‘Mentally, physically and tactically, Arsenal show why they are a force’
It was hardly surprising that it was a set-piece that gave Arsenal the lead against City. Everyone knows how dangerous they are now, particularly at corners, but because they are so good at them, they are still very difficult to stop.
As a player, I always knew there would always be opportunities in these situations, if not for me then for one of my team-mates.
My old Newcastle boss Bobby Robson would tell us “there is always one dope who falls asleep” and we would try to pick out the opposition player who would be slow to react or forget his job.
That’s not what happened against City, though, whether for Arsenal’s first corner against them – when Gabriel escaped Jeremy Doku and headed over – or for the next one, where he got away from Kyle Walker and powered the ball into the net.
Instead, while everyone knew what Gabriel was doing and where he wanted to go, his sensational movement meant they could not stop him, and he was also only one part of Arsenal’s plan.
So many things had to happen, in a certain order and in the space of a couple of seconds, for the ball to end up in the net and I know from experience they are not easy to put together. You have to work extremely hard at all of them to make them work.
Firstly you need a precise delivery, which is what Bukayo Saka provided here, then you have to execute the block, with four Arsenal players coming in from the back post and standing in the middle of the goal, in front of Ederson, to impede him and to nudge other defenders out of the way too.
Gabriel has to time his run perfectly and come through all of that crowd and then, if he does get on the end of the cross, execute his finish correctly too. He didn’t quite manage it with his first go, but he made no mistake a few minutes later.
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