Arsenal vs Manchester City: Massive game in tussle for title

Wenger and Pellegrini know victory could be crucial in race to finish top

(Getty Images)

Five months before the Premier League is due to climax, tomorrow night’s encounter between Arsenal and Manchester City seems decisive. Unless you believe Leicester are Nottingham Forest and this season will be 1977-78 revisited, these are the likeliest sides to win the League.

For both managers, Chelsea’s disintegration and Manchester United’s stagnation represent a window of opportunity unlikely to reappear. Before, Arsenal had been denied by machines, the one that Jose Mourinho constructed at Stamford Bridge first time around and the relentlessness of Sir Alex Ferguson’s United.

Now, all Arsène Wenger has to do to grasp the Premier League trophy for the first time in a dozen years is to overcome a Manchester City squad whose flakiness was displayed in defeats at Stoke and at home to West Ham, and a Leicester side who are astonished to be where they are.

For Manuel Pellegrini, too, time is running out. Everything the City manager does now will be conducted in the shadow of Pep Guardiola. On Friday, he accepted Guardiola would work in the Premier League.

“Some day he will come here,” Pellegrini said. “I hope he will have the option to work at Manchester City because I love this club.” He meant he hoped Guardiola would arrive at the Etihad Stadium later rather than sooner, but for a football manager it is always later than you think.

So how do the two teams compare, not just in terms of tomorrow’s match but as they go into the second half of the season as title favourites?

Squads

Wenger never seemed to cotton on that the Premier League has always been won with very good goalkeepers. Until the arrival of Petr Cech, Arsenal for years had keepers that were no more than adequate.

“There is no history of teams who won big things without having a great goalkeeper,” Wenger observed last week, with the air of the newly converted. “Cech has brought his experience, his calm, his leadership. He is highly focused. You always look around in the dressing room before a big game and you think, ‘Are we strong enough?’ These are the kinds of faces that help you believe it.”

The Manchester City squad that won the title in 2014 was essentially the one that won it in 2012, the one constructed by Roberto Mancini and the former chief executive Garry Cook, men whose names are never now mentioned around the Etihad Campus.

This year, it has changed. Reconstructing the forward line has been more successful than rebuilding at the back. Even at £103 million, Raheem Sterling and especially Kevin de Bruyne appear to represent money well spent. At any other club, the £72m lavished on Eliaquim Mangala and Nicolas Otamendi would have provoked an inquiry.

Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud (Getty Images)

Key players

Yaya Touré claims no longer to enjoy football, but if City are to win their title back it is likely he will be the one to drive them over the line. But for his late intervention, the team would have dropped four more points in routine fixtures at home to Norwich and Swansea.

City’s other elite players – David Silva, Sergio Aguero and De Bruyne – are not extroverts. They are often withdrawn in the dressing room and the side need men like Touré. It is no coincidence that in the years he has gone to the Africa Cup of Nations, City have faltered.

In past seasons, photographs of Mesut Özil taking selfies on a yacht while his team-mates prepared for a crucial match would have sparked venomous headlines. But this was Özil taking time out after his match-turning performance against Olympiacos. He has more assists this season than Dennis Bergkamp mustered in his best year at Highbury.

Sergio Aguero is expected to return against Arsenal (Getty Images)

Experience

City would appear to possess a huge advantage. The core of his squad is still the battle-hardened one that carried off two League titles. It is hard to exaggerate the emotions that can infect a side attempting to win something for the first time.

However, Pellegrini said last week that he doubts how raw Arsenal are. Per Mertesacker and Özil have won the World Cup, Alexis Sanchez the Copa America, and Santi Cazorla has two European Championships to his credit.

Managers

To Pellegrini, it must seem faintly astonishing that Wenger could go a dozen years without winning the Premier League and survive while he might be fired a few days after winning his second championship in three seasons. Wenger, however, is king in his own kingdom and there is nobody at Arsenal you could imagine deposing him.

And yet Pellegrini appeared relaxed last week. The pressures of managing Real Madrid under a board agitating for his removal in favour of Mourinho gives a kind of perspective. When Guus Hiddink takes charge of Chelsea, all the managers of England’s big four will be in their sixties, and Pellegrini felt that counted for something.

“Mourinho has had an important experience, the kind maybe he has not had before in his career, and when he is 60 he will be a better manager for it,” he said of the sacking of a man he dislikes but whose record he respects.

Distractions

The Champions League draw was, for the first time, kind to Manchester City, while Arsenal once more face the prospect of elimination in the round of 16. And yet without the distractions of the Champions League, and with no League Cup final to aim at, Arsenal will have their minds cleared for the Premier League, a competition Pellegrini values above any other.

“In the Champions League you can have one bad game, go out in the semi-finals and nobody remembers what you did,” he said. “It is a very important title and beautiful to do but you cannot try to win it at the expense of losing focus in the Premier League. The Premier League is the body of your whole year’s work.”