Manchester City against Arsenal passed without incident last weekend really as both teams settled for a point.
The hyped up match failed to live up to expectations really as Arsenal executed their game-plan to perfection and nullified Guardiola’s men.
In the end, the result just means the title race is as tight as ever, albeit it is advantage Liverpool, who can win the whole thing by winning all their games between now and May.
Of course, during the City and Arsenal clash, there were some key battles which were always going to help settle things.
One of those key battles was between City striker Erling Haaland and Arsenal defender, Gabriel Magalhaes.
In the end, the Brazilian got the better of things and at full-time, things threatened to boil over before appearing to calm down.
However, writing in his column for the Daily Mail, Martin Keown believes he noticed Pep Guardiola taking Haaland away from Gabriel before things got too friendly.
“It was interesting how Pep Guardiola tried to stop Haaland and Gabriel from having a giggle together at full time. The City boss does not want his striker getting chummy with a rival defender. If they are pals, Haaland might not want to smash into him the next time they meet!,” Keown said.
Haaland will come again for Gabriel
Not many defenders really get the better of Erling Haaland so you have to give both Gabriel and William Saliba a lot of credit for this really.
However, the Norwegian being how he is, will no doubt come again for the pair and it will be interesting to see how things pan out next season.
As Keown says here, Guardiola will not want Haaland getting over friendly some defenders and there’ll be an element of Haaland that wants revenge next season.
Of course, Gabriel and Saliba are outstanding in their own right and will surely want to make a reputation out of keeping Haaland quiet from now on.
We could, then, have a battle for the ages emerging here.
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