In the fullness of time a draw against Man City may not appear to be the worst result in the world. Indeed, when you get an equaliser in the dying ebbs of the game, it feels like more of a boost than it should. But given where City were, given how the game played out and given how there were some things that I think all of us recognised weren’t right from the start (will come on to that), it’s hard not to feel like this was an opportunity that we didn’t take. With the Scousers stumbling rather fortuitously to a perfect record in their first five matches, it makes the draw feel worse today, because they are five points clear at the top of the division without really looking that impressive. I think that’s what is also colouring the feeling this morning too.

Arteta got labelled with too much caution at Anfield, but the reality was that both team played with caution; the free kick Liverpool scored just allowed them to own the narrative and the media naturally lapped it up. But my feelings on the set up and how I would happily defend Arteta’s approach up there to try to go for a smash-and-grab win at the home of the champions, is very different from the feeling I have about yesterday’s draw. I said it in my blog yesterday, but when it comes to these home games, you really are just trying to ‘hold serve’ and if I drag out the tennis analogy a little bit more, that means you are more aggressive on your first serve as you look to try to force the error from your opponent and positioning them in a way in which you can more easily get the point. Yesterday it felt like Arsenal’s home advantage meant we needed to set the tone from the off.

This is where Arteta got it wrong. The introduction of Merino and Trossard didn’t work and as much as you have to praise the fact he acted swiftly by making changes at halftime (I hope Madueke isn’t now injured for a while, because he came off with a knock and that would be just our luck if we now lost another player to injury), the decision to start them wasn’t the right one and I think he has to own that today when they do the debrief. It’s not that they aren’t good players; Trossard is a good finisher, he played well against Bilbao and Merino is a duel winner, he’s good at retaining possession and has a goal or two in him. But together they did not have enough creativity in our team and I think it showed. But those two aside, the set up was wrong; we were so passive in possession. We started controlling possession, we didn’t let City have much of a sniff, but perhaps Pep realised this was going to happen and as a result he decided quite early on to turn this in to a transitional game in which he used his pacey forwards to hit us on the counter. In Doku they have a guy who is rapid, can beat a man and is in form (he had a very good game yesterday) and in Haaland they have the inevitable goal machine, so to be as naive as we were defensively and push so criminally high up for the City goal, had me confused. The run Haaland made as well just made Saliba and Gabriel look like they were running through treacle; these two guys are not slow and we’ve seen they can match Haaland for pace, yet both seemed a yard off and as a result he got in and did what he does.

The symmetry in what happened at the Emptihad last season compared to this season is so weird. We played them almost a year to the day and on that day Haaland scored on the nineth minute too. There was also a last minute equaliser for the home team. There was also one team who decided that being compact and deep in their shape to see if you could grind out the win would be their Modus Operandi but, unlike last year when we were a man down and forced in to that change, City played with a full compliment; I won’t hold my breath for hope that the media give Pep and his Man City team the same chastising that we got on that day, eh?

But we were behind and at home and the onus should have been on us to got at City. Except in that first half it just felt too passive and ponderous and as a result when it came to halftime I just felt like we’d lost ourselves a half of football because of our approach. When we have beaten City and Liverpool in the recent past at home it’s because we’ve gone at them hard, fast and dominant in our attacking runs and movement. We just didn’t see that yesterday and that is leaving me with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.

The second half was better, there was more impetus, we created a few more chances than the first, but it was a familiar story of coming up against a low block and at times City had a wall of about six or seven defenders in a line. Heck, City finished the game with six centre halves on the pitch, so that tells you what their approach was and we once again found it difficult to break through the line. Until that bit of magic from Eze came and he found the run of Martinelli who did what he does best – out to in run through the middle behind a weirdly high line that he was able to exploit and brilliantly flick the ball over the onrushing Donnarumma to salvage a point for us. That’s two in two for the Brazilian and, as I said on socials last night, he’s a streaky player and when that happens you have to think about giving him a starting birth. I certainly think he should be ahead of Trossard now, but the question will be what you do with Eze if Odegaard comes back in.

So we get the jubilation and relief of not dropping points, we managed to find a way through a low block, but I keep coming back to the selection decision and more than that, the tactically passive set up for that first half that leaves me feeling less than sated. Some have speculated that it was this difficult start to the season we’ve had that has led Arteta to setting up like this, as well as our injuries, but we saw this last season for large chunks of it, so I’m not sure that’s quite true. I do acknowledge that after the Newcastle game (which is starting to feel like a bit of a ‘must win’ now) we will have come through some of the most difficult away fixtures and a game against one of the title rivals in Man City, but it felt like an opportunity to lay down a marker yesterday.

I don’t think we took it.

The guys will be doing the Same Old Arsenal pod tonight at 8pm if you want to join them here. Otherwise, I’m back tomorrow as we prep for the visit to Port Vale.

Positive P.S. it was good to see Bukayo Saka get 45 minutes yesterday. I don’t think we want to risk him against Port Vale, but if he and Odegaard can be back for the trip to Newcastle, that makes us a heck of a lot more creative hopefully for what is going to be a really tough game.