For Toney this was sweet: two days after Gareth Southgate was left out of England’s World Cup squad, the centre-forward raced into the City area to head home Josh Dasilva’s cross from the right to give the champions. The result means Arsenal will be top of the table at Christmas no matter what happens when they visit Wolves on Saturday night. Despite Pep Guardiola fielding a 10-man squad – minus Erling Haaland – to come down to Qatar, Brentford proved a strong and relentless opponent. The visitors’ main trick was to hit City on the break or in the air and the latter was how Thomas Frank’s men scored first, Toney heading home after Aymeric Laporte accidentally touched the ball onto him. City had a number of penalty claims – mainly for handball – but all were rejected by VAR. Toney’s opener was canceled out by a Phil Foden rocket just before the break and while the champions dominated, they were never in fine tune: a failure to create enough for Haaland – or anyone else – that left them unable to secure a result . Start your evenings with the Guardian’s view of the world of football Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
