Feature

Will Arteta finally outwit Guardiola?

By Alex Keble 6 Oct 2023

Alex Keble assesses how Arsenal manager can earn his first league win against former mentor

Pep Guardiola knows how to get the better of Mikel Arteta. The master has won eight of his 10 meetings with the apprentice, losing only once in the 2020 FA Cup semi-final.

Guardiola has won every single Premier League encounter, including both matches last season, a 3-1 win at Emirates Stadium in February and a 4-1 victory in April's return match at the Etihad Stadium. Had Arteta won only one of those two matches, Arsenal would have usurped Manchester City and won the title.

See: All the times Arteta has faced Guardiola

Bad luck played a hand in 2022/23. The matches fell at the wrong time for Arsenal, who were winless in two before the sides met in north London and then winless in three for the reverse fixture. This time, it is Man City who arrive on the back of a Premier League defeat.

Here’s a look at how Man City beat Arsenal three times last year – and what might be different this time.

Man City 1-0 Arsenal: Guardiola surprised by the press

Across three meetings last season, beginning with Man City’s 1-0 win in the FA Cup in January, Guardiola worked out how to dismantle Arteta in incremental steps. There is a surprisingly straightforward story here – of Man City’s journey towards beating the Arsenal press.

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City squeezed through a tight FA Cup tie that had a total of only 13 shots. In the aftermath, Guardiola said something revealing about Arsenal’s pressing strategy. It would set the tone for the two Premier League meetings.

“I didn’t expect this approach with this courage, the man-for-man, when this happens it makes the process difficult,” he said. “In the second half, we make contact more than usual with Erling Haaland, it’s what you have to do.”

And so began Guardiola’s journey of working out how to build out from the back – how to arrive in the final third, rather than get stuck in a congested central midfield – when facing Arteta’s side. It would lead to two explosive tactical battles in the Premier League.

Arsenal 1-3 Man City

Half-time switch flips the contest

Although Man City were the winners, this match could easily have gone the other way. Two unforced errors in the Arsenal defence led to City goals while Eddie Nketiah missed a couple of golden opportunities, and Man City were restricted to 37 per cent possession, their lowest-ever share in a Guardiola match.

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The big shock was Bernardo Silva starting at left-back, from which position he would shuttle into central midfield to make a "3-box-3" formation. The plan, presumably, was to challenge Arsenal’s high man-to-man press by putting an extra silky ball-player into central midfield, with Silva expected to help weave through the press and give Man City territorial control.

It didn’t work. “I tried something new and it was horrible,” Guardiola said after the match. "[In the] second half, we were more like we are. We struggled a lot to control it, that is why we suffered and they were much better, but in the second half we were there.”

On the hour mark, Guardiola replaced Riyad Mahrez with Manuel Akanji and moved Silva out to the right wing to reinstate a simpler 4-3-3. Within 10 minutes the visitors had accelerated away, scoring the second and then the third.

Creating space for No 8s

The crucial difference was that Man City now had a wide line of four in defence, rather than three, which made it far harder for Arsenal to go man-to-man without leaving gaps in midfield. City continued going longer, to avoid being trapped in their own third, but when possession was won they had an out-ball.

That, in turn, created space for the No 8s Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan to get on the ball and feed Erling Haaland and Jack Grealish in dangerous areas.

The two images below highlight the difference. In the first, the "3-box-3" is narrow enough to allow Arsenal to cage them in. In the second, City can break out by passing to Kyle Walker, leading a few seconds later to the crucial second City goal.

Man City 4-1 Arsenal

Guardiola builds on what he’s learnt

Guardiola, then, learnt to bypass the man-to-man press with longer balls towards Haaland (in the first match) and to use wide full-backs rather than invert one (in the second). He combined that knowledge to spring a surprise in the third meeting.

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The Man City manager is often criticised for "over thinking" when a maverick decision goes wrong, but we should give him more credit when one goes right.

At the Etihad in April, he deployed a 4-2-4 formation with unusual gaps between the defensive, midfield, and attacking lines, with the express purpose of pulling Arsenal’s man-to-man pressers into weird positions.

It worked perfectly. The Arsenal wingers were sucked onto the deep and wide Man City full-backs while Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey stuck tight to Rodri and Gundogan – which freed De Bruyne and Haaland to ghost into space for longer passes.

There was a pattern that repeated over and over again in a dominant first-half performance memorable for how often the two strikers, De Bruyne and Haaland, could be seen galloping through the middle – most notably for the first and third goals.

Make no mistake, Guardiola planned for this. He knew Arsenal would deploy the man-to-man press and used the weapon against them. It was the tactical masterstroke that won Man City the Premier League title.

How will Arteta and Guardiola adapt this time?

There isn’t much chance that Arteta will have decided to abandon his high man-to-man press after that damaging defeat in April, even if Wolves’ 2-1 win last weekend once again showed that a conservative set-up is the best way to go.

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In fact, fighting fire with fire almost never works against Man City, although injuries and suspensions perhaps give Arsenal a chance. De Bruyne, Gundogan, and Rodri were crucial components of each Man City win. None are available this weekend.

Assuming Guardiola again looks to go long, bypassing the first wave of Arsenal pressure, then Julian Alvarez, who scored again in midweek, will be tasked with driving forward alongside Haaland. However, it would be naive to assume the City manager will simply repeat the 4-2-4.

Guardiola will have a new surprise up his sleeve, not least because he will be wary of how to defend against Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice in the absence of Rodri – the metronome in possession and the fire-fighter when opponents try to counter.

See: Rice and Partey could be key to stopping Man City

Key role for Phillips?

At Wolves, Matheus Nunes and Mateo Kovacic lacked the guile, progressive passing, or defensive aggression required of a two-man midfield. Guardiola may look to strengthen this area with Kalvin Phillips, or perhaps by returning to the 3-box-3.

Whichever way Guardiola goes, the loss of Rodri and De Bruyne gives Arsenal a slight advantage. The intricate tactical tweaks as detailed above required pinpoint precision of the kind that - based on the Wolves result - Man City lack without their two leaders.

Arsenal’s preparation, then, remains the same: sticking to their Plan A and hoping that City’s weakened line-up prevents them from bypassing the press or defending adequately against their own attacks.

The key feature of which are the out-to-in runs we so often see from Arsenal wingers, who dip infield to receive passes threaded into a more central position.

Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli are both injury doubts – a major blow for Arsenal should either player miss out – but if a Rodri-less Man City are weaker than usual in the middle then Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus can excel in these pockets of space.

Then again, in a match of this magnitude, and played at such a high speed, truly anything could happen. One slip from a defender, one moment of brilliance, will likely rip open an even contest and set the narrative.

Nevertheless, Arsenal, on a 12-match Premier League losing streak against Man City, have rarely had a better chance to finally beat Guardiola.