Man City 1-0 Arsenal: Pep Guardiola’s side draw first blood over their Premier League title rivals as Nathan Ake’s second-half goal sees them knock the Gunners out of the FA Cup to reach the fifth round

From Pep Guardiola there was a small fist pump at the end, a handshake with his friend and rival Mikel Arteta and then he was off down the tunnel. That, in essence, is what satisfaction looks like.

Manchester City will play better than this over the remainder of the season. They will have to if they are to win anything. But Guardiola is currently a manager trying to ease his team in to better form. He is trying to help them find the confidence without which nothing of note can ever be achieved.

So this is why this victory was important. Not just because it takes City further in to a competition that Guardiola values. Not just because it was against Arsenal, the only team above them in the Premier League. But also because he knows it may take them a step towards more fluency, more goals, more effective football.

This was largely a tepid game of football. Those looking for indications of what may happen when City and Arteta’s Arsenal meet twice in the Premier League, in February and in April, will have been disappointed and were foolish to hope for that in the first place.

A Friday night cup game at the end of a month that has already featured an awful lot of football was no preparation for two league games that by their very definition will be more intense, more feisty, more, well, important. No this was never going to be that.

So we didn’t really get much of a game of football at all until City scored in the 64th minute. Then it was suddenly more competitive, quicker and more urgent.

Arsenal, enlivened by some substitutions, found a little more of what they have shown us in the league and came on strong at the end. But ultimately this was a game settled by a switch made by the team in blue.

Julian Alvarez proved in Argentina colours during the World Cup what he is capable of. At City the presence of Erling Haaland ahead of him in the order makes that harder.

But here the young forward was sent on in the 58th minute and a contribution just six minutes later helped to turn a game that was in the balance the way of his team

Urgency. It can do wonders for a side and indeed a game. This was what Alvarez brought here. Taking possession 30 yards from goal, he decided to do what few others had in the game so far. 

He took a risk. Easing the ball out of his feet he then struck a powerful low cross shot that thundered against the right hand post of Arsenal’s stand-in goalkeeper Matt Turner. Immediately it enlivened the home crowd and when Jack Grealish collected the rebound, Arsenal were still in trouble. 

Grealish didn’t have his best night overall but here he showed intelligence and presence of mind to take his time, draw two Arsenal players to him and then release possession in to the space left behind. Nathan Ake, left-back for the night, would probably not have been Guardiola’s ideal recipient but the Dutchman showed some composure of his own to side foot the ball towards the far post where it crept in to the corner.

A goal against Arsenal will always be a goal against Arsenal, even more so when the London club are top of the league. So City celebrated with some enthusiasm and then proceeded to defend their lead with a similar amount of vigour.

Early in the game Arteta’s team had been slightly superior. With key attacking weapons such as Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard on the bench, there was an opportunity for new signing Leandro Trossard and the Belgian was prominent early on. 

One cross provided a chance for Takehiro Tomiyasu and Stefan Ortega was required to save. Then, fifteen minutes later, Trossard beat City full-back Rico Lewis again and this time it was his own shot that Ortega was required to parry, this time with one hand.

Arsenal’s threat was clear that stage but it was not persistent, it never really threatened to overwhelm a City team that was subdued. Later, as they sought an equaliser, it was different. 

Martinelli and Odegaard were thrown on as Arsenal chased it and they did make a difference.

Arsenal almost found a way back immediately after Ake’s goal. With 7,000 travelling supporters energised by their team’s sudden need, a cross from left seemed set to be nudged in by Eddie Nketiah at the far post only for City defender Aymeric Laporte – on for the injured John Stones – to somehow deflect the ball wide and behind before it could reach the young Arsenal player.

Interventions like that are just as important as goals and often more difficult to pull off. Laporte could easily have mistimed the stretch of his leg and missed the ball completely. He could have turned it in to his own goal. But he didn’t. He saved his team and set the tone for a final 20 minutes that was by far the most engaging spell of the whole game.

So City move on in a competition that Guardiola would like to win once more while Arteta and his team have only the Premier League as a real focus. That may not be the worst thing for them. They will need all they have to hold City at bay.