City humble ten-men Arsenal as goal-line technology denies Sheffield United win at Aston Villa

Manchester City defeated ten man Arsenal 3-0 on Wednesday night at the Etihad stadium, thanks to goals from Raheem Sterling, Kevin de Bruyne and Phil Foden.

It was the first English Premier League (EPL) match day since the league was suspended on March 9, due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

The match was also the first visit of Mikel Arteta, Arsenal coach, to the stadium where he previously was assistant to Pep Guardiola.

Players’ shirts had Black Lives Matter written at the back while they went on their kneels in honour of George Floyd, the slain black American.

Also, a blue badge on the jerseys celebrated UK health workers at the front line of COVID-19 while deaths due to the pandemic were honoured with a minute silence prior to kick off.

City looked sharp and were denied by a fingertip after Bernd Leno saved Bruyne’s free kick in the fourth minute.

Arsenal lost both Granit Xhaka and Pablo Mari to injury while they required three top class saves from Leno to keep City at bay.

Their resolve was however broken on the stroke of halftime through Sterling’s first goal of 2020.

A misjudgement from David Luiz, a substitute defender, allowed Bruyne’s pass through to Sterling and the England winger made no mistake to hand City a 1-0 lead at the interval.

Luiz completed a nightmarish night on 51 minutes by conceding a penalty for hacking back Rhiyad Mahrez with the referee handing the Brazilian a straight red card for the offence.

Bruyne tucked away the penalty to double City’s advantage while Phil Foden added the third goal in added time, consigning lacklustre Arsenal to their sixth consecutive defeat against City.

The win takes second placed City to 60 points but they are still 22 points behind Liverpool.

Goal line technology fails to award Sheffield United goal, authorities blame “occlusion”

Sheffield United were apparently robbed of a legitimate goal in their drab 0-0 draw that failed to sparkle against Aston Villa due to technical error from Hawkeye, the goal line technology used to confirm if ball has crossed the goal line.

Hawk-eye Innovations, the technology’s operators, in a Twitter post, acknowledged the error after the match but blamed it on occlusion.

The incident happened in the 38th minute when Orjan Nyland, Aston Villa goalkeeper, erroneously carried a free kick over the line at the post.

Referee Michael Oliver, with a blocked view and no signal from the goal line technology, waved play to continue. despite the protests of the Sheffield United players.