There can be little doubting that Arsenal were deserved losers in their Premier League clash with Manchester City, but for a while there, the game was pretty even. When asked why his side ultimately came away with nothing, Mikel Arteta pointed to the individual errors of players like Takehiro Tomiyasu and Gabriel as reasons for it.
"That’s the frustration," he said of the self-inflicted nature of the defeat in his post-match press conference. "It’s exceptionally difficult to play at the level they require you to play to have a chance to win. I thought in many moments we did and we had them, but if you give three goals the way we did and don’t put away the big chances that we had the margin for error is almost zero. It’s a shame because we really had them."
To purely focus on what Arsenal did wrong though does something of a disservice to Arteta's former mentor Pep Guardiola. Throughout the 90 minutes the City boss may have provided Arteta with the recipe to get Arsenal out of their four-game winless slump when they take on Aston Villa this Saturday.
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Guardiola has developed something of a reputation for going 'galaxy brain' in these big matches, and Wednesday was no different as he opted to put Bernardo Silva at left-back in a flat back four. The aim was to seize control of possession, but the Portuguese defender offered little in the role other than an ability to consistently foul Bukayo Saka.
In the second half though, Guardiola opted to switch away from what were by his own admission, some "horrible" tactics in the first period. Manuel Akanji was introduced and Nathan Ake switched over to left-back, nullifying Saka. Silva moved up to the right win and Guardiola even broke the habit of a lifetime and decided to go long to Erling Haaland.
As per the Athletic, 8.7% of City’s passes last night were long passes (at least 40 yards/36m upfield) — almost double their previous high in any game this season of 4.4%. It wasn't what we're used to seeing from Man City, but it was enough to get them the three points on the night.
By contrast, Arteta made sure Arsenal stuck to plan A. Just as in previous matches against Everton and Brentford all of his subsitutions were like for like and the Gunners never really looked capable of changing the direction of tide in the match. It could quite reasonably be argued that this is because Arteta doesn't have as strong a squad to choose from as his former boss. When Guardiola wanted to seal the game he turned to £50million midfield Kalvin Phillips, while Arteta had pretty much Leandro Trossard as the only player he trusted to change things.
However, despite the relatively limited options he has with the absences of Gabriel Jesus, Thomas Partey and Emile Smith Rowe, Arteta does not need to stick so steadfastly to his original tactics. It's very rare that a team will end a season playing in the exact way that they started it and last year Arsenal experiment with a back three and a 4-4-2 set up before eventually settling on the 4-3-3 that has brought them so much success.
With no wins in four the Gunners now desperately look like a side in need of freshening things up. Arteta has been fiercely loyal this season, starting six of players in every single Premier League match. But with their title chances fading away perhaps it's now time for the apprentice to follow the example of his master and switch things up in order to get his team back on track.
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