Aaron Ramsdale receives criticism from Jamie Carragher for being ‘unplayable’ in Man City’s victory over Arsenal

For his part in Manchester City’s opening goal against Arsenal in Wednesday’s Premier League title match, Aaron Ramsdale has drawn criticism from Jamie Carragher.

With a 4-1 victory over the Gunners at the Etihad, City made significant progress toward successfully defending their title. Hosts City were led by two goals from Kevin de Bruyne, with additional goals coming from Erling Haaland and John Stones.

Given that City has two games in hand in the latter stretch of the season, the victory cuts Arsenal’s lead at the top to just two points.

The Gunners were quickly defeated by City after Haaland set up de Bruyne, who scored from the edge of the area.

Although it was a crisp finish, veteran Liverpool defender Carragher criticized Ramsdale’s attempts as “very poor” as the Belgian drove towards the Arsenal backline and cut out onto his left foot.

All night long, long balls from City worried Arsenal, winning every other ball with Haaland sliding deeper to let de Bruyne trouble Arsenal.

Even if it wasn’t his most lethal night in front of goal, the Norwegian international’s season total rose to an astonishing 49 goals after scoring late. Carragher believes it was one of the striker’s best performances while wearing a City jersey.

‘Pep talking after the game about using Haaland with more direct passes, he was unplayable tonight when getting the ball early,’ Carragher added.

‘The CBs for Arsenal were not great, but very few defenders can cope with him physically. I think that was one of Haaland’s best game for Man City.’

After reaching the FA Cup final and the semifinals of the Champions League, City are now in charge of their own title defense, and their chances of winning a treble are improving every day.

‘I think it’s a big game. It’s always important to win this game,’ De Bruyne told BBC Sport post-match.

‘A lot of people will say about the title but in our mind we had to perform well and we did. We still have seven games to play so there’s a lot going on.

‘We are in the end part of the season so we know every game is must win. If we lost today it would be very hard. We played really well.’