Arsenal can hold their heads up high after their 2-1 defeat to Manchester City on Saturday afternoon.While the history books will always remember the game as a gut-wrenching defeat for the Gunners, there were plenty of positives for Mikel Arteta to take from a heroic performance in north London.Besides, there's no denying that the Premier League champions rode their luck to secure the three points with Riyad Mahrez scoring a controversial penalty and Rodri bagging a last-gasp winner.
Arsenal impress vs Man City
Marry that to Arsenal inexplicably not winning a penalty of their own and Gabriel picking up a silly sending off and it's easy to see why the Gunners must be thinking that fate wasn't on their side.
However, just because Arsenal didn't get the result that their brilliant play for great swathes of the game warranted, it doesn't mean that the club can't look back on its brighter spots with pride.
And more so than Bukayo Saka's opening goal, Arsenal can shout from the rooftops with the most passion about the way in which they disrupted Pep Guardiola's famous brand of possession football.
Particularly during the first-half, the hosts really threw a cat amongst the pigeons with their constant pressing and high-energy attacking ensuring that City never really got a foothold in the game.
Arsenal vs Man City Match Reaction (Football Terrace)
Epic video of Arsenal pressuring Man City
In fact, Arsenal did such a good job at ruffling City's feathers that footage of their most successful period in the game is going viral.
The video shows how Arsenal managed the game between the 20th and 31st minute with almost every second of their pressurising highlighted through the magic of fast-forwarding and editing.
In the words of the video's caption from Twitter user @189NlNE: "As promised, 10 minutes of pure, sustained pressure. Never seen a Pep City team put on lock this hard"
All in all, it makes for a thrilling two and a half minutes that essentially gives a masterclass on how to get Guardiola's City team sweating, so be sure to check out the full video down below:
Goodness me. Arteta really is doing a lot of things right at the moment.
Exciting times for Arteta and Arsenal
While the Arsenal boss might not have been in attendance of the game, there's no escaping the fact that his fingerprints were all over the high-octane football that his team were playing on Saturday.
Arsenal were one of the Premier League's best-performing teams in 2021 and if their opening match of 2022 is anything to go by, then Gooners have a lot to be excited about over the next 12 months.
They say that you make your own luck and although Arsenal didn't get what they deserved this time, you can rest assured that playing football like that can only lead to success in the long run.
