Rampant City thrash Arsenal

London : Manchester City inflicted more pain on Arsene Wenger with a second crushing 3-0 victory over his Arsenal side in the space of four days.

After losing Sunday’s Carabao Cup final, the Gunners could not find any level of retribution as they were again humbled by far superior opposition in Pep Guardiola’s 100th game in charge.

Bernardo Silva, David Silva and Leroy Sane all scored wonderful first-half goals for City, who now require only five more wins to secure the Premier League title. Arsenal were better than they were at Wembley but Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s second-half penalty miss summed up their current form.

The game at the Emirates Stadium went ahead despite sub-zero temperatures and snowfall across much of the country. Wenger must have been left wishing the fixture had fallen foul of the conditions as his players failed to weather another City storm.

Gary Neville labelled Arsenal “spineless’’ during Sky’s coverage of the cup final and he was commentating again tonight but all he could do this time was aim superlatives at a superb City performance.

The Gunners started with a vigour that was missing for much of Sunday’s final and were unlucky not to go ahead when a low Aaron Ramsey cross cannoned off Vincent Kompany, with the ball fortuitously bouncing against Ederson in the visitors’ goal.

Arsenal were creating the better chances in the opening exchanges and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, returning to the side having been cup-tied at Wembley, hit a left-footed drive straight at Ederson as they looked to make their early dominance pay.

But that good work was undone with a moment of class from Bernardo Silva, who was found by Sane following a jinking run before bending a perfect strike past Petr Cech to open the scoring.

Granit Xhaka’s well-struck free kick got Arsenal fired up once more, with Ramsey the next to test Ederson. But again it was a combination of individual and collective brilliance which saw City double their lead.

Sane embarrassed Shkodran Mustafi with some neat skill, with his pass into Aguero laid off to David Silva for the Spaniard to finish with aplomb.

It threatened to get more galling for Wenger and his side when Sane scored a goal of his own, finishing Kyle Walker’s cross at the end of a slick attack.

Arsenal passed up a glorious chance to reduce the arrears when Aubameyang’s tame penalty was pushed clear by Ederson after Nicolas Otamendi had upended Mkhitaryan.