I wrote pre match that I wanted to see Arsenal have a go at Manchester City and not just sit back, what I guess I took for granted was our defensive stability that has served us so well this season as well as the end of last season. After a positive start we had reverted back to our old ways. Individual mistakes, players not covering others all of that on top of profligacy meant that we were never going to be able to win the game. One of the few positives was the return of Theo Walcott, he may not have been at his best in the build up but as usual his movement and finishing gave the team something it had been missing for weeks now. He had tucked away Özil’s cutback to make it 1-1 but his second to pull the game back to 3-2 was a peach. Curling high past the City keeper. His return along

We needed to put in our best performance of the season if we were to get anything from the Etihad stadium, unfortunately we were far from our best and defensive mistakes made it impossible for us.

We had started pretty well defensively I thought, City pushing us back from the kick off. City’s passing and movement requires so much concentration and we repelled them in the early exchanges. We were finding it tough to get out and start playing but eventually we did, we started to grow into the game before being undone by a lack of concentration. A theme that we became familiar with as the game continued.

Koscielny had let Agüero run off the back of him and the striker had the task of firing in high past Szczesny.

I wrote pre match that I wanted to see Arsenal have a go at Manchester City and not just sit back, what I guess I took for granted was our defensive stability that has served us so well this season as well as the end of last season. After a positive start we had reverted back to our old ways. Individual mistakes, players not covering others all of that on top of profligacy meant that we were never going to be able to win the game. One of the few positives was the return of Theo Walcott, he may not have been at his best in the build up but as usual his movement and finishing gave the team something it had been missing for weeks now. He had tucked away Özil’s cutback to make it 1-1 but his second to pull the game back to 3-2 was a peach. Curling high past the City keeper. His return along with Podolski’s imminent return are the two pluses that I am keeping hold of over this terrible Saturday.

Less than ten minutes later City scored a typical City goal. Monreal was far too central, almost on top of the centre back so Pablo Zabaleta has all the time in the world to control Toure’s excellent pass and then square across the box for Negredo to slide in.

Five minutes after the break we had gifted City yet another goal. Early in the second half when you are trailing by a goal the last thing you want to do is give away a goal. Özil’s pass to Flamini was a fraction over hit, I thought at first glance that it was Flamini’s miscontrol but I think that would be a tad harsh. Fernandinho’s finish just outside the penalty area was real quality. On 62 Walcott’s great finish lasted for less than three minutes. Silva had stabbed in from close range almost unmarked. Crazy.

At that point the game just ran away from us. Our defensive mistakes were one thing but another killer was our passing throughout the game. Jack Wilshere and Oliver Giroud just could not keep the ball and continued to give away possession. So the ball kept coming back to the home side. I wonder how much of a difference Tomas Rosicky would have made to the team over Wilshere. We would have kept the ball much better and Monreal might have been better protected but that is the advantage of hindsight.

Much has been made of the two disallowed goals and I am the first one to vent at poor calls from the officials but in this case I think the margins were just so small that it is hard to look beyond human error in Giroud’s case. I thought Bendtner was a fraction offside before he headed in after coming off the bench for Giroud who had a game to forget.

There is a saying that a team is most vulnerable after they have scored and I think the times back  up that theory for this game. Manchester City opened the scoring after 13 minutes and it only took them 7 minutes to reply to Walcott’s equaliser. Then when Theo struck once more we only managed a miserly 3 minutes before City scored their 4th. Finally from Mertesacker scoring to make it 5-3 we held out for 120 seconds before Toure tucked away City’s 6th from the spot.

Mikel Arteta is often overlooked because he is not a physical powerhouse or a lung-busting shouter but his positional intelligence as well as his use of the ball was missed today. The thing is, I don’t think he was ready to play today as he has looked tired of late but we could have done with a fresh Arteta in there. How might we have looked from a defensive perspective with Flamini alongside the Spaniard in front of the midfield? Had Arteta of been fresher I am convinced Arsene would have chosen that but like I said earlier. Hingsight.

Jack Wilshere could be in a spot of bother after giving the Manchester City supporters the finger and Mesut Özil got a telling off from Per Mertesacker for not applauding the away fans. Özil has since apologised on his Facebook page. Both incidences don’t deserve much more than a couple of lines but I’m sure we will hear more in the coming days.

We were far from our best and made defensive error after defensive error but that hasn’t been the norm this season. This has been a one off so there is no need to panic. Getting beaten 1-0 at City would not have changed our points total so I hope the team can forget about this game and recover physically and mentally. The Chelsea game is now an even bigger game for us. We should have decent options then assuming Koscielny aside, the rest recover. Our striking options have increased with Podolski and Walcott ready to contribute again.

Bad day at the office, well played City who are remarkable at home going forward. This is still the same squad that won away in Dortmund and have been on a strong run since last March. We will be back.