It all starts in the midfield and today pretty much highlighted how stark of a different there is between us and the champions...Fernandinho and to a lesser extent (although his work rate was incredible, as usual) Milner cleaned up so many transition moments when Man City got caught, not even allowing for the back four to be potentially exposed. On the other side, Flamini (or Arteta, and we saw his penchant for being a holding mid when he came on in the 90th, only to instantly miss two tackles and then give away a dangerous free kick) who simply doesn't have the speed or athleticism to be that same type of holding player we need....and it results in so much pressure on the back four, particulalry when you have speed against Mertesacker and on the wings with our fullbacks pushing so high as Wenger likes to do.

The other big contrast today was how just how effectively Man City uses width...they really link well on the edges and that not only leads to great service from wide but it opens up the middle of the field for when you do play more direct...so many times Man City flashed a man to the top of the box and created a chance because our defense had to actually cover width (that last chance for Dzeko was so easy...Silva flashes to the top of the box, no one is marking him tightly, he has time to turn and find Dzeko...all this while halfway in the damn box. Szchezny bailed out the piss poor defending with a brilliant save). On the other end, as has been the case over and over, our narrow play leads to a defense that is far too comfortable in simply packing the box and crowding any pass into the top of the box because they know we aren't going to stretch wide at all.