40 min The early goal was perfect for Arsenal, who can defend as deep as they like and ensure there’s no space in behind for Haaland. City, in truth, have been pretty poor. Arsenal haven’t been much better, just less error-prone at the back. Odegaard has been good though; few genuinely creative players have his consistency.

As I type the above filler, Haaland has a touch when he heads a cross back towards somebody in the area. Arsenal clear.

38 min Erling Haaland hasn’t touched the ball since the fourth minute. I know this because Peter Drury has just said it on the TV coverage.

37 min Odegaard, the brighest attacker on the field so far, flicks an interesting pass towards Havertz in the area. Gvardiol wins the ball cleanly and then trips Havertz in his follow through; a few of the home crowd appeal for a penalty but there’s about as much chance of it being given as there is of Harshit Rana replacing Shivam Dube as a like-for-like concussion substitute.

36 min “In the pride-before-a-fall game,” says Niall Mullen, “I’ll see your ‘stay humble’ and raise you a ‘10 games from greatness’.”

In Gerard Houllier’s defence, he did preface it with ‘hopefully’. (Saying which, words cannot convey the relief I felt when Liverpool lost to Leverkusen, given the winners were on course to meet Man Utd in the Champions League semi-final.)

34 min City are starting to pick up where they left off before the shock of that Havertz sitter. But they still aren’t particularly threatening; in fact the player who has had most time on the ball in the final third is Matheus Nunes. I’m surprised Savinho hasn’t moved over to that side even for a few minutes. Myles Lewis-Skelly is an outstanding young left-back but Savinho can make a fool of anyone.

32 min City get through the Arsenal press for once, with Marmoush making ground on their left. Then they slow it down, as is their wont, until Foden’s cross hits Gabriel amidships and ricochets behind for a corner.

30 min “Was just looking at the table, and couldn’t help but notice that crisis club Everton will go above crisis club Man United if they win the game in hand they have over the 13 time Premiership winners,” says Simon McMahon. “Maybe Big Jim could have done worse than give David Moyes a go at Old Trafford?”

Stay humble.

29 min City were having a decent spell leading up to that Havertz chance, but in the last few minutes it’s been all Arsenal.

26 min: What a chance for Kai Havertz! Maybe Gary Neville was right about Havertz not wanting to shoot after all. The chance came when Ortega played a wretched straight pass to Kovacic, 20 yards out facing his own goal. He was challenged superbly from behind by Rice, with the ball running to Havertz just inside the area. He took a beat, then another beat, before dragging the ball just wide of the far post. Even with Ortega there and Stones on the line, that was a glorious chance.

26 min Timber is booked for a cynical foul on Savinho, who himself gets away with waving an imaginary card. Maybe the referee didn’t see it.

25 min Haaland, trying to get to a cross from the left, is penalised for a foul of his friend Myles Lewis-Skelly. Just before that Savinho dragged a shot into the side netting from a tight angle.

23 min: Stunning save by Raya! Marmoush’s near-post corner is met by the leaping Gvardiol, who powers a header across goal from six yards. Raya shows remarkable reactions to stick out his left hand and push the ball somewhere, anywhere. It loops up, hits the face of the crossbar and bounces safely. That’s one of the saves of the season.

23 min Kovacic sprays a crossfield pass to Nunes, whose deep cross is headed behind by Timber for City’s first corner. Marmoush will take it…

21 min City are starting to have more of the ball, even if David Raya’s gloves remain unsullied. The next goal’s a big goal.

19 min “Is it true that the other Manchester side was thrashed at home earlier?” writes Liverpool fan Ian Copestake. “I see no evidence the game has ever been played on the pages of the only paper I trust, so thought I’d check the Guardian!”

Be humble.

18 min Savinho raps a aquare pass into Marmoush, who controls it nicely on the half turn but then blooters high and wide from distance.

17 min Nothing much has happened apart from the goal, but Arsenal have been the most aggressive and penetrative team. I’m not convinced by the balance of City’s attacking trident – I’d move Savinho to the right and Marmoush to the left. And I obviously know better than arguably the greatest manager of all time.

15 min “Afternoon Mr Smyth!” writes Adam Hirst. “I guess Gabriel gave Haaland a ‘Stay humble’ as he passed on the way to celebrate the goal. Only Gerald Ratner has had a phrase backfire in a more spectacular way.”

13 min Partey wins a throw-in after making a good sliding tackle on Marmoush. The home crowd enjoyed that. They look the hungrier team just now.

11 min City haven’t settled and look especially vulnerable when Arsenal press high.

9 min Sky have just shown an off-the-ball replay of the goal, after which Gabriel shouted in the face of Erling Haaland. “That takes me back…” says Gary Neville, who received the same treatment from Thierry Henry at the Emirates in 2007.

8 min “If this is indeed the last time we see Zinchenko in an Arsenal shirt, as the rumours seem to have it, then I suppose it might be in some way instructive to compare him with Andrey Arshavin,” begins Charles Antaki. “Both came in as a bit of a surprise, both made an immediate impact, and both sort of fizzled out. But then one left his playing career to support Vladimir Putin, while the other will carry on his desperate campaign to try to interest people in what’s happening in Ukraine. Both good as footballers, of course, but then the qualities diverge.”

6 min: Martinelli has a goal disallowed! It was a lovely finish, teased over Ortega with the outside of the boot after running onto Odegaard’s short through pass, but he was clearly offside.

4 min You might argue, as Gary Neville has on Sky, that Havertz didn’t have the confidence to shoot. I’d prefer to see it as evidence of one of his greatest qualities; his ability to keep his brain in the fridge even when he’s in the opposition penalty area.

Ortega gave the ball to Stones, who played a risky angled pass to Akanji 25 yards from goal. He dithered for a split second and was robbed by Trossard, with Rice pushing the ball through to Havertz – being played onside by Stones – on the left side of the area. He drew Ortega and squared the ball to Odegaard, who screwed the ball past the covering Stones from about 10 yards. It wasn’t the cleanest finish, not that he’ll care.

GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Man City (Odegaard 2)

1 min Havertz, 20 yards out, whistles a half-volley straight at Ortega. Decent effort.

1 min City kick off from left to right as we watch. Savinho has started on the left, with Foden on the right and Marmoush as the No10.

“Good morning from Pittsburgh!” writes Eric Peterson. “My takeaway from Jonathan Liew’s observations isn’t that Pep Guardiola has switched the sequence of his tactical Plan A and Plan B, but that you need both plans to get the best out of each one.

“You get more room and time for your over-the-top balls when the opponent knows you can tiki-taka through them like a sieve, and you get more space for your midfield artists when the opposition knows your fullbacks and wingers can flick the sprinkles off an ice cream cone from 60 yards away.

“It takes two, no matter which order you put them. Dec and Ant, Saunders and French, Laurie and Fry? No matter, just so long as they’re both there.”

Tell that to Zig and Zag.

A reminder of the teams ahead of kick off

Arsenal (possible 4-3-3) Raya; Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly; Odegaard, Partey, Rice; Martinelli, Havertz, Trossard.
Substitutes: Calafiori, Jorginho, Kiwior, Merino, Neto, Nwaneri, Sterling, Tierney, Zinchenko.

Manchester City (possible 4-3-3) Ortega; Nunes, Stones, Akanji, Gvardiol; Foden, Kovacic, Bernardo Silva; Savinho, Haaland, Marmoush,
Substitutes: Carson, De Bruyne, Grealish, Gundogan, Khusanov, Lewis, McAtee, O’Reilly, Vitor Reis.

Referee Peter Bankes.

Sky have Manchester City’s formation as 4-2-3-1 rather than 4-3-3, with Phil Foden as the No10. It’ll might end up being a hybrid of the two.

Manchester City (4-2-3-1) Ortega; Nunes, Stones, Akanji, Gvardiol; Bernardo Silva, Kovacic; Savinho, Foden, Marmoush; Haaland.

As does Pep Guardiola

There are places in the Premier League – this is one of them – that are in the calendar from the start of the season. They’ve had the same manager, Mikel, is it five or six years? The last two years they’ve been getting better and they were close, and they are still fighting Liverpool. It’s an exceptional team in all departments, but at the same time we are playing for something important as well.

It will be so intense. The way they play, you have to challenge them. It will be quite similar [to September], I would say.

Mikel Arteta speaks

We know what’s at stake. We are used to playing this type of game so we know what we need to do to win: be better than the opposition and create the atmosphere that we need here.

Emotionally, it’s a game where you have to be in control. There will be different phrases, micro games to be played: things we can do with the ball, how we can dominate the game, how composed we are, set-pieces, how we adapt.

Here’s the Premier League table going into this afternoon’s game

Today’s Premier League results

‘There should be a little bit of heat sometimes’

Read Jonathan Liew on Omar Marmoush

Now defences have to deal with the threat of Haaland dropping deep and Marmoush running in behind, or Marmoush staying wide and Haaland running in behind, or both running in behind, or both tucking in and Phil Foden running in behind, or some other combination of mayhem that exists only in Guardiola’s head. In essence City are becoming a primarily direct team with a short-passing game as their backup, whereas until recently it was the other way around.

Pep Guardiola on the 2-2 draw with Arsenal in September

The game was emotional for Erling and it’s not easy when you have 90 minutes and you know Gabriel and the central defenders push him and hug him and hug him and kiss him, and these kinds of things. He had to react. Arsenal are a physical team – in a good way in many aspects – and at the end what happened through the emotions happened. So it’s done.

Whose bright idea was it to schedule a football match at the business end of the transfer window?

“I am following the buildup with you from Cancun, and hoping the hotel bar has Max so I can watch most of the match,” writes my colleague Philip Cornwall. “But the coach to the airport picks us up about 15 minutes before the final whistle. The question is, will you and the MBM be worth paying five pounds to EE for, or do I wait for the airport to see how it finished?”

I’ll take the temperature of the game after 70 minutes and let you know. If it’s as hot as the return game it’ll worth every all 300 pennies.

Arsenal and City met earlier today in the WSL. Another seven-goal thriller please lads!

Team news

Preamble