Arsenal vs Manchester City 0-2

A bit tough to write a post about today's game simply because anytime you have 10 vs 11 for a long period of time like 60 minutes, the game is basically over. Which should not be an excuse for sloppy defending. If anything, when you go down to 10 men you should try to be super organized; play a bit more in your own half but still press the other team and look for any chance for a counter. That wasn't the case with us today. Obviously the game started horribly with Koscielny being sent off so early:

But luckily for us, Dzeko took a shitty penalty kick and we were still in the game at 0-0. Unfortunately, the following 10-15mins after the sending off, we looked panicked and sloppy with the ball. Milner scored a great goal after a brilliant pass by Tevez for 0-1, but City's second goal came after a bad mistake in the middle of the field and a quick counter attack. I feel that at 0-0 or 0-1 we still had a shot of staying in the game, but the first half we definitely weren't organized enough to cope with City effectively.

The second half wasn't much better, we looked really vulnerable at the counter-attack and if it wasn't for Vermaelen and Szczesny it could have been way worse than 0-2. When we finally got the chance to play 10 vs 10 after Kompany was sent off, i think everyone was too tired to do much. We still had some chances to at least score one goal but it wasn't to be.

Defensively, it was obviously not a great day. Koscielny should know better than to try to get intimate with Dzeko at our own penalty area. It was an obvious foul and the red card that followed put us in a pretty shitty situation. Everyone makes mistakes but i feel he should be smarter than that. Mertesacker came in for Oxlade but he looked a liability the whole game. I know he is slow but today he seemed super slow. Vermaelen had to mop after him the whole game. Maybe that's why Wenger send him forward the last 12 minutes of the game but let's be honest: it's not like Mertesacker will dominate as a forward either. Vermaelen was our best defender today and saved us from more goals. Gibbs and Sagna were better than Koscielny and Mertesacker but because of the amount of running they had to do throughout the game, there were gaps on both of our sides that City was running through.

The midfield was so so. I know it's hard when you are down to 10 men but we made too many mistakes with the ball. Diaby looked rusty but at least he managed 60 minutes without getting injured! Let's see how long that will last. Cazorla didn't have a good day: missed a lot of passes and more than once he was too busy holding his head and wondering why he missed the pass instead of running back and try to win the ball back. Wilshere was our best midfielder, he was everywhere and tried to carry the team on his back. I still feel sometimes he is too reckless with his body, but i guess that's the only way he knows how to play. Podolski wasn't great but he was trying to make some runs and cross the ball. Ramsey did ok, took too long on the ball at times but that's nothing new for him.

Theo missed the best chance we had to score at the end of the game. He shot the ball well, but Lescott blocked it at the goal line. He didn't have many other chances which was not surprising since we were down a man for most of the game. Giroud was disappointing. It took him too long to get settled into the game. He couldn't control his first touch and missed the best chance we got from a cross.  

As i said in the beginning, it's tough to judge how well we played since we were down to 10 men for most of the game. But i do feel we could have been more organized in defense and sharper going forward. The lack of impact players we have on the bench is obvious. We need some quality players to come in and we need Wenger to go. The sooner, the better.