Nathan Ake has revealed he predicted that Ederson wouldn't reach the ball before Bukayo Saka, so he gambled on his goalkeeper being beaten to produce his brilliant goalline clearance in Manchester City's win at Arsenal.
Moments after City had equalised in the second half against the run of play, Saka was sent clear and his presence forced Aymeric Laporte to intervene and head over Ederson to send the ball towards the empty goal.
As Arsenal thought they had immediately restored their lead, Ake appeared out of nowhere to clear the ball off the line and keep the scores level. Gariel Martinelli inexplicably hit the post with the rebound, and second later defender Gabriel was sent off for fouling Gabriel Jesus from Ederson's resulting goal kick.
City used their man advantage well to steal a late winner through Rodri, but it was Ake's clearance that proved just as important as the injury time goal.
And the former Bournemouth defender says he benefitted from fearing the worst as Saka ran on goal.
He said: "It was a bit of a miscommunication and I saw it happening a little bit so I thought I would keep going just in case and it happened.
"I just predicted that something may go wrong as I saw Ederson come off his line and luckily I kept going and I cleared it off the line.”
Looking ahead, Ake said City are taking things one game at a time after registering their 11th straight league win.
“It is helpful to win games, but we just want to look at it game by game," he added.
"You cannot win the title now as there is so many games to play. We just have to see it game by game. We are very happy with today after a very busy period. The last week especially has been very tough, a lot of travelling as well. You can see that the energy today was not the same either.
"Now I think we have deserved a few days rest and we go into the FA Cup before a big game against Chelsea. We are looking forward to that and hopefully we are ready for that.”
“[We need] everyone to stay fit and to show that we are able to play a lot of games. There are so many more games to come. We will focus game by game and try to make sure that we keep winning and trying to keep that mentality of winning and we will see where we are.
"Today [Arsenal] was massive, to start the new year with a win. Now we have a little bit of time to rest, focus and prepare for the FA Cup.”
We’ve teamed up with LiveScore to invite fans to vote for their favourite results - the games which were much more than a score. Vote for the match that mattered to you here .
