Arsenal get under Man City’s skin

Call it the dark arts. Call it anti-football. Call it doing whatever it takes to win. Arsenal tried it all against Manchester City in the latest chapter of the Premier League’s new heavyweight rivalry — and came within seconds of victory.

“There was only one team that came to play football,” Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva grumbled after an intense, absorbing and incident-packed 2-2 draw at Etihad Stadium. “The other came to play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee, unfortunately.”

John Stones’ equaliser for City in the eighth minute of second-half stoppage time denied Arsenal, who played with 10 men for the entire second half, what would have been a defining victory for a team that is getting closer and closer to Pep Guardiola’s repeat champions.

City’s players know it, too. Hence Bernardo’s outspoken post-match comments on Arsenal. Notice how Erling Haaland chucked the ball at the back of Arsenal defender Gabriel’s head in City’s wild celebrations after Stones’ late intervention. Look, too, at Pep Guardiola kicking his seat in the dugout after feeling a sense of injustice at the manner of Arsenal’s equaliser by Ricardo Calafiori.

Arsenal have gotten under City’s skin. Roll on the return match at Emirates Stadium in early February.

“As a football match, it is a great spectacle for the Premier League,” City captain Kyle Walker said of the new rivalry with Arsenal, who have been runners-up in the last two seasons. “Probably not so much certain stuff — I think it’s part and parcel of the game and we’ll say the dark arts.”

Stones spoke of Arsenal’s attempts to slow the game down by what he perceived as feigning injuries to allow manager Mikel Arteta to “get some information on to the pitch”. “I wouldn’t say they have mastered it but they have done it for a few years now so we knew to expect that,” Stones said.

Leverkusen complete 4-3 comeback win

Leverkusen: Victor Boniface’s added-time goal lifted Bayer Leverkusen to a 4-3 comeback win over Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga as the German champions produced another of their trademark late breakthroughs ahead of facing Bayern Munich next week. It seemed Xabi Alonso’s team might have missed its chance when Granit Xhaka rattled the goalpost with a stoppage-time curling shot, but soon after Boniface made the breakthrough.