Manchester City labored past Arsenal on Friday night in the first of many weekend FA Cup fourth-round ties and there are lots of key lessons that should gladden Arsenal fans’ hearts even in the loss.

Pep Guardiola only made two changes to the side that beat Wolves with Ederson the only notable absentee as Stefan Ortega got the nod in between the sticks while Mikel Arteta rang six changes, giving Leandro Trossard his full debut on the left wing.

Arsenal started brightly like they always do and it took a fine Ortega save to deny Takehiro Tomiyasu from the edge of the box after some neat work down the left by the former Brighton and Hove forward Leandro Trossard.

Thomas Partey and Martin Odegaard gave the City midfield lots of headaches and Rodri needed his teammates to keep things together; City eventually settled into the game but it didn’t really start ticking for the hosts until the second half.

Arteta made two halftime substitutions, Rob Holding was on a yellow and he replaced him with William Saliba while Partey was said to have rib issues and was replaced by Albert Sambi Lokonga; the golf in class between the Ghana midfield maestro and the young Belgian was too obvious to see.

Julian Alvarez struck the woodwork with a brilliant effort from outside the box and the rebound fell to Jack Grealish who fed Nathan Ake in the Arsenal area not long after the hour mark and the Dutch defender curled one past Matt Turner in goal.

City managed the game very well from that point and Arsenal will now only focus on their league run as well as Europa dreams. Arsenal stood toe-to-toe with the hosts until Partey was removed and that should prove that it would be hard for the Gunners to lose their league lead with the Ghanaian fit.

City can take on the momentum and go on a monstrous run that could easily usurp Arsenal in the league but the Gunners must respond by reinforcing the midfield in the current window; a bid was submitted and subsequently rejected for Moises Caicedo of Brighton but Arsenal is expected to go again.