Mikel Arteta has Arsenal ‘fired up’ to beat Man City - but there’s a twist

Such accounts remind of a story from perhaps English football’s most famous title showdown, that has so many other parallels with now.

Back in the week before 26 May 1989, the Arsenal squad were feeling much more down about their chances than the current team. After a 2-1 home defeat to Derby County and a 2-2 draw with Wimbledon, the belief was they’d blown it, as they prepared to travel to perennial champions Liverpool needing to win 2-0.

Then, just before a key team meeting, legendary goalkeeper Bob Wilson cheerily popped by, like Calafiori and Eze now. “Cheer up lads,” Wilson said. “This is the week we’re going to win the league.”

While the squad remained morose given Liverpool had just beaten West Ham United 5-1, they started to be roused when manager George Graham came in and literally - yes - pinned something to the dressing-room wall. A tabloid headline featured the words “men against boys”. The players could feel the “fire”, as Arteta might put it.

The Basque can provoke a similar response, because there are plenty of examples. The entire build-up to Sunday has been about Arsenal “bottling it” again, their character, and so many internet memes. It should infuriate Arsenal.

City, by contrast, have barely been mentioned. It’s like we all know what we’re going to get. There’s a serenity there, that the players feel they can surge on to force Arsenal to “stay humble” again. Guardiola has reflected this with the way he’s so often talked about giving his team days off. It comes from so much experience. A coach once notorious for his own intensity has successfully taken the temperature down for his team.

Arsenal have been in a poor run of form including losing their last clash with Manchester City (PA Wire)

Mikel Arteta has promised ‘fire’ from his team but can he get one over his old mentor Pep Guardiola? (Getty)

By contrast, Arteta’s solution to any issue is to almost go more intense - especially in training. It all means City have the feel of 2023, when they battered Arsenal 4-1 in a similar fixture.

And yet there’s a twist there.

If there’s an immense emotional pressure on Arsenal, the pressure to actually do something is on City. Arteta’s side might have it all to lose, but City actually have to win. It’s just as well they’re built to do that, and on such scoring form.

Guardiola has to ensure three points, or the title will again be out of their hands. That simple reality may create all manner of layers for Sunday, further complicated by the tactical approaches.

The Carabao Cup final will obviously shape them. Guardiola realised then that goalkeeper distribution is so essential to Arsenal, with Viktor Gyokeres apparently unable to hold up long balls. So, City penned Arteta’s side in. Bournemouth willingly took that approach in last week’s 2-1 win over Arsenal, that currently looks like it has turned the title race.

Eliminating Sporting at least offered a cleanser for Arteta’s squad, but not a clean slate.

Man City got their tactics correct in the Carabao Cup final, shutting down Arsenal's build up from the back (Reuters)

A further danger is that it feels like Guardiola’s set-up was possible because of how locked in to one approach Arsenal seem.

The great question for this game, then, is whether Arteta can do something different. Will Arteta replace Gyokeres with Kai Havertz… or does he go two up front? Does he rest the jaded Martin Zubimendi and put Declan Rice at the base of a midfield with Eze and Martin Odegaard, if the Norwegian is actually fit? Does he go more attacking to test Guardiola’s defence, or is this where Arsenal actually need to do “a Jose Mourinho” and frustrate City like in the famous Steven Gerrard slip game?

There can be a vulnerability to City, after all, and they are a very “game state” team. It is like their mood is transformed by the first goal. For all the potential parallels with 2023, the much-criticised 0-0 of 2024 would actually suit Arsenal.

Or, does Guardiola give Arteta another schooling? As with the Carabao Cup final, it is almost pointless to try and predict what the City manager will come up with. This is Guardiola’s genius, what no one else saw.

Either way, this is where you really earn it, where seasons that have been shaped by the 99 per cent like wage bills and ideology are settled by the more human one per cent; ingenuity, will.

Bukayo Saka looks unlikely to feature against Man City which will limit Arsenal's tactical play (Reuters)

Much of that is still going to be influenced by availability. There is an obvious difference in freshness, that has led to deeper questions about how Arteta’s teams always seem to endure injury crises in April, exactly when Guardiola teams have always come to a peak.

Duly, City are only really concerned about Nico O’Reilly, important as he is. Arteta is meanwhile likely to again miss Odegaard and Bukayo Saka, while Jurrien Timber is viewed as having a low chance of making it. Calafiori is expected to return.

Some at Arsenal are keen to point out that they’ve barely been able to play the high-scoring 2023-24 attack of Saka, Odegaard and Havertz for two years. They ask what might happen if City lost Erling Haaland, Bernardo Silva or Rayan Cherki - although Guardiola’s approach has always been concerned with this.

So much of Arteta’s tactics are still built around their interplay, especially how Odegaard knits it all together by leading the press and linking play. Saka, meanwhile, draws the opposition in a way Noni Madueke can’t. City would point to how the £60m Eze can now revel in that space.

There has nevertheless been a frustration with how close Odegaard and Saka have looked to returning, only to suffer another setback.

Arteta has now made a few references to “putting everything on the line to contribute”. The hole such players leave is deeper due to the memory of a different frustration. Odegaard and Saka were senior players in that chastening defeat of 2023.

It was actually the last time they lost in the league to Guardiola’s side. Now, just when Arsenal hoped they’d got past all of that, it seems more set for a reprise; for a brutal reminder of the real order.

Momentum only seems to be going one way. Only one team looks fresh, and free-scoring.

Arsenal might have the desire, even the anger, but do they have the legs? They will have to find more - but City have to find the win.