In case you’ve been living under a rock that doesn’t have a Sky Sports subscription, this weekend Arsenal will travel to Manchester City in what will be one of the most influential games in this season’s Premier League.
A draw or win for Arsenal and the title will be theirs according to the pundits. A win for City and it is advantage Pep Guardiola.
The result may well be that seismic, but anyone hoping for an end-to-end game of exciting football may be better off finding another form of entertainment on Sunday at 4:30pm.
This season, there has been a lot of talk not on Arsenal’s results but the manner in which they go about achieving them. This Arsenal team often gets criticised for an over-reliance on set pieces and for the first time since Jose Mourinho’s 2000s Chelsea, there is the accusation that the potential Premier League champions are rather boring.
Defenders of Arsenal play style will point fingers at the opposition and suggest that the way teams set up against them prevents them from playing football but Arsenal are not the first team to encounter 11 men behind the ball. In fact, that reliance on set pieces does tell a story of just where this team is coming unstuck.
Early in the season, Arsenal won matches through the midfield. Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi could receive the ball from David Raya, drive up the pitch and play in one of the goalscoring wingers. As the season has gone on, one of Arteta’s fatal flaws has become more and more apparent.
In the League Cup final, Pep Guardiola showed the world how to stifle Arsenal. Without the ball, Guardiola set up his forward options to stand midway into the Arsenal half and let Kepa Arrizabalaga have possession unchallenged. In doing so, City cut off the easy pass option to Rice and Zubimendi, meaning Kepa either had to pass to his centre-backs or risk losing the ball.
Surrendering possession that high up against a City side that can be clinical was too much of a risk and so Arsenal got stuck.
Arteta had a fortnight thanks to the international break to work out a counter to this and yet the performance against Bournemouth would suggest he could find no answer even with David Raya back in goal.
But that tactical weakness has been exemplified by Arteta’s biggest mistake this year – overplaying his key players. Martin Zubimendi has played 2,681 minutes this year, the 28th most in the Premier League. Declan Rice has played 2,675, the 30th most. Christian Norgaard, who was bought with the presumed idea of giving the first teamers rest has played just 56 minutes in the league this year. For comparison, City’s most played outfield player, Erling Haaland, has played 2,503 minutes.
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So we arrive at the business end of the season with arguably Arsenal’s two most important players, completely knackered. Zubimendi, a new signing to the physically demanding Premier League, has in particular had a notable drop-off in performances.
The damage is done in terms of fatigue and now Arteta has to set his squad up in a way to protect players who are running on empty. City meanwhile, as they so often do under Guardiola, look to be hitting peak form at the right time.
And so to the game on Sunday. You do not need to have a UEFA Pro Licence to predict how Arteta will set up his team for unlike the Wembley occasion, a draw is as good as a win for Arsenal.
The defence-first approach has frustrated even some Arsenal fans this season and if that was a fair enough criticism early in the year when the team were firing on all cylinders, doing anything but now would be suicidal against a fresher and more in-form City. Neutrals will find it a dull watch but few of an Arsenal persuasion would criticise Arteta deploying it come Sunday.
There is also the history of this fixture. Arteta is often accused of being too defensive against the ‘big’ teams but it has produced results. He has won more games than he’s lost against the traditional big six but when you narrow that down to just Manchester City, Guardiola has long had the number of his former protege.
In the 16 matches the two have contested, Guardiola has won nine of them to Arsenal’s four. Arsenal fans will point to a lack of league wins for City since 2023 but in that time, Arsenal themselves have only managed two. It should be seen as an achievement of Arteta that he has turned 5-0 and 4-1 thumpings into draws but victory at the Etihad has always eluded him. Their best result was a 0-0 in March 2024 when Arsenal arrived to contain City.
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It is clear why neutrals feel frustrated at this approach as battles of the title favourites have gone from feast to famine when compared to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool. In five consecutive meetings between the two clubs in 2021/2022, a minimum of four goals were scored. That many goals have been scored just twice in Arsenal and City’s last six matches.
The outlier in recent clashes is the 5-1 hammering Arsenal inflicted on City at the Emirates last year. The context behind the scoreline was City were in the midst of their worst season under Guardiola, one where a squad looked very much at the end of its cycle and had a habit of shooting itself in the foot, such as gifting Arsenal an early lead. Away from that, Arsenal setting up to contain City has been par for the course.
Barring a complete change of character then, it is hard to see how Arteta will set his team up any differently come Sunday. The most interesting aspect of that game will be how Guardiola breaks down the best defence in the league.
At Wembley, Guardiola knew Arsenal would have to push to score at some point. Key to City’s win was the ability of Nico O’Reilly to break through the lines and arrive in the box free of a marker. The fitness of the converted full-back could well be crucial to deciding this match but Arsenal and Arteta should have learned from the first encounter.
The result will be influential, whatever way it goes, but anyone expecting a Premier League classic is likely to be left bitterly disappointed.
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