defence all sorts of problems, City hit back as the trickery of David Silva, as he fed in Alvaro Negrado, who skimmed Metersacker, and curled his shot just past Szczesney’s post.
But City had the lead just minutes after, as the influential Yaya Toure picked out Zabaleta with a superb cross field ball, who inturn found Negrado with a pinpoint pass, as the Spanish striker turned the ball over the goal line.
Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny who then departed, stretchered off with a deep laceration to his leg.
Arsenal may have had an equaliser as Walcott saw his shot go just wide of Pantilimon’s near post.
Then at the start of the second half, City may have had a third goal, as Argentine denfender Demichalis was allowed to reach a corner – turning the ball narrowly over with a header before City had to cope with the loss of Aguero to injury.
City did manage to get their third shorthly after, as Mesult Ozil’s awful pass was collected by City midfielder Fernandinho, who after a lung busting run curled placed effort round the dive of Szczesny.
Arsenal were looking dead and burried, and neaded a goal to come soon, and after some neat build up play they found a goal, as Wilshere chipped a lovely ball throught to Walcott, who controlled it and curled the ball into the top corner past Pantilimon to make it 3-2.
City had a fourth soon after Walcott’s sublime finish, with Navas riding a challenge and skipping to the byeline, before whipping in a ball to David Silva, who made no mistake and smashed the ball home.
Arsenal could have got themselves back into the game, as Olivier Giroud missed an absolute sitter as he skipped away from Kompany and headed wide of Pantilimon’s goal.
and after Wilshere picked up a ball from Flamini, the midfielder tried a long distance effort, which was beaten away acrobatically by Pantilimon as Arsenal pressed for a third.
City were dominating, and when Fernandinho played his way through on goal, he dinked the ball over the diving Szczesny to make it 5-2.
Wenger would have been frustrated, who fired his header straight at Pantilimon in the later stages, Arsenal to their credit, managed to get a goal back through a Per Mertersacker bullet header made it 5-3 in a superb game.
Hower, that wasn’t the end of the scoring, as Szczesny tripped substitute James Milner. Up stepped the impressive Toure to drive home the penalty.
By Ben Reardon
@BenReardon1
