Gary Neville was left "stunned" by Arsenal's decision to fly to Manchester just a matter of hours before their clash at the Etihad.
Mikel Arteta and his team boarded a plane for Stansted on Wednesday afternoon, a decision that was given the green light by the Spaniard.
The Gunners first Premier League game back ended in a 3-0 loss to Pep Guardiola's side.
Raheem Sterling opened the scoring before Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden also got in on the act.
But almost from the first whistle their night got off to a bad start as Granit Xhaka's injury saw him replaced early on.
Several other Arsenal players struggled and Neville couldn't get his head round the club's decision to fly north so close to kick-off.
He said on commentary: "Mari’s hamstring went then. I mean, I am not sure he would have kept up with Kyle Walker with his hamstring in full tact. Kyle Walker goes past him and watch his hamstring go there.
"I was stunned (by the decision to fly). I was thinking more of the risk of the weather, the storms we’ve got at the moment and what if they were unable to fly.
"Obviously it’s not ideal to get on a plane three hours before you play anyway, but it looks like Arsenal will lose two players from their starting XI inside 20 minutes.
"And it looks like David Luiz option or no option. He’s going to get a run out."
Luiz came on as a sub but had a night to forget as his mistake allowed Sterling to break the deadlock in first-half stoppage time.
The Brazilian then bundled Riyad Mahrez over which resulted in referee Anthony Taylor sending him off and awarding a penalty.
After the game Arteta said: "Everything went wrong from the first minute. Every possible accident that could have happened hopefully happened today."
