Manuel Akanji has confidently predicted that Manchester City will win the Premier League title again, adding to the growing chorus of his teammates who have taken aim at Arsenal’s tactics during Sunday’s clash.
City took an early lead but found themselves trailing at halftime.
However, the momentum shifted dramatically when Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard received a red card just before the break, leading to a one-sided second half where City dominated with 90% possession.
Despite City’s dominance, it took until nine minutes into injury time for John Stones to score a deserved equalizer.
Tensions ran high after the final whistle, with City players frustrated by what they saw as Arsenal’s persistent time-wasting and ultra-defensive tactics.
Bernardo Silva didn’t hold back, mocking Arsenal’s lack of silverware and insisting that only one team was interested in winning the match.
Silva went further, comparing Arsenal unfavourably to Liverpool, a team he said tries to beat City by playing football. John Stones echoed this sentiment, calling Arsenal’s time-wasting tactics “dirty.”
Now, Manuel Akanji has joined the criticism, taking issue with Arsenal’s controversial approach in the match.
“That’s what they’re looking for. Always when we play against them, that’s what they’re looking for: the drama,” he said after the game.
“It worked for them so if they’re happy with the one point.
“We’re not, we tried to get more but that’s what they’re happy with. At the end of the day we’re still top of the league.
“We haven’t lost a game yet. We tried, especially in the second half with one man up but it’s hard with ten players defending in their own box.”
Akanji added: “I don’t think there are many better than them at it. But in the end we always won the title and I don’t think it’s going to be different this year.
“Like I said it’s still early in the season, I think again, we’re going to win the league again, and we don’t focus too much on Arsenal.
“Obviously, the focus today was on them because we played against them, but now we don’t play them for half a year, so still focusing ourselves on our games, and then we will see.
“With the time-wasting, we cannot control this. It is up to the referee to do.
“But in the end, it’s obviously hard to score against anyone who has 10 with the ‘keeper in their own box.
“So we tried our best. But if you don’t concede the two goals, then it looks differently. It was maybe one goal too much.
“That’s what they’re looking for in the end [breaking up the game], we have to defend ourselves because in every duel, every free kick that was given, they went on the floor.
“Players go on the floor to get up, sprint back again, go on the floor again, one of their team went over to tell the ‘keeper to go on the floor and stuff like this.
“I mean, there’s nothing we can do about it. In the end, It’s up to the referee to control throughout the whole season, to control these situations. But yeah, there’s nothing else we can do about it.”
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