Arsenal's €1m Loss Confirmed After Mikel Arteta's Surprise Decision Against Man City

Arsenal's 1-0 defeat at home to Manchester City didn't just cost them a chance to leapfrog Tottenham in the Premier League table.

A loss of €1million was confirmed even before Raheem Sterling scored what turned out to be the winning goal at the Emirates Stadium inside the opening two minutes.

Gunners manager Mikel Arteta sprung a surprise an hour before kick-off as he opted to drop the centre-back pairing of Gabriel Magalhaes and David Luiz from the team that started the Europa League clash with Benfica three days prior.

In came Rob Holding and Pablo Mari - with the latter making his first appearance since the FA Cup third-round win over Newcastle United at the beginning of last month - and 10th in the Premier League.

And by handing the Spaniard a surprise start, Arteta's decision has cost Arsenal in the region of €1m.

This is in relation to the 27-year-old joining the Gunners on a permanent deal last summer after initially arriving on loan in Arteta's first transfer window as manager/head coach.

football.londonspoke to someone close to Mari who confirmed that "there are some performance bonuses" included in the transfer fee.

Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte reported in January that Arsenal have to pay Flamengo a bonus of €1m (£865,000) every time Mari makes 10 Premier League appearances, up to a maximum of 80 outings.

The centre-back was expected to reach this milestone against Crystal Palace last month, but suffered a calf injury that kept him out of action until Sunday afternoon.

Speaking after making his return, Mari reflected on a small detail that cost the Gunners at least a point against the Premier League leaders.

"It was hard for us because we planned for the game really well," he told Arsenal.com.

Everybody knew what we had to do and I think we did well but at the end we conceded a goal at the beginning of the game, and when you concede those kinds of details against these types of teams, you lose the game.

"We have to be hard, we have to be focused 100 per cent in the beginning of the game until 96 or 97 minutes. I think 99 per cent of the game we played really good, but at the end we lost because we conceded that detail in the game."

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