A Night Of Empty Seats At The Emirates

By Bolaji Douglas

After the humiliating 0-3 loss by Arsenal football club to Manchester City football club at Wembley in the Carabao cup final on Sunday, many fans of the club shifted their focus to Thursday fixture of the Premiership league clash. For these fans this encounter would at least provide an opportunity for the players to redeem the image of the club and perhaps offer some relief from the painful loss to City.

It was a cold icy Thursday night and the first sign of trouble was the array of empty seats in the stadium , Arsenal fans it appears would rather stay in the comfort of their warm sitting rooms than be exposed to both the cold night of North London and another humiliation from Manchester City.

The game started with Arsenal taking the fight to City, it looked like they were ready for redeem themselves, but alas the quality and the desire was simply not there. All their initial efforts were soon dashed as Manchester City went ahead with a delightful goal from the left foot of Bernado Silva. If the goal was delightful, the making of the goal was a beauty to behold. Sane latched onto the ball and did a slalom run round four Arsenal players, teed off the ball to David Silva who found Bernado Silva who sidestepped Kolasinac and then coolly bent the ball into the far corner of the post

far beyond the reach of Cech.

The second goal did not take too long in coming, once again Sane was involved as he ran past Mustafi and laid a pass to Aguero, who in turn laid a short pass into the path of running David Silva, his first touch was sweet as it took him past the perplexed Bellerin leaving him face to face with Cech, he then simply placed a rising shot which ended on the roof of the net, Peter Cech well beaten.

Stunned by the two goals Arsenal decided to take the fight to Manchester City’s half, they pressed hard against the City team, but the defence led by City’s captain Vincent Kompany was up to the task. And from one of the Arsenal attacks, City broke away on devastating counter attack , the ball came to Aguero who in turn skipped away from Koscielny, a quick exchange with Debruyne saw the ball returned to him on the right, he then squared the ball across Arsenal’s goal, Sane ran in from the

left , skipped past Bellerin to place the ball beyond Cech leaving him sprawling on the floor. It was game over for Arsenal and another night of humiliation. A block from Aguero by Cech saved the team further blushes.

In the second half, City took their feet off the pedal, doing only what was necessary to protect the what seem an imminent victory. Arsenal’s in the futile attempt meanwhile to get back into the game were rewarded with a penalty, when Otamendi clumsily brought down Mkhitaryan in the box.

Arsenal’s new signing Aubameyang stepped forward to take the kick, it was saved by Ederson the City keeper thus completing a miserable night for the few remaining Arsenal fans in the stadium. It was another poor outing for Arsenal, once again the players did not show up or simply have run out of ideas what to do on the pitch. They looked disjointed and dispirited, definitely not a night to single out any particular player for blame, the whole team was bad.

The sight of the empty seats must be a worrying one for the board of Arsenal football club as it now appears the fans can no longer stomach the state of things at the club. Which begs the question, Which way for Wenger?