It’d be a while. A while since Manchester City have beaten Arsenal, and held Arsenal at arms length. The last time was in April 2023, when Manchester City didn’t get out of first gear to beat Arsenal 4-1, with Erling Haaland running through Arsenal. That summer, Mikel Arteta reacted: Arsenal bought Declan Rice, Kai Havertz, and Jurrien Timber and became a more physically dominant team, a trait that has continued for the following two seasons. Arsenal are now a very physically strong team, that are defensively
strong and powerful on set pieces.
Arsenal haven’t actually lost to Manchester City since April 2023: having only played City in the league, it’s two wins and three draws, one win for Arsenal being a complete walloping and the rest of the games being close encounters. That was not the case in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final where, outside of the first 20 minutes to half an hour, Manchester City were comfortably the better team. The stats bear it out: City had 1.51 xG to Arsenal’s .63, including a massive 1.18 to .17 advantage in the second half. City monopolized the ball and reduced Arsenal to going long with a high four man press.
The match started well: Arsenal created a good chance early, were preventing City from building attacks, and were threatening with passes over the top, where Gyökeres looked to exploit City’s defence, and a back four of Nunes, Khusanov, Aké, and O’Reilly. Arsenal looked for the early ball: White went long, and Rice played a cross field ball. City, meanwhile, saw Haaland drop deeper and deeper to try to get involved.
Then, though, the game turned. Part of it is you cannot expect to dominate for a whole game. But also part of it is City figured out what Arsenal were trying to do. And once City marked Arsenal’s full backs and defensive midfielders out of the game, Arsenal stopped being able to create. What Guardiola did was prevent Arsenal from building, forcing Gabriel to go to Kepa, to go to Saliba, to go back to Kepa, who would put his foot on the ball, with the backup goalkeeper lacking the technical quality and passing proficiency of David Raya. With four high, City essentially went four v four at the back. They were confident, though, that they could squeeze Gyökeres and he wouldn’t hurt the back four by running in behind.
For the final fifteen minutes of the first half and the first fifteen of the second half, this was the pattern of play: City squeezing, and turning the screw. Not only could Arsenal not build, but the ball kept coming back. Arsenal would go long, City would pick up the loose ball, and attack again. When the goal came, it was from a Kepa error, but it’d been telegraphed.
Arteta was slow to react. Neither Zubimendi nor Rice dropped in to form a three to try to disrupt City’s shape. And Gyökeres, with Arsenal on the back foot, once again went missing. The Swedish striker is not technically proficient enough to hold the ball up, nor is he, despite his build, physically strong enough to compete for long balls, and Kai Havertz is still coming back to fitness.
The larger concern here, though, is Guardiola adjusted his strategy off the ball, allowing City’s higher technical quality to control the game. Rodri and Bernardo Silva completed 143 passes between them. Declan Rice and Martin Zubmendi completed 63—less than half. By the time Arteta responded, bringing on Riccardo Calafiori and moving Bukayo Saka to the middle, increasing Arsenal’s technical quality, it was 2-0 and the game was gone.
The last time City beat Arsenal, Arteta responded by adjusting his team’s intent, mentality, and aspects of its style of play. While Arsenal do not have a transfer window before the next time they face City in a must not lose match, there are things that can be done in the short term. But if Arteta has more technical options available to him, like Calafiori, Martin Ødegaard, and Ebere Eze, will he show the intent to use them and change the terms of how the game is played as Guardiola did at Wembley?
