Josko Gvardiol explains how Man City gameplan came unstuck at Arsenal

Manchester City weren’t dangerous enough going forward at Arsenal, according to defender Josko Gvardiol.

Manchester City suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in the Premier League on Sunday.

A late Gabriel Martinelli shot deflected in off Nathan Ake to hand the Blues a second defeat in a row.

There was really nothing much between Arsenal and City on Sunday. The defences were on top.

Assessing what went wrong at Arsenal, defender Gvardiol insisted the overall performance was good, and that City largely stuck to the game plan. But with Arsenal edging the result, City’s lack of creativity in attack may have ultimately cost them.

“I cannot say something went wrong – we played good the whole game but maybe not enough,” he admitted. “We knew we needed to have a lot of patience and calmness on the ball. We were doing good for most of the game.

“Every game we prepare in the best and we were ready for today. We could have done better but it is what it is – it’s behind us. We have to be more dangerous in the last third.

“Of course, we cannot be happy with the result. It’s a hard one – especially two losses in a row. We played good, we controlled the ball but unfortunately the goal at the end – we are sad but we have to do more.”

Without Rodri, City have lost three games in four when the influential Spaniard was suspended, but he will be back after the international break along with John Stones, who returned from injury off the bench at Arsenal.

“We are missing Rodri for sure,” Gvardiol said. “We all know his qualities. He’s coming back soon, and we are happy about it. We saw [Stones’] qualities also in the last 15-20 minutes. We are really happy about him and for sure he’s going to be one of the key players in the future.”