Arsenal booked an FA Cup date with Manchester City following a comfortable 3-0 third round win against Oxford United on Monday night. The gunners became the latest team to confirm their place in the fourth round, and set up a tie at Manchester City.

Second half goals from Mohamed Elneny and Eddie Nketiah were enough for Arsenal to advance. In a fairly uneventful opening 45 minutes, Arsenal struggled to break Oxford down as the hosts were aggressive and made life difficult for the Premier League side.

Sambi Lokonga’s effort struck the arm of Elliot Moore in the Oxford penalty box, which was waved away by referee David Coote. Kieran Tierney raced toward goal and found Bukayo Saka on the right, who cut inside and teed up Takehiro Tomiyasu on the edge of the box, but the defender had his shot blocked.

Lokonga recycled the loose ball with a low effort just inside Oxford’s penalty area, but as Moore got low to block the shot, seemed to stop the goal-bound ball with his arm.

Controversially, there is no VAR at Kassam Stadium with Oxford being in League One, so there was nothing to be checked as after Coote had made his on-field decision.

Saka was denied the opener with a clearance off the line early into the second half.

Fabio Vieira ran onto a long ball over the top of the Oxford defence and flicked the ball cheekily back to the England international, who cut inside and beat Edward McGinty with his low shot, but saw his effort turned behind for a corner.

Arsenal finally broke the deadlock through Elneny who powered home a pinpoint Vieira free kick in the 63rd minute.Seven minutes later, Arsenal had a second as Nketiah continued his impressive goalscoring form.

Vieira played an inch-perfect through ball to the forward, who took the ball around McGinty and slotted it home into an empty net.

Nketiah delicately dinked the ball over McGinty six minutes later for his second and Arsenal’s third, as Mikel Arteta’s side booked their place in the fourth round.

All three of Arsenal’s goals were created by Fabio Vieira, whose display epitomised that of the collective.

Arsenal will travel to Manchester City at the end of January in the next round.

It looks as though the Premier League title race between Arsenal and Man City will go down to the wire, so this will be a good audition for Arsenal when they take on Pep Guardiola’s side in the next round.

The last time they visited Etihad Stadium they were beaten 5-0 at the beginning of last season, so it will be interesting to see how far they’ve come since then.