Mikel Arteta insists his friendship with Pep Guardiola will not be impacted by Arsenal’s growing rivalry with Manchester City.
The Gunners have finished second to Manchester City in the Premier League in each of the past two seasons, but the rivalry appears to have gone up another level this year.
Arsenal and City played out a feisty 2-2 draw at Etihad Stadium last week, with heated words exchanged between the two teams after the full-time whistle.
The fallout has rumbled on over the course of this week, with City players and pundits criticising Arsenal for their style of play.
Arteta, however, does not believes his relationship with Guardiola will break down - even with the rivalry becoming more heated.
Asked why, Arteta said: “First of all, because I love him, I respect him, I admire him and I admire his team and everything that he does. This is sport.
“One thing is our profession, another is our personal relationship. If our relationship was damaged because one draws and the other one wins or the amount of times that they’ve beaten us, I would not talk to him anymore.
“So that’s not our relationship, especially the relationship that I consider both of us have. In sport it will never get in my way in a personal relationship. That’s for sure.”
Arteta has come under fire for the way he set his team up in the second-half at City, with Arsenal essentially lining up in a 5-4-0 formation as they battled away with 10 men.
The Spaniard has defended his methods, explaining how the context of the game meant Arsenal had to adapt how they played.
“I don’t want to be on YouTube because we’ve been so silly,” said Arteta.
“I want to be on YouTube because we’ve done the right thing in May, and for the right reasons and lifting what we want to lift and achieve, so in order to do that we have to be very efficient in what we do.
“So I didn’t predict to play 56 minutes with 10 men, and we had to do that, and we have to accept that.
“And sometimes the opponent is better at doing something in the game - that doesn’t mean they are playing better, they are being better at doing a specific thing inside the game. We are interested in doing all the things that can help us to win the game.”
