Pep Guardiola knows Mikel Arteta well but he probably knows the little dilemma his former assistant is now facing with Arsenal much better. The Manchester City manager certainly knows it much longer.
It was back in 2011, ahead of an arduous series of matches across multiple competitions against Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid, that Guardiola first mused on that tactical back-and-forth that almost comes to represent game theory in such encounters.
