Well that was some game from the Arsenal today. It will forever be remembered as the day when Manchester City's (and Nasri's) title challenge was all but over.

Nasri was involved in one of the only two losses Arsenal suffered at the Emirates in the league this season. He was still an Arsenal player when he started on the day Liverpool beat us 2-0 in late August. Since then he left for Manchester City to "win trophies". That looks all but impossible for them to do this season.

Earning the Right to Play

City needed a win today and surprisingly, they didn't start with any determination to earn the right to play. On the contrary, Arsenal started by turning up the pressure straight from the kick-off. City just couldn't touch us. Mikel Arteta, Tomas Rosicky, and Alex Song were easily running the game and the chance to get an early goal fell to Robin van Persie. It took a brilliant goal-line clearance (unfortunately, by Thomas Vermaelen) to turn van Persie's header onto the bar and prevent a goal.

Yaya Toure was a big loss for City very early on. He injured himself while going knee-to-knee with Song and had to make an early exit. That gave Arsenal an advantage in areas such as set-pieces, with City's main marker off the pitch. However, the introduction of his replacement, David Pizzaro, gave City an edge in other departments.

The Midfield

Pizzaro put in some performance today off the bench. He completely changed the game for City. After Yaya's injury, Mancini dropped James Milner to the midfield and pushed Nasri into attack.

Arteta, Rosicky, and Song seemed to struggle adapting to this change and Barry, Pizzaro, and Milner, started running the game. Even though they struggled to create chances, City were the better the team late in the first half and early in the second half because they dominated the centre of the park.

Out-Wide

Even though Arsenal dominate most games in the midfield, they're always the top team out-wide. We have excellent full-backs in Sagna, Gibbs, and Santos, in addition to wingers such as Walcott, Gervinho, and Chamberlain, and that usually allows us to dominate those parts of the pitch. However, today for some parts of the game, Arsenal were being outplayed both in the centre and out-wide.

A tactical change by Arsene Wenger in the middle of the second half allowed us to dominate possession again. He pushed Benayoun and Rosicky to the left wing. Since Arsenal were being outplayed in the middle, we had to attack more and more through the wings and chances were finally being created again. Benayoun had a good shot on goal from the left and Walcott managed to wriggle in and hit the post from the right.

Arsenal were all over Manchester City but just needed a moment of individual brilliance, an inspiration to finally give us the lead we deserved.

That Moment of Inspiration

It came three minutes before stoppage time. Mikel Arteta found some space outside the area and unleashed a shot that almost instantly hit the back of the net. Joe Hart did everything he could to try to reach it, but it was truly unstoppable.

The Mikel Arteta of Old

Arteta has been brilliant for Arsenal all season, but we rarely see the same Arteta that at times was the most feared midfielder in the league in his days at Everton. Today, we finally saw some of that Arteta. He has been a great passer the whole season, but today he did much more than play important balls. He ran past players, won balls in the air, and put in a really impressive performance. He is my man of the match and deserved to get the winning goal.

Latest: