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Arsenal's 'dark arts'? What nonsense. It was game management and they deserve huge credit for it, writes MARTIN KEOWN

I cannot stand the term 'dark arts'.

You see a team do what they need to do – like how Arsenal heroically handled that second half at Manchester City – and it's lazily lumped with that derogatory narrative, with negative connotations rather than positive ones.

I much prefer the phrase 'game management', of which there was plenty worth praising in Arsenal's performance on Sunday. Mikel Arteta's men do not deserve the criticism they've received for how they went on to extract a result from the Etihad Stadium.

They should be celebrated for how cleverly they contained City, to the extent that Pep Guardiola's magnificent winning machine relied on John Stones scoring their latest-ever Premier League goal to avoid losing.