MATCH REPORT: Arsenal 1 – 1 Manchester City

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The Emirates witnessed a rollercoaster on Sunday as Arsenal snatched a late draw against Manchester City. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was dramatic, and Gabriel Martinelli’s stoppage-time lob meant Mikel Arteta’s side walked away with a point that felt both deserved and desperately needed.

City Strike Early

Arsenal actually started brightly, but it was City who landed the first blow. Just nine minutes in, Tijjani Reijnders drove straight through midfield and found Erling Haaland lurking in behind. One clean touch, one calm finish — and suddenly Arsenal were chasing the game.

What followed was a familiar story: Arsenal with the ball, City in their disciplined block, Pep Guardiola barking from the touchline as his side soaked up pressure. For the first 45 minutes, Arsenal huffed and puffed but couldn’t land a punch.

Arteta’s Changes Spark Life

At halftime, Arteta rolled the dice. Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze came on, and the difference was instant. Arsenal moved the ball quicker, stretched City wider, and forced Gianluigi Donnarumma into action more than once.

Still, time was slipping away. City were defending deeper and deeper, and for all of Arsenal’s possession, the equaliser felt like it might never come.

Martinelli’s Moment

Then came the 93rd minute. Eze picked his head up and clipped a gorgeous ball over the top. Martinelli, full of fresh energy after coming off the bench, was onto it in a flash. One touch, a delicate lob over Donnarumma – and the Emirates exploded.

It was the kind of goal that makes you forget the frustration of the previous 90 minutes. A moment of pure quality, right when Arsenal needed it most.

What We Learned

  • Arsenal: The mentality is there. Falling behind early against City can crush a team, but Arteta’s subs changed the dynamic. Martinelli and Eze showed exactly why squad depth matters. Still, Arsenal will be frustrated at their lack of cutting edge until stoppage time.
  • Manchester City: Rarely do we see a Pep team with just 33% possession, but City were set up to grind this out. For 92 minutes, it worked. Then one lapse undid all the hard work. Guardiola will take positives from the defensive performance, but Haaland’s goal aside, City offered little.

Final Thoughts

This wasn’t the free-flowing spectacle many expected, but it was a reminder that the tiniest moments decide these heavyweight clashes. Arsenal’s equaliser keeps the momentum alive in their title push; City, meanwhile, leave North London with the sense of a win that slipped through their fingers.

DJ

Greedy, greedy Fulham

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Anyone that has ever been Fulham away will know it is always a good day out.

Not only is it an easy stadium to get to, surrounded by many decent pubs that are not “home fans only”, we have also got a huge away allocation (around 6,000 seats).

Fulham’s away end is split into two sections – the normal away end and a “neutral” end. The original plastic club, under Mohamed Al-Fayed they attempted to become a “day out” for those visiting London and wanted to catch a game.

When Arsenal visited, however, the neutral end was combined with the away end, and the entire stand was for sale through Arsenal’s website to away fans only. This took the allocation from around 3,000 to just shy of 6,000 in the Putney End. It was never an issue for fans to get credits.

However, with the £30 cap on away tickets, Fulham have rescinded this agreement.

The £30 price cap for Premier League away tickets was introduced at the start of the 2016-17 season following sustained campaigning by supporters. It meant that loyal away fans would no longer be affected by Category A price rises – it would cost Arsenal fans £4-500 more a season in tickets to go to every away game in comparison to smaller clubs like Burnley.

For visiting London clubs, the Putney End would be given over to the away team to sell tickets. This meant that every ticket in that end would be capped at £30.

Last season, I noticed a lot more Fulham fans under the stands, mixing with Arsenal fans. It was something I had not seen before as previously the Putney End was exclusive to Arsenal fans. This exposed that Fulham had reigned on their agreement and decided to keep the end split – 3,000 away Arsenal fans paying £30 a ticket and 2,000 “neutral” fans paying £79 (2025/26 prices).

I would say 90% of those fans in the neutral end were Arsenal. That means that they have paid £49 more for a ticket in the same end, just because Fulham have decided to re-categorise it neutral fans.

An additional £49 over 2,000 tickets is £98,000. If we assume the previous agreement was for all London clubs and Manchester United and Liverpool, this decision generates Fulham an additional £784,000 a season. And it is probably less than that if games against the smaller London clubs such as Crystal Palace and West Ham are not priced at the highest category.

So a decision by Fulham generated them an additional quarter of a million pounds. Really not much in modern football finance terms. But it then more than doubles the price of tickets.

Yesterday morning, I struggled with my 37 credits to get a ticket. Only limited tickets went on sale to 35+. I ended up with two tickets, not sat next to each other, with a restricted view. I won’t complain, I am going to the game and we will all find a place to stand together.

But Fulham’s decision is denying fans tickets to a brilliant away day. It is meaning that only 3,000 tickets were available (and many of them disappear into the hands of players, coaches, sponsors, box holders, et al), rather than 5,000.

A game that was never an issue to get tickets for has now become an issue. And if you miss out on the away end, you will have to pay an additional £49 to sit in the neutral end. Which is the same end as the away end, drinking in the same bars, surrounded by away supporters.

I have never really warmed to Fulham as a club beyond it being a decent away day. They have always come across as very plastic, with a fanbase of people who just want a day out at the football regardless of who it is. They are the epitome of Against Modern Football.

Their decision to no longer combine the neutral end with the away end for Arsenal fans is a decision driven by greed. They should hold their hands in shame.

Keenos

A victory for squad depth

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No Bukayo Saka
No Martin Odegaard
No William Saliba
No Kai Havertz
No Ben White

We went to Atletico Bilbao with half a starting XI out missing, including arguably our 3 best players, and won 2-nil. It was a victory for squad depth.

Mikel Arteta spoke in the summer about changing the make-up of Arsenal’s squad. He no longer wanted to rank players as A, B and C. Instead, he wanted a squad with a higher floor, where he could pick on 20 players without seeing a drop off in quality.

A year ago we would have been concerned about going to the 4th best team in Spain without so many top players. But this 2025 squad is made different.

The fact that even without the 5 missing superstars, we could win so comfortably really is a testament to Arteta and Andrea Berta building a fantastic squad.

Noni Madueke, Mikel Merino, Cristhian Mosquera, Viktor Gyokeres and Jurrien Timber were the 5 to start and there was zero drop off in quality.

And then add in Myles Lewis Skelly and Thomas Partey, both of whom would have started 6 months ago. And then you are perhaps beginning to see the step up in squad depth.

The cherry on the cake is that Arteta was able to bring on players of the calibre of Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard, despite missing 3 key attackers, and it was those subs that took us to victory.

Arteta’s place for this season was built on the semi-final defeat to PSG last year.

Losing 2-1 in the game and 3-1 on aggregate, Saka had thrown us a life line with 15 minutes to go. It would have been a huge task, but we were not out of the tie.

Arteta turned to his bench to see what attacking options he had. Players that could make an impact in the final 20-25 minutes. He saw Raheem Sterling, Ethan Nwaneri and Nathan Butler-Oyedeji. He opted for Ben White.

Now some will say that this was by his design. That he had not signed the attackers we needed over successive summers. And I get that. But he was also robbed of Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus. Two senior forwards who could have made an impact.

Role on to last night and Jesus and Havertz were still nowhere to be seen. But instead of Arteta looking at the attacking options on the bench and feeling his heart sink, he was able to bring on game changers.

Nearly two years ago I was blogging about Arteta taking inspiration from Eddie Jones and his finisher concept. It feels like the rest of the world has caught up following Trossard and Martinelli’s moments.

Too many fans were quick to write off the pair. Demand we cash in. But both have shown that they are able to change games.

Trossard, for me, has always been a supersub. His instinctive, off the cuff play benefits from the chaos of the closing stages of a game. And likewise Martinelli could become a suuperb option off the bench with his direct, tireless running at fullback who have already faced 70 minutes.

Neither is particularly suited to Arteta’s structured build up play (nor is Noni Madueke). But the pair, alongside Mdueke, will thrive in the chaos of the final 20 minutes when the play is less structured and they are facing tired defences. Their instructions will be simple: Go make something happen. And against Bilbao they did.

So we get 3 points from a tough away fixture. Based on last season, we need to win 4 from 8 to qualify for the play-offs and 5 wins and a draw to be top 8.

UTA.

Keenos