Erling Haaland was a giant pygmy created by two Arsenal titans.

Gabriel seems to have decided to make it his personal mission to destroy Erling Haaland. Photo: Getty Images/Darren Staples

It was the most passive-aggressive fight you could ever want to see. Erling Haaland, fresh from a 90-minute castration of Gabriel Magalhães, approached the Brazilian in such a fit of pique that Pep Guardiola had to separate the pair. Still, these two smiling antagonists, they hurled barbs at each other before exchanging a hug that looked awkwardly staged for the cameras. All in all, a very fitting motive for a match in which Manchester City's Nordic assassin found himself in a strange muzzle, and Arsenal didn't get much pleasure from firing blank shots.

Nothing expressed City's impotence more clearly than the fact that they attempted 690 passes together and yet failed to make a single shot that would trouble David Raia. And at the center of these Sisyphean labors was Haaland, a giant transformed into a pygmy by the constant attention of Gabriel and William Saliba. If the Norwegian looked furious after the final whistle, it was because the duo had not so much annulled him as emasculated him.

Post-match hug Haalanda and Gabriel seemed like a strange setup to the cameras. Photo: Reuters/Carl Recine

On a cool spring day filled with dashed hopes, Gabriel and Saliba became the first centre-back pairing in Premier League history to limit Haaland to zero shots on target twice in one season. In fact, if you count last year's Community Shield campaign, they managed to do it three times during that campaign, in over four hours of football.

Roy Keane, to be honest, has suffered enough. “His level of play in general is very low,” he said. “In front of goal he is the best in the world, but in his overall game he is almost like a League Two player. That's how I look at it. He needs to improve his game.»