If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Mikel Arteta should have the warm glow of a man who was complimented and copied. Pep Guardiola’s relationship with his old assistant remains intriguing. He called him “my friend Mikel Arteta” this week and, as those fluent in Guardiola-speak know, anyone described in such terms tends not to actually be his friend.
But this was Guardiola, the manager who changed football, threatening to out-Arteta Arteta. Johan Cruyff’s most celebrated disciple almost emulating not his mentor, but his pupil. He didn’t quite succeed. Guardiola entered injury time on the brink of perhaps the greatest rearguard action of his career. Gabriel Martinelli denied Manchester City the least Pep-ish of victories and secured a peculiar kind of parity.
