‘Nullified’ - Micah Richards points to Pep Guardiola tactical error in Man City defeat at Arsenal

Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards believes a tactical switch from Pep Guardiola failed to pay off as his old club fell to a narrow defeat at Premier League title rivals Arsenal on Sunday afternoon.

The treble winners travelled to the Emirates Stadium looking to claim a win that would have seen them leapfrog their hosts and Tottenham Hotspur and return to the top of the Premier League table ahead of the upcoming international break.

An underwhelming first-half was largely dominated by Mateo Kovacic as the City midfielder controversially avoided a red card after making two poor challenges on Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice in the space of six minutes. The second-half offered little in the way of goalmouth action as a disciplined display from the Gunners made it difficult for City’s forward players to make an impact.

By the time a deflected effort from Gabriel Martinelli finally opened the scoring with just three minutes remaining, City had been limited to just one short on target and a further two that failed to threaten hosts keeper David Raya. The full-time whistle came after four minutes of injury-time as City’s second successive Premier League defeat was confirmed and their third in all competitions.

Sky Sports pundit Richards admitted he struggled to make sense of his former club’s performance in North London but insisted they will bounce back when they return to action later this month.

“I couldn’t quite work out what was wrong with them,” he told Sky Sports.

“Arsenal were better in the second-half, started controlling the game a little bit, but it looked like they had no imagination going forward. I think when (Julian) Alvarez has been playing in the number ten behind (Erling) Haaland he’s been creating and scoring but putting him on the right nullified his game a little bit.

“(Phil) Foden couldn’t really get into it, (Mateo) Kovacic didn’t have the best game today. They did ok, but by their standards, it’s not enough. Man City are not going to win every game, obviously they lost against Wolves last week.

“And losing a big one today is not great but they’ll bounce back, that’s what champions do.”

City will return to Premier League with a home game against Brighton and Hove Albion before their Champions League campaign resumes with a visit to Swiss side Young Boys four days later.