Erling Haaland treatment as he left the Emirates felt telling with sombre Man City forced to take Arsenal medicine
John Stones called Manchester City's last 30 minutes at Arsenal "unacceptable" and Pep Guardiola agreed. He rarely offers such honest criticism after a performance like this.
After some tentative steps forward and positive results, the 5-1 defeat felt like the last five weeks had not happened and we were back in December 2024. City made the same mistakes, collapsed at the back and looked a shadow of themselves at the Emirates.
Arsenal were welcomed onto the pitch by the PA announcer calling this one of the biggest games of the season. They celebrated like it was the biggest.
That is fine, why wouldn't you celebrate a rampant win over a side who have denied you so often? It wasn't just the 90 minutes on Sunday, it was three years of pain and now it was City on the receiving end.
It was entirely how you'd expect Arsenal to celebrate a big win like this. Without a care in the world for what anyone else thought (apart from City) and entirely self-indulgent.
For want of a better phrase, City had to eat some humble pie and their coach was surrounded and jeered by Arsenal fans as it left the Emirates Stadium, having to wait in traffic for a few minutes before leaving the area, just to cap off a forgettable afternoon. They have now lost their last two visits to the Emirates after making such a playground of this part of north London.
The game ended as it had started - Mikel Arteta's pre-match statement that the reverse fixture was all water under the bridge was laughable. It was even more obvious that Arsenal used the Etihad shenanigans as motivation when Gabriel Magalhaes celebrated their opener in Erling Haaland's face.
Haaland's 'stay humble' comment had stayed with Arsenal for months. Myles Lewis-Skelly mimicked Haaland's