Arsenal kill Man City with fouls and learn why they must move on from Jesus

As the full-time whistle blew at the Etihad Stadium, there was no impassioned reaction, instead more of an anti-reaction. Little noise, neither cheer nor boo, merely a dissatisfied sigh. What does 40-odd thousand people harrumphing sound like? On the basis of what had preceded it, that might well be one of those five things that everyone learned.

There was a period in the first half – OK, it was most of the first half – where this supposed Mega Massive Title Tussle seemed to get stuck in a loop, a closed cycle of play from which it could not escape, like putting your hand through a desk because all the molecules miss each other.

Manchester City passed and Arsenal watched and waited. City passed some more and then some more: across and back, occasionally forward and then back again quickly as if feeling the heat. This wasn’t entertainment in the truest sense, excitement only for what might come rather than what was happening. Spoiler alert: it didn’t really ever happen.

The points of interest were tactical, not aesthetic. Josko Gvardiol pushed up left and high, over the ground where Jeremy Doku and Jack Grealish often roam. If that suggests a certain circumspection, controlling the controllables until there could be no more intense controlling, you have it about right.

Arsenal’s approach was understandable. A point was better for them than City given their one-point lead and their recent record in this stadium. Mikel Arteta’s first-half dance move was to wave both hands down in front of him as if guiding down a helicopter, a “calm down” message that he doesn’t always stick to himself.

If they listened to him often, Arsenal also fouled majestically. In the first half they spread them around with faultless logic to avoid yellow cards, much to the chagrin of those in City blue on the pitch and watching it.

Shortly into the second half, Arsenal made three fouls in 2.3 seconds in City’s half. Arsenal ended the game with 20 fouls and two yellow cards, one for time-wasting and the other for kicking the ball away. You can’t teach that.

Arsenal struggled to cope at times. David Raya’s distribution misfired, not helped by him repeatedly slipping over when kicking long. William Saliba has completed 93 per cent of his passes this season but only 12 of 18 before the break. The biggest issue about sitting deep is that, when you get the ball, it tends to be very close to your own goal and thus invites an intense press.

Arsenal did create half chances too, although most fell to Gabriel Jesus. Jesus is many fine things, but he’s also ultimately a striker who repeatedly takes an extra touch before shooting because he knows how the shots usually go. Given his inability to complete 90 minutes, Arsenal may surely have to move on from him this summer.

Guardiola’s response to the first-half funk was to bring on Grealish and Doku, those ground-roamers, as the agents of chaos that we longed for like an elixir. Even that became more than a little predictable because both have become a little jaded by this season’s experience. Grealish is now the master of standing still with the ball, deliberately doing nothing.

Doku took to life in England by basically being exactly the same player he was in France, a whir of feet that bewitch defenders to take their eyes off the ball until it has gone past them.

In recent weeks, Doku seems to be playing without studs and with small weights attached to his ankles. What was once glorious unpredictability is now a frustrating conundrum that his teammates are struggling to cope with. It will come.

The game did become more ragged, but do not interpret that as a compliment. Sometimes watching brilliant players make silly mistakes becomes its own entertainment, all circus fun and japes.

Sometimes it’s just people misplacing passes and cursing their own incompetence and then, eight seconds later, someone doing the exact same thing. This was like the end of a big work night out when people begin to make bad decisions about spirits and one more bar.

And so it ends, like every bad big night out does, with lots of people sighing and vowing not to get their hopes up next time. The most obvious way to describe this well-intentioned, high-intensity but ultimately unfulfilling 0-0 draw is that Arsenal got the point that they came for and yet ended Sunday less likely to win the title than when it started. The biggest winners were Liverpool, now with a lead to call their own.