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MANCHESTER CITY FAILED to break down Arsenal as a highly-anticipated clash at the top of the Premier League failed to live up to the hype in a 0-0 draw at the Etihad on Sunday.
Liverpool were the big winners of the day in the title race as they beat Brighton 2-1 to go top, two points ahead of Arsenal and three clear of City with nine games to play.
A share of the spoils preserves City’s unbeaten home run stretching back to November 2022 and ends Arsenal’s eight-match winning run in the Premier League.
But it is the Gunners who will be happier with a point as they prevented Pep Guardiola’s men from scoring at the Etihad for the first time in two years.
City dominated possession but struggled to make anything of it against a defence that has conceded the fewest number of goals in the Premier League this season.
Arsenal have also been in free-scoring form at the other end, netting 33 times during their eight-match winning streak.
However, the visitors had lost on their last eight trips to the Etihad, including a 4-1 thrashing as the title race swung decisively in City’s favour last season, and opted for a counter-attacking approach.
Gabriel Jesus came into the Arsenal side on his return to the Etihad and had the visitors best effort of a shot-shy first half when he dragged wide from the edge of the box.
Nathan Ake wasted City’s best chance in the firist half when he failed to connect properly with a dangerous Kevin De Bruyne corner and David Raya gratefully smothered the loose ball.
City were already missing the key defensive duo of Kyle Walker and John Stones after both were injured on international duty with England.
And Guardiola was forced to cobble together an even more makeshift backline when Ake hobbled off on 27 minutes.
Arsenal, though, rarely tested the City defence despite both sides upping the tempo after the break.
Jesus could just not stretch far enough to meet Bukayo Saka’s cross in the only sign of life from the England international.
Erling Haaland was extremely well-marshalled by Arsenal’s solid centre-back pairing of Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba.
And the Norwegian fluffed his lines when he did get a rare sight of goal seven minutes from time as he failed to connect with a corner at the back post.
Arsenal’s best chance to snatch all three points came late on when substitute Leandro Trossard was released in behind, but the Belgian fired straight at Stefan Ortega.
City’s failure to find a winner means they are still yet to beat any of the top five in the Premier League this season.
And the champions now need favours from both Liverpool and Arsenal if they are to become the first side to ever win four consecutive English top-flight titles.
Written by AFP and posted on the42.ie
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DNA matching is nothing new to the Irish dating scene. Something we’re trying to move away from you might even say.
@Winston Smith: LOL
@Winston Smith:
True.
The gene pool in my parent’s homeplace was shallow enough to paddle in.
Everybody seemed to be a cousin of some sort to everybody else there!
@Michael Kavanagh: “Kevin Bacon” six degrees of separation!!
@Colette Kearns:
Believe me – when it come to acquaintance (especially knowing the bad news) their colective Bacon Number there is a big fat one!
It sounds like another marvelously inventive way for companies to get access to your DNA profile. Be very wary of parting with this information!
@Sean: if a big pharma company bought millions of people’s DNA and then used that to research and find a cure for say, cancer, would you find that unethical? I wouldn’t
@niamh ryan: you believe their goal is always to cure everything…. interesting..!!!
@niamh ryan:with or without permission?
@Bluey: in an ideal world with permission. Specifically for medical research purposes. But I suppose once you hand it over you lose control of it
@Ian Scott: and you think their goal is……
@niamh ryan: to be fair their goal is to generate as much money as possible for as long as possible. Whoever thinks pharma companies are looking to make the world a better place is naive.
@niamh ryan: big pharma finding a cure for something they make millions off…lol…
@David Daly: they are a business of course they are out to make money. They invest billions in research and have a right to charge for their products. Certain types of cancer are no longer an automatic death sentence, people living full lives with HIV, huge breakthroughs in parkinsonism ect. They are making the world a better place for profit. It would be naive to think that anybody would do it for free
@niamh ryan: The Pharma company would would need to know who got cancer and what type of cancer they got in the DNA sample population for it to be useful. You have presented something of a false but meaningless argument here. What is more likely is that the data would be bought by a life insurance company which could then have very real implications for your children or grandchildren. They could be refused a mortgage (based on being refused life cover) because of an increased risk of certain inherited diseases in your DNA. Why not?
The millennials are to busy flicking between pages on their phones as to flicking between the sheets
@dick dastardly: ah sure you’re still pining over Penelope Pitstop.
@Keelan O’neill: now there’s a cartoon character u cud hang ur wet duffle coat on……….(or words to that effect)
They need DNA testing as the amount of people in towns who have the same biological father is crazy now… That was a joke once but no longer…
@TamuMassif2019: are you speaking from experience??
@TamuMassif2019:
You the Daddy?
Some enchanted evening , you may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger, across a crowded room,
And somehow you know, you know even then,
That somehow you’ll see her , again and again…..
Much more romantic way to meet.
@Aine O Connor:
Yup.
Then you go and spoil it all
By saying something stupid like
I’ll swab you.
Genetic profile for romance, hardly. However what a genetic profile App will do is flash warning lights as regards inherited problems, like for instance both parties being CF carriers. That doesn’t need to kill the romance, but it does give the option of going I.V., and screening the embryos before implantation, thus leaving the problem behind. Likewise various of the genes that pre dispose to cancers of one sort or another.
Tinder or what ever app. If you want to meet a serial killer, I’d say it’s a pretty good way.
This country is so inbred it’s new DNA we need!
have your say