Late Martinelli strike saves Gunners in curious match

As the league leaders now know better than anyone, there is little like a late goal for that rush, that surge of emotion that floods all thinking and makes everything seem worth it.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

One key difference already this season, however, is that Liverpool have scored them to win games and Gabriel Martinelli's was to salvage a point. Mikel Arteta's “finishers” at least had the final say against Manchester City. Eberechi Eze picked out Martinelli with that beautiful lofted pass, and the Brazilian finished brilliantly.

After a strange if absorbing afternoon at Arsenal, Arteta was naturally asked if that reflected the fact he'd got his starting lineup wrong and that the finishers should actually have been starters. It could have been much worse for Arsenal but there was also that lingering sense that they'd left something out there, that it could have been much better. City, who very much “parked the bus”, seemed to get away with one.

Arteta admitted he was “very disappointed with the result” but wouldn't quite go as far as the question.

"It's too easy to say that. I think."

It's a phrase that maybe revealed more than intended, and also reflected one of many ironies to this curious 1-1.

Principally, whether Arteta himself did indeed overthink a match against one of the game's biggest overthinkers in Pep Guardiola. Arsenal certainly paid City more respect than arguably anyone has in a year. And, typically, there was at least some logic to that.

From what insider sources say, Arteta and his staff had been conscious of the fact that a new City team's adaptation to a different pressing system has caused them to tire more than usual at around the hour mark. The biggest illustration so far was the 2-1 defeat away to Brighton. It hardly helps that Rodri can't yet be as physically dominant as we're accustomed to.