Manchester City’s humiliation in their 5-1 defeat at Arsenal extended far beyond the scoreline, with Pep Guardiola’s players jeered and mocked throughout the afternoon by opposing fans and players.
It ultimately proved to be one of the most remarkable, and no doubt painful, days of Guardiola’s illustrious managerial career, as his former assistant Mikel Arteta oversaw a drubbing that even the most optimistic of Arsenal fans would not have expected.
Here, Telegraph Sport breaks down the on and off-field incidents that added to City’s humiliation.
Gabriel’s pointed celebration
The previous meeting between these two sides ended with Erling Haaland throwing the ball into the head of Gabriel Magalhães. After that game, the Arsenal defender warned: “We are waiting for them at our ground”. It proved to be a prescient comment.
That match in September was clearly still in Gabriel’s mind here, and it did not take him long to reignite his feud with Haaland. When Martin Odegaard gave Arsenal the lead in the second minute, Gabriel responded by roaring in Haaland’s face on the halfway line.
In that moment, it felt like a risky move. And when Haaland equalised in the second half, Gabriel must have been worried that he would be made to look foolish. But Arsenal’s superb second-half performance meant that the home side’s dominance was restored, and Gabriel ensured that Haaland knew about it. After another Arsenal goal, in the second half, Gabriel applauded in the Norwegian’s face.
Lewis-Skelly answers Haaland’s question
Just as Gabriel responded to Haaland’s provocation from earlier in the campaign, young Myles Lewis-Skelly did the same in the second half. The 18-year-old is an exceptional talent and he is also a bold character, as he showed at the Etihad Stadium in September.
On that occasion he was booked before making his debut and then squared up to Haaland post-match. In response, Haaland asked him: “Who the f--- are you?”
Well, here was Lewis-Skelly’s response to that question. After scoring Arsenal’s third goal, his first for the club since his breakthrough into the first team, the teenager produced an imitation of Haaland’s “meditation” celebration.
Lewis-Skelly was soon joined on the score sheet by another teenager, his close friend Ethan Nwaneri. It meant that this was the first time since 2007 that two players aged 18 or younger had scored for the same team in a Premier League game.
105-second meltdown
For City the most frustrating and humiliating element of the match itself, away from the squabbles between players, will no doubt have been the remarkably short length of time it took for Arsenal to regain their lead in the second half.
After scoring through Haaland’s header and silencing the Emirates crowd, it took just 105 seconds for Thomas Partey to strike at the other end. Partey’s goal came after Phil Foden had surrendered possession with a dreadful pass across his own half. A terrible error that proved to be the decisive moment in the game, and the sort of mistake that City never seemed to make in previous years under Guardiola.
‘Sacked in the morning’
The relish of the Arsenal players was shared by the supporters in the stands at the Emirates, where the home crowd mocked City by producing an imitation of their signature ‘Poznan’ celebration.
The Arsenal fans cheered every tackle on Haaland — they even gave William Saliba a standing ovation for dispossessing the City forward in the first half — and jeered at Guardiola, saying he would be “sacked in the morning”.
Inevitably, Haaland was also targeted. The chants against him included a deployment of his own words: in September, he famously told Mikel Arteta to “stay humble”. Here, the Arsenal fans sang those words back to him, along with some expletives.
DJ’s ‘humble’ dig
That same theme continued after the match had finished, when the stadium DJ played the Kendrick Lamar track Humble immediately after the final whistle. It was evidently another pointed dig at City and another demonstration of how bitter this rivalry has become in recent years.
The damning statistics
The post-match statistics made for embarrassing reading for City and Guardiola. Perhaps the most eye-catching of them all was that they have now conceded four or more goals on four occasions this season, which is the most in a single season of Guardiola’s managerial career.
In the Premier League this season, meanwhile, they have conceded more goals than Manchester United.
The early Martin Odegaard goal at the Emirates also meant that City have conceded inside the opening three minutes in back-to-back league games. The last time that happened? January 2003.
This was also City’s biggest away defeat since January 2017, and they have now made eight errors leading to goals in the league — the most in any campaign under Guardiola.
