hailed his defence for containing Arsenal’s ‘incredible weapon’ during last night’s victory.
Mikel Arteta’s side succumbed to only their fourth defeat of the campaign with Nathan Ake’s second half goal all that separated the two teams contesting the Premier League title race.
While Guardiola selected arguably his strongest XI on current form, Arteta made six changes from the team which beat Manchester United last Sunday in what was a draining contest.
It wasn’t until they had fallen behind that Arteta opted to summon the likes of Martinelli and Martin Odegaard from the bench, but both were stifled by a City rearguard that didn’t even allow a shot on goal after the 59th minute.
A few enterprising runs aside, Martinelli was snuffed out by Kyle Walker, who replaced teenager Rico Lewis just before the hour mark, and endured a frustrating evening.
‘Yeah good, but Martinelli is an incredible weapon,’ Guardiola told reporters when asked how he felt his side managed the game after going ahead.
‘[Martin] Odegaard comes on and they play in the pockets, they are a really good team, otherwise they could not be where they are.
‘They are agrressive, they know exactly what they have to do. The little details they control really well, but in the end we played a good game.’
Martinelli is set to commit his future to the north London club by signing a new four-year contract, although Arteta refused to be drawn on when the Brazil international would put pen to paper.
Arteta was similarly coy on the speculation surrounding the likelihood of Brighton’s Moises Caicedo moving to the Emirates before Tuesday’s transfer deadline.
‘You know that I’m not going to comment on any players until anything is done. I will continue like that – sorry,’ he said.
‘As I said before, we’ve been pretty active in the market. We have some necessities and if something else is available, the club is willing to try to do it when it’s reasonable.
‘Hopefully [that would be] a player that can improve our squad.’
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