Thursday, March 28, 2024

5 Things We Learnt During Arsenal’s 3-2 Victory Over Manchester City

If pre-season form is anything to go by then us Arsenal fans should be ready to get settled for a comfortable season in the Premier League.

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But sadly, this is 2016 and as much as I love to see the Gunners scoop four victories from five games, there’s still some fine tuning to be done in time for Liverpool this Sunday.

Despite being 900 miles away from the Emirates, Arsene Wenger’s side looked at home as they drew the curtain on an impressive pre-season with a nice 3-2 win over Manchester City.

With the arrival of Pep Guardiola, not too many would’ve had the Gunners down to clinch the bragging rights, but the simple truth is City have failed to win a game all summer, and up next is the big one!

Arsenal on the other hand looked in control for the majority of the 90 minutes, and Wenger will have plenty to think about when writing down his starting XI for the weekend.

But whilst we agonisingly wait for the new campaign to get underway (and with very little transfer news to talk about) we though we’d dissect some of the key talking points from Sunday’s result.

1 – The Big Guns Are Firing

Arsenal fans would’ve been watching the returns of Alexis and Aaron Ramsey with one eye shut, hoping that the two made it through the game without a scratch.

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As it happens, the duo made it through two thirds of the match and not only did they avoid any injuries, but looked ready and pumping for the weekend.

Gracing their new squad numbers, the pair lined up in new positions, with Alexis covering the tired legs of Theo Walcott to start as centre forward, whilst Rambo gave his best Mesut Ozil impression at number 10.

It was a move that Wenger may be forced into repeating against Liverpool, with Giroud and Ozil both missing after returning to training at the beginning of this week.

Questions were asked of whether or not the pair could handle the intensity of a full game, and although they looked tired at times showed us just what we’ve been missing on the attack.

Familiar with the role he played at the Euro’s for Wales, Ramsey thrived whilst playing in behind Alexis, a position he’s wanted to secure ever since he joined the Gunners.

With no Ozil in sight it’s now a chance for him to stake a claim to the boss that he can deliver the goods in the most demanding role in this Arsenal side.

The lessons he’s learnt from playing CDM came into play too, with Ramsey happy to track back to do the messy stuff just as much as getting forward to play in the likes of Iwobi and Campbell.

Alexis was also loving life back in the team, the guy has probably been itching to get his new shirt on after he was instructed by Wenger to take an extended break from training.

Playing centre forward was nothing new for him, it’s a position he often plays for Chile which as we all know has brought him so much success, but can he replicate that at the Emirates on Sunday?

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