Man City and Arsenal are locked in a compelling Premier League title battle – is the Gunners’ grip beginning to slip? | Soccer News

Like a phoenix from the ashes, Manchester City rises again. This is the exact tete-a-tete that Mikel Arteta and Arsenal were hoping to avoid. We have been here twice and twice Arteta has been disrespected.

Successive wins for Man City have changed the complexion and momentum of the Premier League title race. What was a tentative nine-point gap against Arsenal on Saturday night suddenly dwindled to four. This week’s results feel like a turning point; City is closing down.

However, more than the obvious value of back-to-back wins was how Those wins were earned. After investing “so much emotionally and physically”, as Pep Guardiola put it, to come from behind at Anfield on Sunday, City made victory over Fulham look like a walk in the park.

To get fired up like they did in the first half, scoring three times in 15 minutes, shows the confidence of a team that knows they are getting closer to the summit. “I say ‘guys, we have to do it again’, and they did it,” Guardiola summed up as if there was no real danger. The rhythm of this Manchester City machine is surely now Arsenal’s worst enemy.

Guardiola dares to go against the best team in the Premier League, which of course has so often been his own. But now the Gunners arguably have the most complete squad with the greatest depth – qualities comparable to champions. The best team in the division should win the title, right?

Except of course it’s not a must have game. Arsenal should have won the title in 2023/24 and didn’t. They also led from the front for the vast majority of 2022/23. And so here we are again, strapped in for another fascinating installation of a recurring saga: ‘Can Arsenal really get over the line this time?’

Meanwhile, Guardiola is ready to take advantage. He is not without problems of his own, that point is important. Erling Haaland has scored just eleven from open play in eight games and is clearly suffering from fatigue, which was withdrawn at half-time against Fulham, even though the game was already won.

The over-reliance on Haaland has meant he has racked up more playing time than any teammate (2,148 minutes in the league) – accounting for his decline in efficiency. And yet he scored the winner from the penalty spot at Liverpool and a blistering third to dispatch Fulham three days later. Chances are he will be rested this coming FA Cup weekend.

Bernardo Silva and Nico O’Reilly are the other two who will benefit from a rest. Both are instrumental to City’s structure, with Rodri no longer playing the lone role from deep but aided by the operation of Silva and O’Reilly to help balance in and out of possession claims. It’s a pragmatic move from Pep and an acceptance of one of last season’s big mistakes, that City were too easy to play through. Especially true in transition.

The maturation of O’Reilly in particular has been key to the success of this new set-up, but City still struggle to maintain control in the second halves of games. The drift is sharp. City have lost nine second halves of football in the league, just one fewer than Burnley. If the table were measured by second 45s, only Arsenal would still be top and City would sit sixth.

It’s City’s strong start to games, but it hasn’t mattered much – yet. Thirty first-half goals have been scored in the league, at least nine more than any other team, while showing equally impressive prowess from open play, even when Haaland is not contributing. City scored a league-high 42 times from active play compared to Arsenal’s 27.

In a season of such subjectivities, that fact feels important. The diversity of goal threat is one of City’s best weapons as long as it remains reliable and not solely attributed to Haaland. The arrival of Antoine Semenyo, the striker of already five goals, has and will continue to lighten the burden on the Norwegian.

The compelling additions of Semenyo and Marc Guehi in January have already had a stabilizing impact. This is how you instigate the change needed to properly ignite a season. It shows intention and ambition. They are market signings and have the potential to bring City into line with the kind of depth Arsenal have prized across the league since the summer.

Between now and the end of May, the need to be perfect is enormous. Anxiety over how this is achieved has cost Arsenal in games where City have played first and put points on the board, as was the case this week. The Gunners have bowed to scoreboard pressure more often than not since the turn of the year, dropping points in four of seven games. It cost a total of nine points.

It’s not bottle or nerve they lack, it’s efficiency when it matters. Gabriel Martinelli’s half-time miss at Brentford is exactly the kind of odds a championship-winning team scores. Those moments end up being the marginal difference.

Guardiola’s side face just one top-half team (Newcastle) in their next five league outings, while Arsenal have to juggle the north London derby and a meeting with Chelsea between trips to Wolves and Brighton – before the top-two clash at the Etihad in April. This is where momentum takes on a whole new meaning.

And for the first time this season, City’s appeal seems to be greater.