10 to go and the Etihad Death Star
Arteta's Arsenal have ended long waits to compete everywhere ... except at Manchester City. Here's a big, in-depth preview of the game.
With 10 games to go and no more international breaks to interrupt us, it’s full-on from now until the end of May.
The home straight begins with a trip to Manchester City. Easy, right?
Immovable object meets unstoppable force
Rodri doesn’t lose games. Or, rather, Manchester City don’t lose games when Rodri plays. The streak is now 62 Manchester City matches featuring the midfielder without losing, if you don’t include a defeat on penalties in the Community Shield. Since they last lost with Rodri on the pitch (February 2023) City have played eight times without him featuring and lost five of them, including at the Emirates Stadium back in October.
Arsenal did beat a Rodri-less City that day but will have to beat a City side featuring him this weekend. And there’s every reason to think it’s possible.
In 2024, Arsenal have won all eight of their Premier League games, scoring 33 goals and conceding just four. City and Liverpool have been the next best teams in the league and their results have been very good — winning 14 of 18 games between them — but when it comes to the level of dominance, Arsenal are playing a different sport.
But who you play against matters too. In terms of points per game in 2024, Liverpool are the only team Arsenal have beaten on this eight-game run who sit in the top nine. Newcastle are 10th and the other six all sit in the bottom eight.
Looked at another way, using the expected points on Understat, this run so far has seen Arsenal play the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 20th worst teams in the league this calendar year, plus Liverpool (2nd), Nottingham Forest (9th) and West Ham (10th).
You can only beat what’s in front of you and you need to pick these points up. In that sense: mission accomplished. But things are about to get a lot harder and that’s why I’d still have Arsenal as third favourites for the title. The remaining 10 games contain much bigger challenges for Arsenal than for City or Liverpool, including away games against five of the top nine teams in the league. The likes of the betting markets and prediction models like that of Opta (below) also have Arsenal as third favourites heading into the weekend and by some margin. Not because Arsenal are the third best team in the league but because it’s tight and the remaining games are so, so hard.
But a win at the Etihad could change things drastically. And though Arsenal’s record there has been hideous, games not at the Etihad have become much, much closer, results have now also started to go Arsenal’s way, and this team under this manager have a habit of ending these long runs for a win.
In November 2020, Arteta led Arsenal to a first league win at Old Trafford since September 2006. In May 2021, Arteta led Arsenal to a first league win at Stamford Bridge since October 2011. Last season, in January 2023, Arteta led Arsenal to a first league win at Tottenham since March 2014. Arteta has led this Arsenal side to a Champions League quarter-final for the first time since 2009.
There still hasn’t been a league win at Anfield for Arteta and the wait for a league win there goes back to 2012 but Arsenal are finally competing in those fixtures, drawing 2-2 last season and 1-1 this season having lost the previous six league visits with a total of 22 goals conceded. In the meantime there have been back-to-back home wins against Jürgen Klopp’s side.
The wait to beat Manchester City finally ended this season too, having competed with them at home in January 2022 (a 2-1 defeat), February 2023 (a 3-1 defeat) and a late equaliser at Wembley in August (followed by a win on penalties).
And, even with the rest of the dastardly run-in to follow, a win at the Etihad would drastically move the needle on Arsenal’s title chances …
Opta would remain less bullish — they certainly wouldn’t have Arsenal as favourites suddenly — but would have things much more neck-and-neck than they have right now.
For me, with trips to Brighton, Wolves, Tottenham and Manchester United all to come and at least two Champions League matches sprinkled through that run too, Arsenal probably have to win at the Etihad this weekend and definitely can’t afford to lose.
So can we beat City again?
Last Time Vs. This Time
It looks like both of this season’s fixtures between last season’s top two will be played with important players missing. Arsenal were without Bukayo Saka in October — he’s a doubt again — while goalscorer Gabriel Martinelli was only fit enough to play a half and Kai Havertz, a shoe-in to play this weekend, didn’t start either. Those two came off the bench to combine to create and score (with the help of Nathan Aké’s face) the winner. Martinelli could miss this one too, as could the Gabriel at the back, while Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko aren’t fully fit either.
As for City, they were without Rodri (obviously — Arsenal won) and Kevin De Bruyne at the Emirates, John Stones was only fit to feature for the final 20 or so minutes, and Jack Grealish and Manuel Akanji were unused subs. Stones and Kyle Walker both limped out of England duty over the past week or so, leaving some questions marks at the back for Pep Guardiola.
The absence of Rodri in the meeting earlier in the season meant a weird approach from City, with Guardiola looking to play as many players centrally as possible. Their wingers didn’t hold the width, their fullbacks didn’t play high and wide. Bernardo Silva lined up as the deepest midfielder, dutifully flanked by Mateo Kovačić and Rico Lewis. It was a curious selection with an emphasis on not really allowing much to happen — something Arteta was fine with too — and it almost worked but it left City without any bite.
For a long read on October’s 1-0 win check out
’s analysis from back then. The TL;DR? Arsenal dialled up the press as the game went on and with Martinelli’s introduction at half-time, Arsenal could be brave because City’s wingers weren’t scary.The fitness of Stones and Walker is the big question ahead of this one. If they’re fine, they play. If one is out, Manuel Akanji presumably comes in and lines up at either right-back or centre-back with Rúben Dias and Nathan Aké completing the back four. But if they’re both out, Guardiola will likely have to choose between one of these backlines:
Akanji-Dias-Aké-Gvardiol
Lewis-Akanji-Dias-Aké
The other really interesting thing is further upfield. Guardiola teams tend to evolve a fair bit as a season goes on. Last season ended with central defenders playing in midfield — John Stones living up to his Barnsley Beckenbauer moniker — and fullbacks tucking in like centre-backs, all to compensate for the lack of involvement Erling Haaland has outside the final third. This season it’s the importance of Phil Foden that leaves pause for thought. Foden has become so reliable in the final third that, when things got hectic and City were in trouble at Anfield a few weeks ago and Guardiola wanted more control, he opted to leave Foden on and take De Bruyne off instead as he sacrificed one of his ‘difference makers’ to introduce a midfielder who wouldn’t play so directly.
He clearly felt the final stages of the game justified subbing De Bruyne:
“We never stopped trying to play and with Mateo (Kovačić) and John (Stones) and Phil and Rodri inside we had the quality to keep the ball like we couldn’t keep it before.”
As Sam Lee of The Athletic puts it, Guardiola broadly breaks his players down into two categories:
Players who help the team play well
Players who win you games
Lee wrote this after the draw with Chelsea two months back:
Guardiola said something in December that pretty much covers everything that happened on the pitch.
Guardiola wants 8-9 players who “help you play good”, leaving room for 2-3 others who win you games, knowing that those 2-3 won’t help you control games because they’ll take risks. To Guardiola, playing good means keeping the ball, staying patient, sticking to the plan. The risk-takers, you need them, but too many and you can’t do any of the above. Haaland will obviously play. Presumably De Bruyne will too. And Foden probably falls into that category as well.
If Guardiola wants to use all three — and he surely does — on Sunday, and there is still no Jack Grealish, I suspect that means Kovačić will start in midfield alongside Rodri, with Bernardo Silva (who Guardiola would surely prefer centrally) out wide in place of Julián Álvarez. Let’s imagine Walker and Stones play (or one with Akanji filling in for the other) and it would look something like this:
I’m sure Pep would love to have Jack Grealish out wide and Bernardo Silva in the middle — they’re the ‘attacking’ players he seems to trust above all others to keep things ticking over, slow the game down, push teams back and provide City with dominance — but Grealish hasn’t played for a month and hasn’t completed a half of football since 7 January, so a start seems unlikely. Oh yeah, Ederson is out too, but I honestly think Stefan Ortega Moreno is fantastic. Maybe not as good on the ball (who is?) but by no means bad with it and a better shot-stopper.
The big thing difference to any Arsenal visit to the blue side of Manchester since anyone can remember is how well this Arsenal side defends. Arteta has built an intimidatingly large team with the technical ability to match. We know there will be a 4-4-2 shape in defence and, like the game at the Emirates, a dialling down of the press in the early stages. Declan Rice can play as the deepest midfielder or slightly further forward. Deeper he offers better defensive protection, more advances he provides ball-carrying ability and a threat in the box. He’ll likely be partnered by Jorginho (the same pair played in October, with Jorginho deeper, and in the 3-1 win over Liverpool with Rice deeper) in midfield. With the two of them in there, there will not be too much emphasis on the fullbacks tucking in, meaning they (White in particular) can provide an option on the overlap, a huge threat against City in recent games against Chelsea and Liverpool.
Even the Death Star had a weak spot.
Chelsea’s attacks used Nico Jackson excellently around the halfway line, feeding off long balls into feet and battling for scraps before laying the ball off with one touch around the halfway line. They looked to launch an attack immediately when they forced a turnover around the halfway line, running into space, and they had effective overlaps from Malo Gusto on the right and halfspace runs from Conor Gallagher when a gap appeared between Nathan Aké and Rúben Dias.
Liverpool had some success with some of the same movement, with Harvey Elliott making runs into that same channel between left-back and centre-back, pushing the defensive line back and creating space inside when the left-back came with him (Conor Bradley had a great chance in the first half due to this) or inside, when the centre-back tracked the run (Darwin Núñez was offside and the ball was overhit but Liverpool threatened with this after their equaliser). Andy Robertson had some joy on the overlap when he came on too.
The key on both flanks was not to get involved in trying to take Aké or Walker on one-on-one, rather playing in the space around them or delivering the ball quickly before the opposing fullback had time to turn the situation into a one-on-one duel. Both excel in those situations and have completely shut Saka and Martinelli down in the past.
Liverpool created lots of duels in the game at Anfield and won plenty of them — City had 687 touches with 17 mis-controlled and 14 times dispossessed. The 31 combined is their joint highest for a game this season and in the other fixture (Everton) they had 933 touches.
Looked at another way, this season City have a miscontrol or dispossession every 25.4 touches in the Premier League. At Anfield it was one every 22.2 touches. Arsenal have the physical presence to battle their way through this game and there will be times they will have to.
Having Havertz up front and an Arsenal double pivot creates an interesting option for long balls and creating artificial counter-attacks. Havertz can act as a target man and neither Dias nor Akanji is dominant aerially. With City defending in a 4-4-2 (all the best teams are doing it), Rodri is prone to being pulled into the press, opening the gap for a long ball forward. Raya to Havertz could be an interesting option for Arsenal to create opportunities to win second balls with the chance to run at the City backline. The thought of having Rice and Martinelli pounce into the space behind Rodri here is mouth-watering.
More than anything, though, Arsenal will have to stay in the game and choose their moments. We’ve been behind within seven minutes on both our last two visits to the Etihad. It was just one minute back in 2019. You have to go back to 2016 for the last time Arsenal weren’t behind at half-time in this fixture.
The big question is patience, and Mikel Arteta highlighted that after the 1-0 win in October. Sometimes you have to stay in the game before you can win it, even if the players (and the fans) want to go all-out.
“They are moments that are constantly in question, asking questions and provoking you. The crowd wants you to go and go and go, and it’s what the crowd they do, the crowd do that and we don’t go, and we have to manage that. We have to understand emotionally it’s not easy, it’s not easy to chase 15, 20 passes and you have to be able to do that and then have the courage to play.”
And just when you think you’ve cracked it, Guardiola will tinker with something.
“We have discussed a lot about that, it is stressful because they change constantly, the spaces, rotations, they are constantly threatening you in certain areas and you have to be really really aware of what they are doing to try to match it up, and with the ball as well, because they are provoking you with certain things.”
Don’t be provoked. But manage to provoke. Easier said than done, but winning these games, winning league titles, is never going to be easy.