Back at the ranch, Arsenal’s squad watched the anger unfold with a wry smile.
Their phones have pinged regularly with messages, many of which have made similar observations about the strength of Manchester City’s reaction to Sunday’s intense 2-2 draw.
Now that the dust has settled, Mail Sport has revealed Arsenal players’ side of the story – their sense that the noise that emanated from the City camp in the aftermath of the Battle of the Etihad points towards a team that is ‘rattled’.
The irritation City have expressed towards Arsenal’s approach to the second half, when they were reduced to 10 men following Leandro Trossard’s controversial red card at the end of the first 45 minutes, has left Gunners players detecting a chink in the armour.
John Stones, Bernardo Silva and Manuel Akanji have all expressed their displeasure at Arsenal’s ‘dark arts’ since Sunday’s game.
The footage of Erling Haaland’s confrontation with Mikel Arteta after the final whistle in which the Norwegian advises the Arsenal manager to ‘stay humble’ has added to the impression that City lost control of their emotions.
‘They are fuming!!’ read one message, seen by Mail Sport, sent by a player.
Of course, City may point towards footage of Arsenal director Tim Lewis leaving his seat after the game without shaking Etihad chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s hand as an example of the Londoners conducting themselves with little dignity.
Mail Sport, however, reveals that Lewis exchanged handshakes with multiple City directors – including Khaldoon – before kick-off and remained at the Etihad well after the final whistle fully open to exchanging farewell pleasantries.
While that may not wash with City executives, at the time it is believed that Lewis – as one of the club’s leaders – felt he needed to make a rapid exit to show solidarity with Arteta and his players following Stones’ late leveller, sensing the escalation in emotion.
Lewis usually makes a point of visiting the team after matches, and those instincts were heightened on Sunday given the circumstances of the game.
It is fair to say that the reaction from the City camp over the past few days isn’t what Arsenal expected from a brilliant team that have nurtured an undeniable air of invincibility over the years.
Could it be that Arsenal have somehow lodged themselves in the City players’ heads? Certainly, for a side as captivating as City to have publicly exposed such ire, is something Arsenal’s players have viewed as a significant development.
It isn’t necessarily that the Gunners squad have been shaken by City’s assertions over their second half strategy – which admittedly wasn’t easy on the eye.
But City have dropped points before and not responded with such animosity. Make of that what you will. Arsenal’s players certainly are.
Yet for all the criticism aimed at Arsenal’s ‘dirty tricks’ – what exactly were they supposed to do?
Leave themselves open without 11 players in hope of scoring a third against, arguably, the best team in Europe?
Most teams, albeit not necessarily to the extent Arsenal did, close ranks when down to 10 men. It isn’t a strategy exclusive to Arsenal but one the vast majority of teams would deploy in similar circumstances.
Among the players who required treatment for suspected cramp were Gabriel Martinelli, Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori.
Timber spent virtually all of last season injured with an ACL injury, with the game at City his third in eight days.
The Holland star hadn’t played three matches in such a condensed period since February 2023 when he was playing for Ajax.
Calafiori returned from the recent international break with an injury, while Martinelli spent spells of last season out sidelined.
David Raya received treatment too as it emerged after the game that substitute Myles Lewis-Skelly was booked for unsporting behaviour for instructing the goalkeeper to go down in an effort to run down the clock.
Raya missed Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup game versus Bolton with a thigh injury and is a doubt for Saturday’s game against Leicester.
Having travelled to Bergamo to face Atalanta in the Champions League on Thursday night, the Gunners squad didn’t return to London until the early hours of Friday morning before reconvening back at their London Colney base later that day for a recovery session ahead of leaving for Manchester on Saturday.
The schedule is gruelling and provides at least some mitigation for tired legs.
The assertions that Arsenal didn’t try and win the game have perplexed members of the Arsenal squad. They led the game until the 98th minute when Stones broke their hearts.
But arguably the most significant feeling to have emerged from the Arsenal camp in recent days is the notion that with 11 men, they’d have beaten City in their own back yard.
Bukayo Saka, arguably Arsenal’s most potent attacking player, was sacrificed at half-time. Arteta’s scope to make impactful attacking substitutions had diminished due to Trossard’s ill-discipline.
Who knows how the game would have played out, but while Arteta’s players may feel City have exposed just a small degree of weakness in their own mentality, the most pertinent point is that it has strengthened their own title belief.
