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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Barney Ronay at the Etihad Stadium

Manchester City took Arsenal to a horrible place and didn’t let them leave

Erling Haaland takes on Rob Holding and Oleksandr Zinchenko
Erling Haaland ensured Rob Holding (left) was out of his element with the single most difficult job currently in world football. Photograph: Ian Stephen/ProSports/Shutterstock

When did it become not just clear but utterly unavoidable that Manchester City were winning this game? And not just winning it but offering up the most refined of sporting strangulations?

Perhaps it was the moment on 25 minutes when Rob Holding came skittering out wildly, like a drop of water on a hot pan, as Kevin De Bruyne hared in behind him, a moment of total positional panic, when the game just seemed suddenly to fall apart in the face of that sky blue pressure.

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