Man City trounce Arsenal, seize control in the Premier League

Only one team showed up for the biggest game of the Premier League season

If you want to win the Premier League, you still have to go through Manchester City.

Arsenal is the latest club to find that out the hard way, as Man City’s utterly dominant 4-1 win turned the hotly anticipated top-of-the-table clash on Wednesday into a rout.

Arsenal came into the match with a five-point lead atop the table, but were also the team under far more pressure. Putting aside Man City’s 3-1 win in London back in February and any mind games played by Pep Guardiola — though the manager has been busy on that front — there’s just the raw math: on April 1, Arsenal were eight points clear atop the table with one game in hand.

Since then? The Gunners have settled for three straight draws, while Man City won their only two league matches. When this match kicked off, Man City’s two games in hand meant that they, not Arsenal, controlled the destiny of the Premier League title this season.

In front of their own fans, Man City made that control clear by dominating play from start to finish. Kevin De Bruyne thought he’d won a third minute penalty, only for both referee Michael Oliver and a VAR check to ignore his pleas.

If you’re De Bruyne, there’s only one answer to a situation like that: score a goal that doesn’t need any help. As much as Man City are thought of as eschewing long balls, it started with a Route One hoof up to the big fella Erling Haaland, who then set De Bruyne up to juke past Gabriel and fire Man City into the lead.

The Haaland-De Bruyne duo were tormenting Arsenal, with Aaron Ramsdale barely keeping them from a second after superbly-worked raids forward from midfield. Again and again, Man City pulled Arsenal towards midfield, only to break their lines and suddenly have two of the world’s best players running even-number breaks at speed.

Arsenal was just barely hanging on, but by a matter of seconds and inches failed to get into the locker room within one. John Stones headed a De Bruyne free kick home in first-half stoppage time. Before Stones could begin a true celebration, he spotted the flag up for offside, but a 90-second VAR check overturned the initial call, giving Man City a richly deserved two-goal edge.

Arsenal offered a mild pushback to start the half, but Man City seemed to figure them out in short order. Ramsdale somehow kicked away Haaland’s low shot after the Norwegian broke away, but could do nothing on the next surge in the 54th minute.

One again it was a familiar show: the Belgium playmaker intercepted a slow Arsenal pass, played a one-two with Haaland, and De Bruyne did the rest, sparking more jubilation everywhere at the Etihad save for the away end.

Rob Holding would steer home a late face-saving goal for Arsenal after Man City, for the first time all night, switched off as the Gunners recycled a corner, but Arsenal couldn’t even muster much more of a celebration than a couple of pats on the shoulder for the goalscorer.

3-1 didn’t reflect the match that played out, and Haaland made sure to restore Man City’s lead as an exclamation point in stoppage time. Haaland, having lost his hair tie for the final moments of the match, picked up Phil Foden’s pass to score his 49th goal in all competitions.

On top of getting the party going before full time, Haaland’s 33rd Premier League goal broke Mohamed Salah’s record for scoring in a 38-game season.

Between the realities of the table and the nature of Man City’s authoritative win, it feels like the Premier League trophy is going to end up just out of the Gunners’ reach.

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