For all of the talk of Premier League sides seeking out a ‘Diet Pep’ Guardiola to lead their club and replicate his results at Manchester City, his most successful disciple snatched a point at the Etihad from the playbook of an entirely different managerial figure.
‘Jose Mourinho is watching this with a smile on his face,’ a voice on Sky Sports commentary suggested as Guardiola’s players charged once again towards Arsenal‘s, hunkered on the outskirts of their penalty area, with similarly unsuccessful results.
Yes, Arsenal were unlucky to have fallen to an audaciously late equaliser from John Stones, and yes, Arteta and his side will likely view the point they took back to the Etihad as two short, but five years on from Arteta taking up the job in north London, the Gunners appear to have finally cracked the Etihad code.
Not only have Arsenal not beaten Man City at home since 2015, but the scorelines of the defeats – both home and away – made grim reading for much of Arteta’s tenure, with deficits of often three or four goals, and a defeat at the Etihad of 4-1 as recently as 2023, in the thick of the side’s first title-chasing season.
But on Sunday, Arsenal’s metrics told the bewildering story of a trap set for Guardiola’s side which, but for a moment of late brilliance and another avoidable sending-off, they came close to pulling off entirely.
Mikel Arteta set up a take-no-prisoners defensive shape against Manchester City on Sunday
The tie ended in a draw in no small part due to Arsenal’s dogged locking up in the second-half
Comparisons were made between Arteta’s gameplan and that of Jose Mourinho’s (left) – who had form outsmarting Pep Guardiola (right)
There was little interest in attempting a rout, or seeing much of the ball entirely. For Jurrien Timber and Kai Havertz, defeat might have made them look borderline incompetent, as they became the first Premier League players to complete a single one of their passes – after making only six and five of them respectively.
But with a Machiavellian determination so emblematic of Mourinho at the height of his powers, Arsenal successfully quietened the Etihad, making Man City fans deliriously happy with an equaliser in the same match as their absurdly talented striker recorded his 100th goal in 105 appearances.
Man City are far from the first team that this style of play has worked on this season, with Arteta forced to first road test the idea against Brighton. Again, Arsenal had to make do with just 10 men after Declan Rice was sent off – for the same offence as Leandro Trossard on Sunday – and again they earned a hard-fought point with just 35.8 per cent posession in the second-half.
This was only marginally more than the side needed in the north London derby, with Arteta’s men making do with 36.3 per cent in the second-half at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. They secured all three points with their 1-0 victory that afternoon, but nobody could accuse Arteta’s side of doing so beautifully.
But those numbers seem like feast after famine compared to the percentages seen at the Etihad on Sunday afternoon. In the second-half, Arsenal were content to have a slender 12.5 per cent of the ball.
Arsenal were well-drilled and comfortable with the slenderest of possession metrics
Guardiola has seen the margin by which his side triumph at home reduced against Arsenal
Hunkered down in their own half, Arsenal’s forays into enemy territory were few and far-between. Arteta’s men registered just one shot to Man City’s towering 28, and completed 35 passes in their opponent’s half – to the hosts’ 363.
Increasingly frustrated, Guardiola nonetheless kept to his plan as Arteta’s men carried out theirs. Rather than drafting in early substitutes to try and pick the dogged lock with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective, his starters toiled without much success before, tellingly, their replacements were brought on to change the game in the latter stages of the half, Stones chief among them.
Gritted teeth is Arteta’s preferred method against his Big Six rivals, and has been for some time. According to Opta, last season Arsenal had an average of 41.9 per cent possession against Liverpool in league meetings, 45.7 per cent against Tottenham, 50.1 per cent against Chelsea, and 50.4 per cent against Manchester United – and an unbeated record.
Their lowest by far amongst the big beasts was Man City, a team Arsenal had 38.5 percent possession against, and the results, successful, with the Gunners scooping three points at home last October, before refusing to yield in last term’s meeting at the Etihad.
Gradually, Arsenal had been shaving the margins down last season, starting with their successful Community Shield bid. Victory at home followed on from that 1-1 draw, and Man City were held at home by the Gunners for the first time since 2016 in a 0-0 meeting that saw the visitors claim just 27.5 per cent of possession. Man City are used to playing teams like this, but not their most aggressive rivals for the title.
The Gunners had been forced into a similar gameplan against Brighton two weeks earlier
When the two teams met in the Premier League last season, they similarly shared the spoils
Arteta’s injection of steely determination isn’t just reserved for the positioning of his side. There were few Man City players who didn’t call out their opponents for their ‘dark arts’, which extended to rough play, cagey set-pieces, and most manners of time wasting.
Mail Sport reported on Monday morning that teenage substitute Miles Lewis-Skelly was handed a yellow card before playing a minute of professional football for delivering a message for David Raya to go down injured.
The goalkeeper duly did, and as physios scampered onto the pitch to tend to the shot-stopper, Arteta had the opportunity to update his outfield troops on the touchline. Later on in the match, in the words of an incensed Guardiola, he didn’t ‘know how many (Arsenal) players went down with cramp’.
Whether Arsenal were time-wasting with any manner of success remains to be seen. Opta were asked by Sky Sports to determine how long the ball was in play in the second-half, and the ensuing total – 35 minutes – was the highest in any Premier League game yet this season.
But what Arteta’s supposed ‘dark arts’ tactics did do was tip Man City off their rocker. A number of players were fired-up at the final whistle, with Erling Haaland and Bernardo Silva making gestures and firing expletives at rival players and coaches alike, and Silva and Manuel Akanji directing pointed comments their way in their post-match interviews. Arteta’s men will look to make hay in the future with their new and perhaps unique ability to get under Man City’s skin.
David Raya was one of the players to go down injured in a bid to control the flow of the game
Tempers flared after full-time, with Erling Haaland (left) particularly wound up by antics
But while Arsenal may yet win this war of attrition against their rivals for the Premier League title as the margins between them get finer and finer, there has been a side that has taken their game to Man City, and won it – Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
Silva stressed as much to Portuguese-language media at full-time, when he pointed out why the side consider Liverpool, not Arsenal, their closer rivals.
‘Liverpool have already won a Premier League title, and Arsenal haven’t (under Mikel Arteta),’ the Portugal international stressed. ‘Liverpool have won a Champions League (under Klopp) and Arsenal haven’t. This is why the rivalry has been different.
‘Also, let me add that Liverpool always face us with clear intention of winning the game.’
Klopp was unafraid of clashing his heavy metal style with Guardiola’s clinical passing game, and over time, has been richly rewarded as one of the Catalan manager’s most well-weighted rivals.
In their 29 meetings as managers both within and away from the Premier League, Klopp beat Guardiola 12 times, and vice versa, with the pair sharing six draws between them.
Guardiola had a particularly fiery rivalry with Jurgen Klopp (left) – who was praised for turning up against Man City
Liverpool’s 2020 Premier League title is somewhat of an aberration in the Guardiola era at City
As per Opta, their Premier League stats have been equally close. As expected, Man City’s dominance puts them slightly ahead, with Guardiola’s men averaging 12.0 shots per meet-up, to Liverpool’s 8.9 shot average, but the difference is on the minimal side.
But the story of the rivalry between Klopp’s Reds and Guardiola’s Cityzens ended last spring, with a thumping 4-1 win at the Etihad typical of how things largely worked between them: dominance at home, and cageyness on the road.
Should Arteta eventually finally claim that all-important Etihad win, it might still be wrong to suggest that the rivalry between Guardiola and his former assistant has more potency than that of the former and his old adversary Klopp.
But rather than good story, Arteta might get his hands on the thing he really wants as a result: the Premier League trophy.
