How can Arsenal take the next step and WIN at Man City?

Ahead of Sunday's titanic duel in the title race, football writer Alex Keble looks at how Arsenal can go one step further than last season's goalless draw at Manchester City and this time BEAT the champions at the Etihad Stadium.

Pep Guardiola and his most devout follower Mikel Arteta have found themselves at a stalemate. It should not surprise us that it’s come to this.

Even at their free-flowing best, Arsenal and Man City’s respective playing styles are about control and order; about minimising risk by giving exacting instructions to each player.

So it’s no wonder that as soon as Arsenal were Man City’s equals, the two teams would produce tense and claustrophobic matches. There was just a single goal in 180 minutes of Premier League action between them last season. Most likely, it’s the start of a trend.

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Arsenal’s journey to this point has been less predictable, because rather than go toe-to-toe, Arteta deployed conservative tactics for their 1-0 win at Emirates Stadium last season and then went all-in with a low block for the 0-0 draw at the Etihad Stadium, after which Guardiola joked that the only way to break down Arsenal’s defence was to “kill somebody”.

Sunday’s encounter will surely be more of the same. The challenge for Guardiola is to find a solution to the problem. For Arteta, he needs to strike a better balance if Arsenal are to go one better and claim a priceless victory at the champions.

With this match coming so early in the season, there is perhaps less pressure on Arsenal to win, but Man City midfielder Rodri was among the critics who suggested Arsenal’s unwillingness to go for the winner in last season’s 0-0 was the main reason they did not win the title.

“When they came here, they faced us at the Etihad, I saw them and said ‘Ah, these guys, they don't want to beat us, they just want a draw,’” Rodri said in May. “And that mentality, I don't think we would do it the same way. And we caught them [in the title race].”

Here’s how Arsenal can win this time – and what Man City might do to stop them.

Priority will still be a clean sheet

Following 5-0, 2-1, 4-1 and 3-1 wins for Guardiola’s side in previous Premier League meetings, Arteta decided to stop the hard man-to-man pressing that had, until 2023/24, characterised his approach to this fixture.

Arsenal stepped off significantly in last October's home win, before going very defensive in the 0-0 draw for the reverse fixture in March, holding just 28 per cent possession.

Arsenal's last six results against Man City

Arsenal

Sat 28 Aug
(A)

5 - 0 L

Sat 01 Jan
(H)

1 - 2 L

Wed 15 Feb
(H)

1 - 3 L

Wed 26 Apr
(A)

4 - 1 L

Sun 08 Oct
(H)

1 - 0 W

Sun 31 Mar
(A)

0 - 0 D

In both matches it was a case of squeezing the middle, forcing Man City into the wide areas where they rarely create chances, and crowding out Erling Haaland.

In a typical example from the match in March, note how Kevin De Bruyne is surrounded by bodies, Phil Foden is unable find space coming in off the left, and Man City are forced to pass the ball harmlessly between defenders.

We know Arteta is likely to repeat the trick again on Sunday – because he just did exactly the same thing at Tottenham Hotspur last weekend.

Arsenal were ultra-defensive and far more focused on stopping Spurs than creating chances of their own as they shuffled across in a 4-4-2 formation, with Leandro Trossard and Kai Havertz cutting off passes into the midfielders.

Arsenal had only 36 per cent possession and seven shots against Spurs. Away at Man City last season they took just six shots, their lowest number in a Premier League match since November 2021.

With Haaland in such remarkable form and such a threat, Arsenal will surely do the same thing again.

Arsenal will need to be braver in second half to win

Arsenal have a proven strategy that can give them a third consecutive clean sheet against Man City, but it isn’t necessarily the right way to WIN.

Last weekend’s victory at Spurs tells us how Arsenal might go about grabbing the winning goal against City.

Arsenal were notably more aggressive in the second half at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, moving quicker through the thirds as Arteta allowed his players to hit longer passes forward.

Havertz made more arcing runs on the shoulder of the last defender and, perhaps in response to Spurs’ waning press, the Gunners went longer and faster. Their passing accuracy dropped from 74 per cent to 68 per cent in the second half, while the corner from which they scored was won from a three-on-three that simply would not have happened in the first half.

But it won’t be easy to do that at the Etihad, not least because Man City do not press anywhere near as manically as Spurs. The champions' average passes per defensive action (PPDA) this season is 13.1, compared to Spurs' 6.2, and therefore they do not tire in the same way.

Arsenal can learn from Brentford’s direct route

However, that didn’t stop Brentford last weekend. Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and left wing-back Keane Lewis-Potter streamed forward at every opportunity, catching Man City out with the sheer fury of their counter-attacking tactics.

They could easily have gone 3-0 up early in that match and, while it would be unwise for Arsenal to start so boldly, the Gunners ought to consider risking a late blitz in a similar vein.

Here’s a classic example of a Brentford move that led to Mbeumo going through one-on-one.

Notice the runners for the longer pass forward and the position it puts Thomas Frank’s side in when the second ball - following Manuel Akanji’s headed clearance - falls at the feet of Mikkel Damsgaard.

Arsenal did something relatively similar against Spurs, albeit targeting the channels rather than hoping for second balls to drop in central areas.

For it to work in the final 30 minutes against Man City, that means David Raya kicking it long, the Arsenal full-backs being willing to play 40-yard passes to stretch the play and – most likely – fresh legs coming from Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus off the bench.

It’s more or less the humble strategy that has produced wins for Brentford against Man City in the past, and it’s a strategy that negates old debates about whether Arsenal need to risk opening up in order to win.

By attacking in threes, like Brentford did last weekend, Arsenal can keep numbers back while still putting Man City's defence under pressure.

Pep will also be developing a plan for victory

But Man City almost never lose at home, and when they do it’s because Rodri isn’t playing.

He is back for this one after missing the Brentford match last weekend.

That alone weakens Arsenal’s chances, but so too does the return of Ilkay Gundogan, who adds control into a central midfield that has occasionally looked brittle over the last 12 months, when the German was playing for Barcelona.

The presence of Rodri and Gundogan might mean Guardiola doesn’t need to change anything to improve his own side's chances of winning this crucial showdown, although after failing to score in successive matches against Arsenal he will probably have a trick up his sleeve.

His most likely ploy will be to use the wings more frequently. In the 0-0 draw with Arsenal, Man City were a lot more threatening after Guardiola brought on Jeremy Doku and Jack Grealish in the 60th minute.

Both players were sought out with longer passes or switches from flank to flank, the idea being to stretch Arsenal back and forth to then open up gaps in the middle.

Note how wider City’s tactical formation was in the second half compared with the first.

It nearly worked, but City couldn’t make the breakthrough.

The difference this time is a razor-sharp Haaland in the box and the return of Gundogan, who has the intelligence to find space between the lines should Man City successfully pull Arsenal widthways.

It makes Man City favourites to get the three points – and increases the pressure on Arsenal to disprove Rodri’s comments.