Man City vs Arsenal stalemate highlights Premier League golden era myth
ETIHAD STADIUM, MANCHESTER — Sunday’s title Premier League title showdown between Manchester City and Arsenal fell well short of its blockbuster billing. City defender Manuel Akanji had no doubt as to where the blame lay after a 0-0 draw that endured a tenuous relationship with goalmouth action.
“We know why a lot of goals didn’t happen because they played really defensively and we weren’t able to score a goal up front,” the Switzerland international said, matter of factly.
Comprehension did not come so easily for Akanji when he was asked to assess the performance of referee Anthony Taylor, who awarded 20 free-kicks against Arsenal and handed out no bookings for any of those fouls, cynical or otherwise.
Gabriel Jesus and David Raya were the only players to see yellow cards for perceived time-wasting. In this era of referees being encouraged to “let if flow”, Taylor’s leniency led to a game of little to no fluency.
“I don’t understand. One in the first half [from Kai Havertz] was a very late tackle on Stefan [Ortega],” Akanji recalled, referencing the Germany forward’s late and faintly nasty lunge on his compatriot in the City goal. “For me, it is clearly a yellow card. I don’t want to say just against us. There were also some decisions against them that I didn’t understand.
“There are some rules and I think there are clear yellow cards. I remember the action with Jorginho when he’d already done a foul and did the second one and he didn’t even give a yellow card for [either] foul. I didn’t understand some decisions but, in the end, we still should be able to score a goal.”
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